Zero Sum (35 page)

A friendly Hungarian voice directed Rei to turn off onto a gravel road. (At least I assume that’s what the car said, because that’s what Rei did.)

“Rei, this is a Mercedes, right?” Dante asked.

Rei sighed. “Why, yes, lieutenant—in the same way that an M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank is a Chrysler.”
 

I sensed Rei preferred the old, terrified Dante.

Dante felt the smooth leather armrests and cooed. “Team, I just want ya’ll to know that I am very happy right now,” he said, beaming.

“Too extravagant,” Jules protested. “We are supposta be workin’ for a living.” Jules eyes narrowed. “This could blow our cover.”

“I thought, my dull Irish compatriot, that we are
supposta
be secret agents. I thought that we are
supposta
dress as giant bunnies—and subject ourselves to the trials and tribulations of common serfs—in order to get closer to our marks.”
 

“That we do,” Jules protested.

Rei looked up into the rearview mirror and grinned.
 

“Well then, Druid, we should truly play the part. Open the compartment in front of you. As they say in
M. A. D. Magazine
, knock yourself out.”

Jules frowned. She examined the shiny black compartment and turned to me for advice. I shrugged. I was busy puzzling over the cabinet full of liquor. Why did rich people put their hard alcohol into crystal glassware? They weren’t even labeled. How could they tell what was inside? Jules sighed, leaned forward, leaned back, leaned forward again, hesitated, and then flipped the compartment open.

“Ohmygods!” she yelped. “Rei Bathory, those are
illegal
.”

“No, Druid,” Rei corrected. “Those are all quite legal. I am informed that the laws regarding firearms are quite lax in this state.” I nodded in agreement. “The ones under your seat, however…”
 

Jules yelped and lifted herself into the air. I caught Rei grinning in the rear view mirror. I frowned back at her. Rei liked teasing Jules just a little too much. “Jules, you trained me for three months,” I offered. “I can guarantee that whatever is below our seats is not nearly as dangerous as me.”

“Correct,” Rei added. “That is why I store you in the back along with the rest of the high-yield—” In a blur of motion, Rei slapped Dante’s hand away from the center console. “Lieutenant, that one would give you another lesson in flight.”

“Awesome,” Dante cooed.

“Pofátlan,” Rei grumbled.

Jules was still dangling from the handle above the door like spider monkey. I leaned forward and examined the guns in the compartment. I ignored the two Glocks and took out a Walther PPK. I raised an eyebrow. It was much heavier than I expected.
 

“Jules,” I said, cradling the finely machined handgun. “Do you know what this is?”

“I think so…” Frowning, she released her death grip. “It’s the Bond gun, isn’t it?”
 

“You know you want to.”

“Kinda…” She took it from my hands like a baby bird. “Jeepers, it’s much heavier than I thought it’d be.”

“Most insightful, Druid,” Rei replied. “That is because of the depleted uranium munitions.”

Jules turned a shade whiter and placed the gun back in the compartment.
 

I scowled at Rei. “Was that really necessary?”

“It was not false,” Rei snipped.

“Are you two decades old or two years old?” I turned to Dante. “We should be close now, right?”

“Yep,” Dante replied, indifferent to his team’s internal strife, “I can see their car now.”

“Good,” Jules said. “Maybe they can give us a ride home.”

Ah, home…where Jules and Rei took pot shots at one another from the comfort of their Serta loungers. This was only their most recent argument. We’d run into a snag getting over to our meeting with Monique’s team. The meet was set for the desert between Las Vegas and Henderson. With our stolen Were-Jeep still smoldering in the desert, we decided to rent a car. Then we ran into another problem—none of our fakes said we were over 25. Not a single agency would rent to us. Rei had told us that she had a solution. Fifteen minutes later, she returned to our apartment driving this land-yacht. The darn car cost more than the apartment building. It’d caused quite the stir in the neighborhood. I still didn’t know what it was called.

“An armored Maybach!” Sheila shouted as we got out of the car. She approached Rei’s vehicle like a zombie drawn to brains. Rei tossed her the keys, and all six feet of female squealed with delight.

“Sheila,” Rei urged, “do not push the button for the—”

“Flamethrower. Yea, I know.”

“Nah, it ain’t so good,” Roster said, patting the hood of an old Cadillac Escalade. “The measure of a vehicle is what it can run over.”

