Trickster (23 page)

“But you know bigger.”

“I
know
bigger. I don’t cast bigger.”

“Just what you can do with your own blood.”

I nodded.

“Why not? You could do some serious damage out there in the world. Jesus,
magic
.”

I chewed on my cheek. “Even if they say they volunteer, they didn’t. They
can’t
. They volunteer, but when you . . . tap into it, you can feel it screaming from them, torn. It’s violent. On the outside they’re just standing there, getting woozy. On some other level, a level most people don’t have access to, you know? On that level, it’s fucking rape, every time.”

She started toying with her shirt, plucking at it with her hands, eyes down on herself. I was mesmerized.

“How’d you end up like this? How’d you even
find out
this shit existed? The whole world doesn’t know.”

I thought of the old man in the parking lot, floating.
“All you have to do is see something and wonder about it. You see amazing things every day and you pay no attention, or assume there’s a logical explanation. All it takes is one time seeing something you either can’t or don’t want to explain. You start asking questions, looking for things, and you suddenly see it everywhere.” I sighed, digging out my dwindling cigarettes and offering her one. “This shit is ancient. The world doesn’t know because we keep it a fucking secret, and because it’s unbelievable. It’s not rocket science.”

“More cars,” Mags said from the other room.

“You all run this magic shit like the Mafia,” Claire said, lighting her cigarette.

I pushed her legs off my lap and stood up, back popping. I walked into the next flimsy room and then into the bedroom, where Mags was crouched by the narrow window, squinting through the slight gap between the warped boards.

“You’re not gonna like this,” Mags said, stepping back as I tapped him on the shoulder.

I leaned down and oriented myself, lining up the gap. I could see Daryl’s truck still sitting there, rusting away. Behind it was a black town car, sleek and shiny. Standing in front of it were four men, three very fat, dressed well, obvious Bleeders. The fourth was slender, and his shoes, shined to a bright gleam, cost more than everything the Bleeders were wearing put together. He was holding a slender brown cigarette in one hand. He wore familiar black gloves.

I stepped back from the window and looked at Mags. “What the fuck,” I said, slowly, a whisper.

“It’s Amir, Lem.”

I spun and gave Mags a shove, sending him stumbling back toward the door. “I
know
it’s
fucking Amir
.” My heart was thudding in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. He cowered a little, his face taking on the hurt expression of a small pet suddenly disciplined. I swallowed my sudden terror and tried to modulate my voice. “Work on the door. Give it your shoulder, Mags.”

I crouched down again, but Amir was gone, along with his Bleeders. Behind me, I heard Mags slamming into the flimsy wooden door again, bouncing off and staggering backward, like it was made of steel. Then launching himself. Each time he hit I heard him grind out another
fuck.

I turned away from the window and Claire was in the room. “What’s gotten into
him
?”

“We’ve been fucked,” I said, pacing, pushing my hair out of my face. “Your friend Amir is coming in.”

“I thought you said—”

“I know what I fucking
said,
” I hissed, rounding on her. I stepped up close. She didn’t move, except to chuck her chin up a little, defiant, daring me to touch her. I felt like an asshole immediately—what was I fucking
doing,
trying to scare her? Because
I
was scared? “He’s
here,
and we are locked in a fucking basement.”

Behind her, Mags hit the door again, grunting in pain.

Claire and I stared at each other for a moment. She
put her cigarette between her lips. “You got a spell, or whatever you call it, that’ll be useful once we get out of here?”

I blinked and looked down at myself. I thought for a second. “I got two or three I can probably gas up. Gottschalk and Amir are the problem. Gottschalk’s people are fucking cows being milked, they can’t do much.”

She nodded. “Stay here.”

She turned and left the room. I heard Mags slam into the door again. A moment later she came back, leading a sweating, wild-eyed Mags behind her. She gestured at the wall.

“Stop wasting your time on something you can’t open,” she said. “They Warded a fucking door. That’s like locking a paper bag, as far as I can tell, with the level of construction down here.”

Mags looked at the wall, then at Claire, then at me. Then back at Claire.

