SonofaWitch! Read online

  “But you—you do know magic, enough to move the tattoo and break the spell. You can do something.”

  “I moved the tattoo. Donny broke the spell by accident. And look what else happened.” I pointed at the kitten-roach, and I realized that my mattress had been tipped up against the wall and I hadn’t had an origami crane before all this started. And the crane she was kicking and chewing was a precisely folded twenty-dollar bill.

  I snatched it, detaching grasping cockroach feet which I could see now enlarged to detail I never wanted. I unfolded the twenty, only slightly the worse for chewing. I looked at Abel. “Not yours,” I said. “You didn’t exactly come with pockets.”

  He shook his head.

  “Not Donny’s, either; he didn’t get this far in, and I can’t imagine him folding origami.”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m going to consider it a happy spell side effect,” I declared, though I had no idea how that could have happened. “Unless you’re going to come after me for counterfeiting.”

  He shook his head. “That’s Secret Service business, not the Bureau.”

  “Good.”

  “So you’re not going to help with Zach’s magic.”

  “Me? No way. I’m going for tacos.” I shoved the twenty in my pocket and started for the door.

  Miguel had the best taco stand around. I ordered two, paid with my catroach-chewed windfall, and sat down on a high curb a few feet down from a black man in a blue shirt. I unwrapped the first taco and took a bite.

  “Looks good,” came a voice beside me, but definitely feminine. I looked toward the black man and saw a white woman in a business suit, dark wavy hair, mole on one cheek.

  My whole body went cold and I might have dropped my taco if my muscles hadn’t locked so solid. It wasn’t anything she did to me—it was just a pure this is bad reaction.

  “I had hoped the money would bring you outdoors. It’s so tasteless to go to someone’s home uninvited.”

  I concentrated on getting my mouth to work. “You left that twenty on my bed?”

  “Just as I left the other money a few years ago. And when you said tacos, this seemed the most logical place to wait for you.”

  “You—you were listening to us.”

  “Yes, which is also somewhat tasteless, I admit. But you had just broken one of my spells, and I felt it prudent to learn the situation.”

  Oh, she knew everything. Everything. “Um, in my defense, I wasn’t trying to break your spell. That was outside interference. I’m really sorry.”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s not why I wanted to speak with you.”

  “I thought you two didn’t know each other.” This was Abel talking, walking up to us wearing a frown and my Goodwill skinny jeans, which appeared to be chafing.

  “Have a seat, Abel,” said the woman in the suit.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “I was hired to remove you, for one,” she said bluntly. “For another, I heard you introduce yourself a few minutes ago.”

  “She was listening in,” I told him with a hangdog tone. “She dropped the twenty to bring me out.”

  “Both of you,” she corrected. “I wanted to speak with both of you.”

  “I wasn’t involved,” I said. “This was all between you and Zax and Abel. I just needed money and got a tattoo. I didn’t know what was going on. Zax has already screwed up my life enough and I—”

  “Then you should be very interested in what I have to say to you,” she said. “I thought humans were into revenge.”

  Hold everything. Hold everything.

  “Revenge is not the point,” Abel was saying.

  I grabbed his arm to shut him up. “Humans,” I managed. “You said humans.”

  She gave me a smile like I was a particularly clever child who had just managed to correctly identify the red crayon in the Crayola 8-Count. “I did.”

  Abel needed a moment longer. “You’re not human?”

  She smiled again. And somehow, though she didn’t do anything different, it was a whole lot creepier.

  Abel sat down beside me.

  “Zax and I have had a business relationship in the past,” she said. “But he got a bit full of himself and started name-dropping on the internet.”

  “What name?” asked Abel.

  I backhanded him so fast he coughed and choked. “We don’t care what name,” I said, giving her the blandest smile since white rice.

  “He posted my true name on a magic users’ forum,” she explained. “I am engaged in the process of changing my essential name. This has been deeply disturbing on several levels, even without the considerable inconvenience. You think filing paperwork in a human court is bad?”

  I licked my lips and nodded with what I hoped was an understanding and sympathetic expression. Beside me, Abel was clearly confused but catching on enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “Thus, I find myself in a state of mind where I would be happy to hear of a considerable inconvenience to Zax Countelbuck. And I also find that the two of you are in similar states of mind.”

  “I think I was pretty clear that I wasn’t going up against Zax.”

  “Yes, but for practical considerations, not principle. Both of you protested a lack of skills and resources; neither of you expressed that you were comfortable with what he was doing and did not mind if he continued. And if your only concern is skills and resources, well, I can help you there.”

  I didn’t have a ready answer for that.

  “What does that look like?” asked Abel. “And what obligations go with it?”

  Ooh, getting smarter.

  He nodded, growing more confident. “Yeah,” he added, “isn’t there usually supposed to be a fiddle made of gold, or Daniel Webster, or something?”

