A Modern Mage 2, page 4
“Murder charges, anyone?” I asked.
“Fuck that, Zeke. They took my parents.”
A cold thrill of concern rippled down my spine.
I’d never thought I’d hear Zoe say something like that aloud.
“Shoot to wound,” I said.
“You sure?” Bonnie asked tightly.
“Go.”
One of the runners caught a monster-round across the thigh. Blood splattered over the sun-baked parking lot, and he dropped to the ground with a scream. Bonnie hit a second goon in the arm and practically took it off at the elbow.
It was enough to discourage any other runners from making it to the restaurant.
A familiar voice crackled over the radio channel.
“What kind of fucking twinks did they bring out here?”
“Orlando, they have my parents—” Zoe began.
“I know. I heard. Nice play, kids. But it’s time to let the adults handle business.”
The distant roar of souped-up trucks tore through the pistol-fire, and a trio of up-armored pick-ups appeared from the east. Steady metronomes of focused fire echoed through the air, kept our prey pinned, and a loudspeaker hit the air.
“Guns down, hands in the air!” Orlando snarled. “Or you die here and now!”
Confusion spilled through the enemy ranks, and I eased the Ford closer to the killbox we’d created around the Crossroads.
I hadn’t realized that Bonnie’s uncle had been so close by.
But I was damn glad that he was.
The muscle slid out from cover and surrendered.
We had them right where we wanted them.
Now we just needed to find out who had sent them after Zoe’s parents.
4
Psychological pressure, weapon superiority, and competence were forces of nature when they were wielded by the right people.
And Orlando Clarendon had all three in spades.
It took less than five minutes for Bonnie’s family to move the prisoners into the restaurant. A grizzled-looking farmhand gave rapid first-aid to the wounded. Zoe and I hung back from the situation until Orlando’s voice crackled over the radio.
“They’re secure,” he said. “We’re starting interrogations now.”
I pulled the handset up to my face. “I want to take a run at them.”
“Welcome to. We don’t have a lot of time until the troopers or the local PD show up to find out what the fuck is going on.”
I nudged the Escort forward and pulled it up outside the restaurant. The smell of cordite and blood hit my nose as Zoe and I climbed out of the car and made our way inside. Two of the Clarendon clan stepped aside from the front door.
They were rigged up in full battle-kit. Plate-carriers, assault rifles, throat mikes, the works. Adrenaline started to slide out of my system as I stepped into the restaurant. The captured goons sat in the booths, and I heard haggard breathing from the kitchen.
Orlando’s imposing figure appeared from the back of the shop.
A wolfish grin shone through his thick beard.
“I’ll say this for you, Zeke. You sure know how to start a shitstorm.”
“Thanks for coming by,” I said. “Didn’t realize you were in the area.”
“Couple of local Chosen decided to rear their heads.”
The mention of the cult made my gut twist. Zoe’s eyes widened.
“What happened?”
“We had a meeting with their elders,” Orlando said. “They backed down and left before anything could happen. Monitoring their movements, but they’re heading north and out of our jurisdiction.”
I filed that particular piece of information away for later consideration and scanned the faces of the thugs around us. One of them had been isolated from the others in a corner booth at the rear of the restaurant.
Bonnie stood beside him with her suppressed wonder-rifle.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they’d found the leader of the group. Orlando saw the ice in my gaze and stepped aside. Zoe and I moved through the restaurant, and we took a seat across from the leader of the gang.
A short crew-cut and tattoos caught my eye. He reminded me more of a gangbanger than a proper soldier, and icy gray eyes fixed on Zoe as we got comfortable across the table.
“Whatever you’re about to say, you can stick it up your ass,” the kidnapper told me in a short tone. “Not interested, don’t care, and you and your cute little militia can go and fuck themselves.”
Zoe went rigid beside me and I found her hand under the table.
“Save the macho shit,” I replied evenly. “You made your play, and you lost. Where are they?”