“Jesus,” she muttered, walking over and slapping the thin drywall with one hand. “Throw yourself
here,
big boy.”

Mags looked at me again. I nodded. He backed up, panting, sweating, steadied himself for a moment, and then launched himself forward. He slammed his shoulder into the wall. Crashed straight through a quarter inch of drywall and disappeared into the hallway beyond.

“Cheap bastards,” Claire said, stepping through behind him.

I stared for a dopey second, then got out my switchblade and followed them, the satisfying
snick
of the blade comforting. Rolling up my sleeve, I stepped through the crumbling hole.

The hallway was dim and empty. Mags emerged from the shadows covered in plaster dust and chunks of drywall, a ghost. Claire stepped past him and began walking lightly down the hall toward the stairs, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Mags and I rushed after her.

At the bottom of the stairs Claire skidded to a halt, staring up at the Head Freak, Thomas, frozen a few steps above her. For a second they stared at each other. Claire looking up at him from under her brow, fierce, feral. Thomas a little dreamy, not sure what to do. Then she reached up, took hold of his robes, and pulled down as she sidestepped. He was overbalanced and went down like a bag of bowling balls, taking the last three steps hard and landing on the gritty floor with a dull thud. Claire was up the stairs in a flash. I flicked the blade against my arm as Mags and I followed, shedding a thin stream of blood. Thomas rolled himself over with a groan, his mouth and nose bloody, and I muttered four syllables, a simple spell I’d silently stolen from Gottschalk the day before, with one minor improvement.

Thomas froze. Just stopped moving, even his eyes.

It would last just a few minutes. Gottschalk had overcast it, slamming Claire with more power than it needed—Claire would have been frozen for years
in his bedroom. Mags and I stepped over him and levered ourselves up onto the steps, launching into a run. Claire was already out of sight. Running for freedom. I’d noticed she turned into Action Girl anytime someone tried to pen her in. Kind of liked it.

I burst onto the first floor and skidded to a halt. Mags crashed into me a second later and sent me careening into the wall. I pushed off, settled myself. Claire was already halfway down the length of the hall, still tripping along like she was riding a bubble of air. Two more of Gottschalk’s robed freaks appeared in front of her. Mags and I hurled ourselves after her. I raised my bleeding arm, ready to shout another Cantrip, but she leaned down and hit the first one with her shoulder, sending him flying backward into the second, both of them crumpling down into a chaos of limbs and robes.

She leaped over them in perfect form, one leg extended forward like a spear, the other tucked under her. Landed. Kept running.

I wondered how in the world she’d ever been caught in the first place. How the Skinny Fuck had managed the coordination and stamina to even get close enough to touch her. How she’d been held down long enough for Renar to mark her up for the ritual. It didn’t seem possible. I imagined Claire casually destroying property as she walked the streets, scowling.

We raced after her. Wasting gas as we ran, blood running in a thin trickle down my arm. I had three or four quick, dirty spells in my head, a second or two to
mutter them in a pinch. Dirty tricks, the best kind. As we passed into the living room, heading toward the front of the house, there was an explosion, the floor shaking under me. A bright flash, and then Claire was running
toward
us, sprinting. As she crashed through us, she turned her head toward me.

“The scary fuck,” she shouted. “Amir!”

Mags and I looked at each other. Stumbled to a halt. Spun and ran after her again.

The whole house was waking up to chaos now. Gottschalk’s little morons in their robes were crowding the hall. Claire had stopped halfway down it, cursing and clawing at them. I checked my arm, soaked in my own glossy blood. Raised my arm over my head. Planted myself at the entrance to the hallway. Shouted three words and brought my hand down, palm flat to the floor. Felt the dizzy, light-headed flow of energy from me to the greedy universe and they all went down, even Claire. Every person in the hall just dropped like a heavy weight had smacked them from above.

“Claire!” I shouted. “Go!”

She was up immediately, shrugging off my invisible fist and running over the freaks, and I grinned after her. Mags and I started to follow, but the spell was minor and the freaks were already struggling to stand, clogging the hallway again. I raised my arm again, massaging the wound to reopen it, squeeze a little more blood from it.

