Chapter Thirty-five

I ducked, spun, and pulled a knife. And slashed at something that looked like a cannonball, what little I could see of it, because it was zooming around like a crazed drone. Until one of my strikes connected, sending it careening off into space—

Where it was promptly turned into a fireball by a nearby mage.

“What the hell?” Fin squeaked.

“Not again,” James said in disgust, as a few bits of charred metal and a clouded lens clattered to the floor.

Several war mages went striding out the door, looking pissed.

“Check the roof!” James called after them. “That’s where they were last time!”

I walked over to where he was glaring at the remains. The best I could tell, considering the state of the thing, it had looked like a smallish black soccer ball, with lenses fitted around the sides. One of which appeared to still be operational. Because it focused on James like a curious cyclops, whirring to get him in focus.

And blinked a few times, recording successively larger pics of the boot he brought down on top of it.

“The damned press,” James said, before I could ask, while further stomping the thing into the dust. “They’ve got their panties in a twist, thinking we’re concealing some great underworld war. When, from what you tell me, it’s just an escaped slave on a spree.” He looked at me again. “Unless there’s anything else I should know?”

“Not about him.”

I hesitated, suddenly wondering if this was a good idea. The Circle’s attitude toward illegals was well-known, but so was their network and resources, and they’d been battling the smugglers far longer than the Senate. They could be a real help—if they wanted to.

“But about something else?” James asked pointedly.

“A kid—a troll kid—was at the fights three nights ago,” I told him. “You know, the same ones where your current problem cropped up?”

He nodded. “Ugly scene. Slavers were killing the slaves, to shut them up. We rescued some, but others . . .” He shook his head.

“Well, the kid was one you missed.”

“Dory—”

“Relax. He died of his wounds. He’s not one you’ll have to find a portal for.”

James scowled, but he didn’t deny it. We all knew what happened. “What about him?”

“He said something, right before he died. Three words: ‘fish,’ ‘tracks,’ ‘door,’” I enunciated carefully. “Tell you anything?”

“No. You?”

I shook my head. “But there’s a chance that, on his deathbed, the kid wanted to give a clue about where he was brought in, or where other slaves were being held. But he was fresh out of Faerie, and didn’t know any Earth languages.”

“So he went with things he saw.”

I nodded. “That’s the idea. But he was dying, and probably fuzzy brained, and he was a kid. They pick up on different things than an adult. But if we can figure it out, it may tell us who is still bringing people in—and where.”

James scowled some more; it seemed to be the war mage resting face, but it looked weird on his usually pleasant features.

“May tell you,” he corrected. “If the Senate wants to go ballistic on some slavers, that’s their business. But it’s not a priority for us.”

I stared at him. “Not a priority—”

“The guys upstairs consider it to be a problem that’s solving itself. So why waste manpower on it?”

“It doesn’t look like it’s solving itself to me!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it? Fights mean casualties. Sure, you try to make things look bloodier than they are, and save your best people, but accidents happen. And even when nobody dies, they get injured and have to sit out for weeks or months. So you need a constant supply of new blood to stay operational, but with both us and the Senate on it lately, portals are getting shut down everywhere, and fights are getting harder to staff. Can’t get people to come out for that.” He nodded at the selkies.

“Rumor is, the slavers have started stealing from each other,” I said, thinking of Olga’s nephew.

“But that just determines who ends up with the dwindling supply of new blood,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t make more portals appear out of nothing. The big-time slavers, like the guy we raided three nights ago, are still in the game, being powerful enough or well connected enough to end up with the lion’s share. But the little guy ends up with damned selkies, or nothing at all. It was putting them out of business.”

“Was?”

“More and more, the slavers are switching over to a new line of work.”

I frowned. “Like what?”

James didn’t answer. He just gave a whistle that caused several of his boys to look up. “Toss me a crate.”

“Which one?”

James’ lips twisted. “Does it matter?”

One of the guys laughed. And then remembered that they had company, and quickly scowled some more. But he put what I guess was a levitation charm on one of the crates by the wall, and pushed it our way.

It glided swiftly across the room and James caught it, pushing it down to the floor, where it bobbed around gently.

It was an old-fashioned wooden thing, with a few tufts of straw sticking out here and there, like it was having a bad hair day. It was also familiar, looking like the crates Dorina had seen stacked along the walls in that underwater room at Curly’s. It was an odd coincidence, and for a moment, I got excited.

And then I opened it.

“What a load of crap.”

That was Fin, peering over my shoulder, but it looked like James agreed. The sad contents weren’t likely to impress a guy whose dad owned a magic shop—one of the real ones. Instead of fake magic wands and marked decks of playing cards, it had an outer room stuffed with dried herbs, a counter stained by a thousand potions, and a back room where people exchanged power for cash.