The late-twenties guy leaned back in his seat and snorted.
“Safe keeping. Not for much longer, though - especially if we don’t call in that we’ve got what we came for.”
Zoe’s face went white. A small ring started up in my ears, and I gave her hand a firm squeeze until she regained control. I reached down to the custom rig at my hips, pulled out a piece of chalk, and bounced it in my palm.
“Suit yourself,” I said in a suddenly-friendly voice.
The guy’s eyes lasered in on the stick of chalk in my hand. I released my hold on Zoe’s hand and caught hold of a length of twine attached to a needle. It took me less than three seconds to draw a perfect circle on the table between us. I added a classic grounding rune at the compass points of the ritual.
Our prisoner watched me work. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“I don’t know how much you know about magic,” I continued. “But it’s pretty straightforward stuff. A little bit of chalk, a good anchor, and some blood, and you’d be amazed at what you can do. Bonnie, do you mind?”
The Blonde Bullet released her grip on her rifle and seized the prisoner’s shoulder. The guy wrenched away from her, against the window. A terrifying click snapped out from the gravity-knife in Bonnie’s hand, and she smiled at our new friend with the kind of homicidal cheeriness you only saw in horror films.
“How much blood do you need?” Bonnie asked with a giggle.
“Depend on our friend here,” I replied. “Does he want to make this easy or hard?”
“Fuck you.”
The pair of words came out in a strangled, terrified tone.
“Hard it is. I think a finger should do the trick.”
The guy snapped his hands up and away from Bonnie’s grasp. She hit him with a sharp slap, scrambled his brain, and caught the thug’s tattooed hand in a wristlock. She stretched it out into the circle. He tried to twist his way out of the lock, but Bonnie knew how to keep a subject compliant.
The edge of her knife pressed into the guy’s splayed pinky.
“Jesus fuck!” the guy screamed. “Don’t, please!”
The cry drew silence from the entire restaurant, and I clicked my tongue. The razor edge of Bonnie’s knife halted against the finger.
“What’s your name?” I asked in the same pleasant tone.
“Hunter! Fuck, man, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!”
The guy had a broad accent, but it sounded like Chicago.
“Nice to meet you, Hunter.”
“Yeah, fucking pleasure! Make her let go of me!”
“I will once we’ve got the information we need. The faster you give it to us, the faster we can all get out of here in one piece. Who hired you to go after the Collins family?”
Hunter hesitated for half a second.
Bonnie’s knife pierced his skin.
“Some fucking shell corp!” Hunter blurted out. “They wanted something called the Seed. Said that some chick called Collins had it. We tracked her down, went to the place, and figured the parents would be good leverage.”
“Tell me about the shell corp.”
“It’s all dark web, all right? Someone hires us for a gig, we go and do it. Everything’s paid up in crypto—can you get this psycho bitch off me?”
“You must’ve had a contact.” Zoe’s voice came out in a threatening growl that I’d never heard from her. “You’re not just reading shit off a webpage for something like this.”
“Yeah, okay, there was a guy,” Hunter panted. “Gave us some cash, a jamming kit, all the hardware. Untraceable type of shit, y’know?”
“Describe him,” I said.
“Mid-50s? Suit, tie, corporate asshole. Gray hair, glasses, nice watch. He didn’t give a name, nothing. I swear to you that’s all I fucking know.”
Hunter turned a pleading, bloodless face toward me.
“Don’t do any voodoo shit to me, please.”
“How do you know about it?” Zoe pressed.
“We’ve run across some shit before, learned a bit about it from some old crackhead out West. He told us how to deal with some of this magic shit.”
I believed the bit about the ‘old crackhead’.
But Hunter didn’t know the basic mechanics of a ritual, and he sure as hell didn’t know what he was looking for. I gave Bonnie a nod, and she released her wristlock on the guy’s arm. He yanked his hand back away from the circle with wide eyes.