I heard Amir’s voice behind us. Smooth. Educated. Speaking six words rapidly. He pronounced them differently
than Hiram Bosch had taught me, but I recognized them all the same. I clamped my hand on Mags’s shoulder and threw myself down, pulling him along with me.

There was a white flash. A second later, a noise that was so high-pitched it was almost not even a noise but almost just the
idea
of a noise. And then an invisible blade sawed through the air above us, cutting the walls. Like someone had thrown a huge circular saw blade like a Frisbee.

Two of Gottschalk’s chosen had regained their feet. Their heads were cut off cleanly, popping up into the air and hitting the writhing floor before their bodies.

I flipped myself around and pushed up on my elbows. Amir and his Bleeders were there in the living room. Amir was sparkling, like an animated character. He was wearing a black suit stained with white Hill Country dust, his fancy shoes dulled and muddy. But he had that shine, still. His suit was cut so perfectly to his slim frame, and his haircut was so expensive, no amount of dust and grime could scuff him up. One of the fat Bleeders was a gory mess, blood streaming down from his forehead. Amir must have needed a good gush fast. I brought my arm up again and flicked my hand at them, hissing out three syllables.

Amir had raised his gloved hands, ready to counter me, but he was expecting something big. Fireballs. Lightning. A compulsion so hard it would make his ears bleed—the sort of attack an
enustari
would launch.

But he didn’t know my spells. My spells were too small for the great Cal Amir to have heard before. Instead
of something big, the floor under their feet suddenly and temporarily turned into glassy ice. All four just went up ass over tits and hit the floor hard.

Mags was already on his feet. He was muttering, too, but his was just “
Fuck fuck fuck
” under his breath. He reached down and pulled me up bodily, just yanking me up into the air and letting me get my feet under me. He growled and crashed forward into the blood-splattered mess of assholes in the hall and started pushing, throwing them around. Mags was a big boy. Well fed, despite my poor parenting, and Gottschalk’s people were reedy and easy to move. He made a tunnel and I followed as fast as I could. The back door was there, leading to the deck sagging on the rear of the house like a barnacle.

I heard Amir behind us again. He didn’t seem to have an Inside Voice.

I picked out the Words again, adrenaline dumping into my system.

“Mags!” I shouted. “Down!”

We hit the floor just outside Gottschalk’s bedroom. There was a groaning, rending noise. The back door tore into splinters that shot inward, a million wooden missiles. Gottschalk’s freaks screamed. The whole house groaned, and I felt the floor vibrating beneath me.

Amir started speaking again.

I scrabbled to my feet and pulled Mags to our right, crashing through the door into the bedroom.

Gottschalk jiggled in his bed. He was as papery and yellow as before. He was sitting up, his torso naked,
the sweaty-looking covers hiding the rest of him, and thank fucking goodness. Mags and I both froze for a second. He stared at us with wide eyes, his tiny hands in loose fists, held up by his shoulders.

His skin was clear and healthy. He was a fucking
enustari
who hadn’t cut himself in decades, if he ever had. Two of his followers—his slaves, whatever—stood on either side of the bed, knives in their hands.

“I do regret this,” he said. “I did not intend for this. But circumstances beyond my control have changed my position. When Mika Renar knocks on your door, even I must answer.”

I stepped partway around Mags toward the window. Slow. Hiding my bleeding arm behind my large, stupid friend. “Fuck you. Bosch was your apprentice. Renar is going to kill
everyone
.”

He smiled thinly. “But not me. Not
us,
I should say, as I am not the only member of our order who has entered into this agreement.” Behind us, there was another explosion. Amir clearing the hall in the most efficient manner possible. “Ms. Renar and Mr. Amir have brought us
into
the
biludha
. We will also benefit.”

The house shook again. A fine dust settled from above. We all paused and stared around dumbly. The groaning didn’t stop. The whole place was shaking. Cal Amir hadn’t bargained for termites and dry rot and decades of deferred maintenance when he’d started hurling the Words around like boulders.

Claire crashed into the room, stopping short and windmilling her arms.

“Fuck,” she hissed, “this isn’t
out
?”