Rei eyed him. “Mine can absorb a landmine—yours?”

Roster put his hands in the air and laughed. “Touché, baby, touché.”

“Come on guys,” Monique said. She turned to Ichijo who was walking back from the perimeter. “Ready?”
 

“Mana is very scarce in this town,” he said shaking his head. Ichijo had scraped a circle into the dirt around us. He focused for a moment and delivered a burst of energy into it. I was impressed. He was using the same cast that Albright had used during Eikhorn’s meeting, and he was doing it with only his own mana reserves as fuel.
 

I looked over at Sadie. “Can you hear me, 99?”
 

She only managed a weak smile. That was the norm nowadays. Frankly, I was worried about her. Her aura was a convoluted mess—anger, indecision, and anxiety all vied for attention.

“If we can get to business,” Monique asked. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I want to open my presents early. What do you have for me?”

“Dieter goes first,” Dante said.

“Okay, I got this from an anonymous source: A photographer from one of the major papers heard rumors of forced prostitution and snuck up to the private section of the tower to take photos. He snapped some of twelve men in dark clothes wearing pendants. The description I got matched that of the ACT devices I’ve seen. Better still, one of the men in the photo was Diego Carrera, himself.”

“You talked to this photographer?” Monique asked.

“The photographer is dead, captain. He was struck by a bolt of lightning while walking on the observation deck.”

Monique rolled her eyes. “And it rains so much here…”

“Exactly.”

Dante pulled out a copy of the hotel’s plans. “Security for the tower is super-tight. Barely anyone has been allowed up top since the renovation. We were getting pretty frustrated, but then we got lucky. Jules found out there’s going to be a New Year’s Eve party on the rooftop. It’s for invited guests only, but I managed to manipulate some records. I got Dieter, Jules, and myself onto the team catering the event.”

Jules said, “One of Carrera’s men, a fella by the name of Carlos Rojas, mentioned that a number of his associates are goin’ ta be at the party. He’s plannin’ ta head out of town after the first of the year. This may be our only chance to nab ‘em.”

“What about Rei?” Monique asked. “Why isn’t she on the list?”

“I was unable to get a position on the catering team.” Rei shifted awkwardly. “My performance reviews have been…poor.”

Imitating their boss, Jules furrowed her brow. “Ms. Drusilla, you need to smile more often. Ms. Drusilla, you’re making the customers nervous. Ms. Drusilla, you’re skin and bones, why don’t you eat something?”

Rei rolled her eyes. “No matter, I obtained a date for the event. He is a dimwitted oaf named Julio Sanchez. The bore believes he has impressed me with his negligible wealth.”
 

“Good enough,” Monique said. “Now our end. Sadie, go.”
 

Sadie pulled out a map and laid it on top of the foldout table. I frowned. Sadie must have lost another five pounds since I’d last seen her. A pair of black gloves covered both her tiny hands. Jules told me that Sadie’s burns had been so bad that the grafts didn’t take. She’d lost all feeling in the right. I rubbed at my scarred palms, uncertain if I should be feeling guilty.

Rei looked over at me and frowned. She got edgy when I even
thought
about the topic. Despite the mana-dry desert, the weft-link was still acting up. Living in the same apartment seemed to have made it worse. Bad vibes and intense emotions dance with ease between us. The worst was when Jules insisted on vacuuming during the day. I tried to think happy thoughts: puppies, shoe boutiques, blood popsicles.

Rei smirked.

Pointing to the map, Sadie cleared her throat. “Reports out of Salt Lake aren’t good. Small-scale castouts are breaking out all over town. Our WIP teams are barely keeping up. The DEA had to contract out to Cerberus. Most of the Talmax combatants seem to be just sparks with toys, but it’s only a matter of time before someone slips up and an incident ends up in a paper.” A “spark” was a derogatory term for a Tier 1 or 2 mage. They were one trick ponies. Maybe they could do some charms or some tracking, but they were limited to spells within one weak skill set. It had to suck. You knew all about magic, but you could do so little with it. Maybe that’s why so many of them were signing up with Talmax. The ACT made them feel like giants.

“And the ICE hasn’t intervened?” Dante asked. “Secrecy is the most important tenet.”