Three drops of his blood had splashed down onto the table.
“Where are my parents?” Zoe demanded.
“We’ve got them in a hotel. They don’t know anything. Thought we were government, looking for you. Didn’t take much convincing.” Hunter clutched his injured finger with a curse. “I make one phone call, they’re home free.”
“Orlando,” I called.
Bonnie’s uncle appeared behind me like a ghost and bared his teeth at Hunter. Our prisoner flinched at the sight of the man’s teeth and gave me a pleading look.
“I’m sure you won’t take it personally that I don’t trust you,” I continued. “One phone call could get them free, sure, but it could also just give your people the go-ahead to make our lives more complicated.”
Orlando picked up on what I was about to say before I finished.
“Come on, tough guy,” Orlando said. “We’re going for a drive.”
Bonnie stepped aside and flipped her knife closed. Orlando strong-armed Hunter out of his seat.
“Wait, how do I know that you’re gonna keep me alive?” Hunter stammered.
“That’s gonna depend on how useful you want to be,” Orlando said. “Call you when we’re ready for a family reunion. Or if we need shovels.”
Hunter’s eyes bulged, and Zoe twisted to watch Bonnie’s uncle drag the leader of the group out toward the trucks.
“I want to go,” my apprentice said.
“I feel you, sugar,” Bonnie assured her, “but Uncle Orlie knows what he’s doing. He’ll have your parents home safe and sound before you know it.” She gave Zoe a comforting wink and turned her eyes up to the rest of the restaurant. “Bob, how fast can we get these idiots out of here?”
The grizzled medic appeared from the kitchen.
“Depends. Standing or horizontal?”
Chuckles rolled out of the Clarendon people, and the would-be hitters shifted uncomfortably in their seats. I slid out of the booth.
“I need some air,” I said. “You good to take point?”
Concern flashed through her baby blues, but she gave me a nod.
Eyes tracked me the entire way through the restaurant. I walked out the front doors, stepped off the porch, and tried to slow myself down and think.
We had the keys to Zoe’s parents. But we had no idea who the hell had hired these people, how they’d known about the Seed, and what they wanted. I leaned against the railing and played information over and over again in my head.
Hunter’s people were subcontractors, and they were less professional than I’d thought.
The ‘shell-company’ that had hired them struck me as someone completely different. Someone with the kind of power and wealth to whistle up an entire team of muscle, give them guns, and send them into North Carolina to put pressure on Zoe.
We were lucky to have the Claredons as our backup.
Zoe’s hand touched my back and I flinched.
“It’s okay, Zeke. They’re going to be okay.”
“I know,” I said. “Orlando’s good at what he does.”
My girlfriend appeared in my peripheral vision with a worried look on her face.
“How did you know threatening him with magic was going to work?” my apprentice asked.
I appreciated the question. It pulled me out of trying to figure out who was after the Seed. I waggled my eyebrows at her and leaned into the railing.
“Why did I try it in the first place?” I asked.
“To check if he knew anything about the spooky,” Zoe said. “I figured that part out. But you don’t force people into rituals—didn’t you say something to me about rituals with unwilling sacrifices not working?”
“Very good, little one,” I intoned.
Realization dawned in her eyes.
“But that bastard didn’t know that,” Zoe murmured. “Which meant that he knew about magic, but he didn’t know enough that he didn’t have to be scared.” She gave my shoulder a playful nudge with hers. “Just when I think you’re starting to escape your mentor role, you sneak it up on me again.”
I grimaced. “Doesn’t help with our current situation, though. Hunter’s crew are disposable mercs. I’m way more interested in who wants the Seed and how much money they’re willing to throw around to get it.”
Zoe gave my arm a squeeze. “We’ll figure it out together. The Clarendons know people, and if your earlier guess was right, this isn’t the Order.” She hesitated. “It doesn’t feel like the Chosen, either. Expensive suits and nice watches?”