It was one of the spots around town where people whose bodies made too much magic, like war mages, for example, could go to get a little relief. Because magic had to be used. A mage’s body made a certain amount all the time, like a fleshy talisman, and if you didn’t use it, bad things started to happen. And not just to you.

Rufus, James’ dad, had once told me about a mage who lit his own house on fire, in his sleep. He let too much magic build up, didn’t release enough of it, and it came out as a fire spell that torched his place and almost killed him and his entire family. And he wasn’t the only one.

Stories like that cropped up in newspapers from time to time, and were one reason magically talented kids were pushed toward the Corps—even if they didn’t have the mental aptitude, like Huey and Louie over there. They were standing guard at the side door where we’d come in, in case any nosy norms showed up and needed to be pushed along their way. And they’d be doing that for the rest of their careers, never rising higher than the magical equivalent of beat patrol, because the brains didn’t match the talent.

But at least they wouldn’t be setting themselves on fire.

And they might make a little something on the side, selling their excess magic to Rufus or somebody like him. Or maybe more than a little. Some of the biggest juicers, as they were known, could survive just off selling magic. The amount needed for major spells was high, so there was always a market.

I looked down at the crate.

And then there was this.

Nobody got paid for this.

“Feel free to take what you like,” James told me wryly. And then leaned over conspiratorially. “I’ll cover for you.”

“Very funny.”

I reached into the crate, and pulled out one of the pathetic-looking orbs inside. The real things were perfect balls of shining silver that broke open to release a cloud of white smoke so thick and so dense, it counted as its own patch of fog. The best ones could cover a block or more, allowing you to lose anything in it—including yourself.

They were great for when a fight got too intense or backup arrived unexpectedly, and you needed to peace out. I usually paid five hundred a pop for one of these babies, which is why I never had any damned money. But I wouldn’t be taking James up on his offer.

I did squeeze it, sad misshapen thing that it was, and watched the pale steam it contained filter weakly out the sides.

I waited.

James looked amused.

Fin didn’t look like anything, because he’d wandered off somewhere. I spotted him over by the selkies, frowning some more. Probably at their thinness, because to trolls that’s practically the worst thing in the world. Knowing Fin, he’d be wanting to borrow my car to go get them Long John Silver’s or something.

Which, no; he couldn’t see over the steering wheel.

But I had no trouble seeing him. And the mages and the selkies, and everything else. Because the orb had finally given its all, and its all sucked.

“Are they all like that?” I asked James, who was sneering at the little thing the way a wine connoisseur looks at Two Buck Chuck. Which wasn’t a bad analogy, because that’s what these things were: the magical equivalent of Ripple.

“Pretty much.” He batted some weak-ass fog away. “You’ve got your potion bombs barely stronger than human acid; your shield charms that might deflect a single spell, if you’re lucky; your ward-detection bracelets, which don’t; your vamp-detection bracelets, which also don’t, although they did go nuts over my dog—”

“Secret were?”

He snorted. “I wish. Then I could get the bastard a job. He’s eating me out of house and home.”

“You took these home? I thought you just found them.”

“This batch, yeah. But we ran across another yesterday, in the last place your boy hit, and one a week ago in a warehouse raid. Looks like the guys with no portal access are branching out.”

“Into this?”

He nodded.

“And it’s selling?” I couldn’t imagine anybody spending good money on this crap.

“It’s pretty general knowledge that we might have to fight the fey,” James said. “And people are freaking out. Plus, there’s a crackdown on the legit stuff. The Circle’s trying to keep the other side from cleaning out our dealers, and using our own weapons against us. Any big orders are flagged and held up until we verify the purchaser. It doesn’t affect the guy on the street, just buying a few things to protect his family, but you know how people are. The directive caused a panic and sent prices skyrocketing.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Hope you’re stocked up.”

Shit.

So much for restocking on a budget.

“And with demand outstripping supply, even this stuff is selling like hotcakes,” James continued. “And getting ripped off.”

“Ripped off? People are stealing that?”

He chuckled. “You sound like the old man. He was outraged, too. But, yeah, the batch from last night was traced to a truck robbery in Jersey City. We don’t normally watch this sort of thing—it’s not powerful enough to worry about—and the criminal element knows it. So they’ve started stealing what are basically gag gifts, repackaging them as legit weapons, and selling them at a premium.”

“And nobody’s noticed?”

He shrugged. “It’s a new problem. Plus, most people aren’t likely to use anything they buy. They just want some insurance.”

“So how good it is, is irrelevant.”

“Until they actually need it, and realize they’ve been had. False confidence can get somebody—”

He broke off, because another flying camera had just zoomed in. This one was faster than the others, ducking and diving to elude the two war mages following it. And was doing a pretty good job.