“Talmax is contracting out. They’re using any dregs that’ve got a bone to pick with the law. They’re even using schizos. They hand the sparks an ACT device, wipe them clean, and let them run wild. Our agents take them down, but the devices self-destruct before we can get our hands on them. And if the ACT device doesn’t blow their head off, they have no idea who they are, let alone who they’re working for. Command thinks Talmax’s goal is to run our teams ragged.”

“Fascinating,” Rei commented. “A most excellent tactic. How many weft-pairs remain in action?”

I cringed. Sadie’s parents had been a pair.
 

Monique walked between Sadie and Rei and scowled. “That number is classified. All
you
need to know is that our pairs have been shifted back East.” She turned to the rest of us. “And I think we can all guess what that means. DEA Command doesn’t think they can hold Salt Lake. They’re preparing to abandon the West Coast.”

“Is partnering rare?” I asked absently.
 

“Few wish to bear such a burden,” Ichijo replied.

“Dietos, imagine having some other dude in your skull,” Roster added. “Screw that shit.”

“I think it’s a beautiful thing,” Jules said quietly.

Rei coughed. “Captain, you do realize that if the DEA withdraws, it will void the pact. The West will be contestable.”

Monique glared at Rei. “Stow the threats, Bathory. We won’t let your graziers out of their holes.”

Rei stuck her hands in her overcoat and smiled benignly. “Captain, you misunderstand me. I am merely pointing out that we must succeed if you still desire the status quo.”

I facepalmed. “Okay, that was all tremendously vague and ominous—thank you both for that—but I think we can all agree that kicking Carrera’s teeth in is the action item for the evening?”

“I’ll second that shit,” Roster said, nodding vigorously.

“Great. Then I have different question. Carrera and his mates are supposed to be going head-to-head with the DEA in a matter of days, right? So what the hell are they still doing here?” I gestured to the valley. “Is someone getting married?” It had been nagging me since we got to Vegas. What did Las Vegas offer him?
 

I turned to look down into the valley. Las Vegas resides in a near perfect bowl surrounded by mountains. When the Spaniards arrived, they found water at the bottom of the valley. That’s why they named it Las Vegas. It means “The Meadows” in Spanish. Carrera’s giant spire loomed above the skyscrapers. It sat right at the center of the bowl. I looked up at the night sky. You couldn’t see many stars (too much light pollution for that), but the moon was visible tonight. It dangled like a fat melon over the valley. The moon…I didn’t know much about the moon. I’d been reading about moon rituals right before Albright switched books with me…and that bugged me too. What trick had Albright used? I hadn’t felt any magic.
 

I scratched my head. I guess you didn’t really need magic to trick someone, though. Albright only needed to distract me. Maybe when he served the coffee? I nodded to myself. I had been so focused on the cup that I probably missed his slight of hand. Like three-card monte…I looked up at the moon, and then down at Carrera’s tower.
A slight of hand.
A chill ran through me. It was so freaking obvious.
 

“Albright, you son of a bitch.”

“Dieter, we’re under some time pressure here,” Monique said. “If we could get back to discussing the plan…”

“Wait,” Jules objected. “What is it, Dieter?”

I grinned. “Full-frontal assaults only work if your opponent is both weak and stupid.”

Rei perked up. “That is one of Albright’s favorite sayings.”

“So why would Carrera commit to that exact scenario? Why would he risk everything assaulting a well-guarded leynode?”

“Perhaps Mr. Carrera is attempting to demonstrate his dominance,” Ichijo offered.

Roster crossed his massive arms and frowned. “Then what’s up with all the hit-and-run bullshit? If you want to show strength, you bring it straight on. Carrera’s hiding in the shadows.”

“Exactly,” I said, racing over to Sadie’s map. “Carrera’s got everyone waiting for his next move. He’s yanking our chain in Salt Lake, but he hasn’t committed his forces to an attack. I mean, his mages are all chillin’ on the pool deck. Does that sound like pre-game to you?” I looked at the spread of forces and mussed up my hair. I had half the puzzle done, but I was missing too many pieces. “Look, I haven’t been doing this stuff for too long, so help me out here. If I wanted to do something epic—I mean
truly
epic—what would I need?”

“You mean a grand spell?” Ichijo asked.
 

“Exactly.”

“Grand spells are no different than any other ambitious endeavor. You need the requisite skill, sufficient supplies, time to prepare, a means to focus power, and highly auspicious conditions. It is a matter of careful planning more than anything else.”