“Not their thing,” I agreed.
She let out a sigh and leaned harder into me.
“I have no idea how I’m going to explain all of this to my parents,” Zoe said. “Kidnapping, trashed house, an entire crew of soldiers busting in to rescue them. They’re just normal people.”
“And they’re going to want to pull you out of it even more,” I added. “Now that they know it’s not just crazy cults and their mumbo-jumbo. You’re getting involved with serious people with guns.”
Zoe flinched. “Yeah. I know this is a big ask, but—”
“I’ll come with you,” I promised. “Nothing’s changed since this morning, Zo.”
“Everything’s changed,” she argued. “Now we’ve got some mysterious organization breathing down our necks who have enough money to pull together armies of hired guns.”
“I’ll give you that,” I agreed. “But if it’s not them, then it’s demons or the Grail or something else. One problem at a time.”
“Take your own advice. You look like you’re trying to solve world peace over here.”
That drew a grin out of me, and I straightened up.
“Okay, now who’s the wise mentor?”
“God, I hope it’s not me.”
“Balance has been restored,” I said with a laugh. “Let’s go do some detecting.”
I left the Mexican joint behind us, pulled on a pair of deerhide gloves that came with my kit, and started on the still-idling SUVs parked in a small cluster on the Crossroads. Zoe unwrapped her shirt from her waist, slid her arms back into it, and paid close attention as I went over Hunter’s hired vehicles.
“What are we looking for?” Zoe asked.
I opened the door of the first SUV and killed the engine.
“Anything that’s out of the ordinary,” I said. “The supernatural stuff is easy, right? You see Cat-Cs flitting around or clinging onto people. Regular human stuff is harder.” I started with the glovebox. “Start with what you know and put yourself in the other guy’s shoes.”
Zoe grimaced, circled around to the other side, and used her shirt to keep her fingerprints off the handle.
“Okay,” she said. “So I’m a gangster from out of town in this scenario?”
“Right,” I agreed. “You’ve got a big payday if you can get hold of the Seed. How did Hunter and his people approach it?”
“He said that they used cash,” Zoe noted. “Don’t you normally need a credit card to hire a car this expensive?”
“Good catch. Keep going.”
Zoe checked under the shotgun seat and frowned. “Maybe they had a fake credit card, or they paid enough to make their contact look the other way. Or they used a real one. Tracking that down is going to be tough without resources.”
The front seats didn’t give me anything out of the ordinary. I switched my attention to the rear seats and the trunk of the Range Rover.
“They pay cash, they pick these cars, and they put up these lights on them to make people think that they’re government agents. They probably pulled the same thing on my folks. Used fake IDs to do it.” She joined me at the trunk. “Guns were the same, right?”
I opened up one of four plastic cases in the back and found a foam nest where a Glock was supposed to go. Nothing special about it, except for the fact that it looked clean and smelled new.
“I’m getting that feeling,” I said. “These look like they came straight out of a store, brand-new. Getting that amount of hardware if you’re a felon should be impossible.”
“Unless you know the right people?” Zoe guessed. “Some kind of arms dealer?”
“Right again,” I said. “We’ll have to take a look at the Glocks, but I’m confident they didn’t come from the trunk of someone’s car on the street.”
Zoe’s eyes brightened. “So we’ve got a lead?”
“It’s one angle,” I agreed. “Hunter and his crew aren’t professional in the same way that the Clarendons are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. They would’ve gone through the right channels—ones they trust—and getting information out of those guys is going to be more trouble than it’s worth.”
My apprentice let out a frustrated sigh. “Right.”
“I like how you’re thinking,” I assured her.
We checked over the other two SUVs, but we didn’t find anything except for empty gun cases, go-bags full of different clothes, and fake government shields that would’ve passed inspection to a regular civilian that didn’t know what to look for. I stepped back from the vehicles, and a call from the restaurant caught my attention.