“Damn it!” James barked. “I told you to find them!”

“I think there’s more than one group, sir,” one of the mages panted, swiping at the flying menace—and missing.

James said a word that sounded like an expletive, but I guess not. Because the next second, the camera zoomed right into his hand, as if magnetized. And a second after that, it was making these sad little whirring noises as it was slowly crushed in an iron grip.

The parallels with Vader were just piling up tonight.

“Then find both of them!” he snapped, and strode off, coat flaring.

“James—”

“Look around, but stay out of people’s way,” he said, spinning and walking backward. “And remember—we got a deal. What you know, I know.”

He whirled and went outside, I guess to yell at his boys some more, and I stared back down at the box.

Well, this was helpful.

I poked around a little, hoping to find something useful, but it was difficult. Because Fin was back, squatting down and getting his nose into everything. Literally.

He was also looking a little weird, all of a sudden. His eyes were blown wide—for a troll’s—but his mouth was almost nonexistent. He looked like he’d been sucking on an alum lollipop. He also kept casting little glances over his shoulder at a nearby mage, who was busy magicking up a model of a guy’s face from an imprint in the dirt.

One of the slavers might have gotten away, but he’d left something behind. He’d face-planted, whether from running too fast or from the troll’s fist, into the couple inches of dirt that had collected by a support column. And now the mage was pulling out the imprint of his features and inverting it, leaving a perfect mask floating in the air.

It reminded me of death masks I’d seen, the plaster casts of dead people’s faces that were once considered a nifty idea. It even had a map of the guy’s acne scars spread out over the thin cheeks and revealed that he had buckteeth. Although the latter might look a little different now, considering how hard he must have hit down.

I watched the mage solidify it, muttering something that made the dirt harden into a claylike model. And then wished I hadn’t. Some of the features were mushed and flattened, on the side where he’d hit down first, I supposed. The solidification turned them into a sludge of misshapen earth that looked a lot like the “faces” on the manlikans.

And sent a shiver up my spine.

I looked back down at the junk in the box and wondered if this meant anything. I didn’t like coincidences, but I couldn’t see Geminus giving a damn about crap weapons. And for that matter, neither did I.

I was looking for something big enough to warrant the response we’d had last night. Something game-changing. Something profitable enough to tempt a group of guys who’d just seen their family eviscerated to give it another go.

This was not it.

And then Fin grabbed my arm.

The war mage glanced over, his attention drawn by the sudden movement, and Fin started talking quickly. “I used to carry this kinda stuff at my place,” he told me. “They send guys around, from the manufacturers, you know, with these display boxes. Pay you a percentage if you put ’em by the cash register or behind the bar. I made some nice extra cash for a while.”

“You didn’t feel a little guilty?” I asked, looking down at his hand. Which was eating into my skin.

“Naw, naw, why would I? No different than that knockoff pepper spray they sell in convenience stores. Half of it don’t work, but it makes people feel better to carry it around. More secure.”

“Without being, in fact, any more secure.” If I was going to carry a weapon, I damned well wanted it to work. I also wanted him to let go, because I was about to have a permanent imprint of his fingers in my flesh.

I tried shaking him off, but his grip tightened. “And practical jokes,” he said, a little shrilly. “Most of the guys bought ’em for that or pranks. I made a killing!”

“Then why’d you get rid of them?” I asked, as the war mage started transferring his delicate sculpture into a case.

It looked like they were finishing up, magic turning what should have been a day’s work into a couple hours’. The last bodies were being carted out, and cases were being snapped shut here and there. And, somehow, I couldn’t see James letting us stay behind on our own.

Just as well; I had another errand to run.

But Fin didn’t seem to feel the same.

“Same reason most shops don’t carry fireworks,” he squeaked. “Some moron’s gonna misuse ’em. Had a couple guys playing chicken with one of the acid bombs, and it ate a chunk out of the polyurethane on the bar. Had to get the whole thing redone—”

“Listen, Fin—”

“—and then these two losers got in a fight,” he said, his voice reaching levels usually reserved for twelve-year-old girls and dog whistles. “And knocked the box over, sending all these things bouncing around the bar, some of them ricocheting off walls and breaking stuff, others setting fires. Weak don’t mean dead, not when fifty of ’em get set off all at once. I had to shut down for the whole night—”

The war mage clicked his case closed and walked off, and Fin jerked on my arm, bringing me as close to his face as the nose would allow.

“We got trouble!” he whispered.

“What kind?”

“The big blue kind!”

I looked at him and frowned. And then I looked where he deliberately wasn’t: at the pile of selkies. All heaped up in one spot, even though there was no reason for them to be, and squirming, squirming, squirming . . .

And hiding, hiding, hiding, I realized, an additional couple people in the crowd.

Well, shit.