  She gave a polite and overly-patient chuckle. “Wrong branch entirely, I’m afraid. I’ve nothing to do with Mr. Scratch, and I’m not keen on the violin. But, to your point, no obligations. This is a single-event partnership, no future benefits or considerations implied. I can certainly deal with Zax myself, but in my social circle, as it were, such an approach is considered gauche. It’s an acceptable solution if necessary, but it admits a certain mistake in allowing a situation to build to such a point. Using a cat’s paw to accomplish the same end—and in particular, using family—confers a certain aesthetic appeal.”

  “You want to use us to take down Zax so you get more style points.”

  “Precisely.”

  Abel frowned. “For all that he’s apparently a local drug boss and more, he is still my little brother,” he said. “I don’t know that I want to condemn him to some supernatural fate worse than death.”

  “All the more reason you should be interested in my offer.”

  Abel frowned, and she looked at me. “Will you explain it to him?”

  I sighed. “Your brother doxed a supernatural entity,” I said. “That was all kinds of stupid. He’s going down. Now if we do it, we can choose how it happens, like purely legal means, arrest and trial and prison. If we don’t do it, and she does it herself, it has to be a statement piece or she loses face. And a statement piece…”

  “That’s the supernatural fate worse than death.”

  “Bingo.”

  The woman looked at me. “And you would gain benefits as well: the return of your paycheck, the safety of your neighborhood and camaraderie of neighbors not under threat, the resumption of the education you had to give up.”

  I bit my lip. I’m not all brotherly love or anything, but she wasn’t wrong, either. I did want to go back to learning. Magic isn’t covered in the local library’s night classes.

  Abel looked conflicted. “Nobody even knows I’m alive. I’ve been missing for three years, it sounds like. I should probably call some people.”

  “And get back on Zax’s radar right before you want to take him down? No way. We get through this, you get your life back. And I get mine back.” I turned to the woman. “So, how doe
s this work? These resources of yours?”

  “I’ll give you another tattoo,” she answered. “This one will be temporary. It will convey a certain additional power.”

  “You’re going to buff me magically?”

  “It will buff you, as you say, until it wears off in three days.”

  “Why three days?”

  “Three is a traditional magical number.” She shrugged.

  “So…”

  “You get three days, with additional magical power at your disposal and whatever legal powers Abel Countelbuck can bring to bear. If you have Zax Countelbuck out of power and publicly humiliated by then, all is well. After three days’ time, the tattoo wears off, and all returns to as it was—except that if Zax is still where he is now, I will step in and deal with him myself, in a suitably dramatic and messy fashion. This will leave a power void in local criminal politics, which may prove… incongruent to your long-term goals of neighborhood peace and prosperity.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Abel said.

  “Also, you would have embarrassed me with your poor performance, and I would be forced to make an additional—what did you call it?—an additional statement piece to wrap up all loose ends.”

  Ah, there it was. “When you ask us if we’re on board with your suggestion…”

  She smiled a cold, pleased smile. “But thou must.”

  Yeah. That’s how it was. Like I could know getting paid to get a tattoo would lead to being a federal snitch for a supernatural revenge scheme.

  “Give me your arm,” she said.

  What choice did I have? I gave her my arm.

  She covered my forearm with her palm and something burned into me, but it was considerably lower on the pain scale than getting virtually pounced by a kitten or virtually stomped by Donny. Tendrils of sharp sensation ran up and down my arm, encircling it. When she removed her hand, I had a sleek flash tattoo snaking around my entire forearm, all sharp lines and spiky star motifs, a constellation wrapped about my arm.

  A star-circle of gold.

  “Looks sharp,” said Abel, impressed.

  The woman looked at each of us in turn. “Three days,” she said, and then she stood up and the black man walked away.

  So, yeah. That happened.

  “What do we do now?” asked Abel.

  I shoved the last of my taco into my mouth. “We get you some clothes.”

  We spent the rest of my twenty at the local thrift store. Abel didn’t look good, but at least he no longer looked naked, and that was a win.

  “We call the police,” he said.

  “That will just put Zax on alert, trust me,” I said. “You want to bring law enforcement into this, you need to do it higher up. Don’t you have any federal people you can call? Or some secret federal code word you can use with the state police?”

  He shook his head. “No secret code word. Plus, I’ve been out of touch, remember? I can’t just call in and say, Yeah, I used to hunt down bootleg DVDs and I’ve been a missing person for three years, but here’s a hot tip on a local drug dealer.”

  “But—”

  “More importantly, we don’t have time. Three days is not enough to build a case and mobilize, especially not on an unconfirmed tip.”

  That was not what I wanted to hear. “So, we’re on our own.”

  “I can make a call,” he said. “I knew a guy, a field agent. If I can get through the phone tree to him, I’ll do what I can to convince him it’s really me and this is legit and we need help. But again, three days isn’t enough time.”

  “Three days is what we’ve got,” I reminded him unnecessarily. “It’s Zax or us. And I’m not keen on it being us.”

  He sighed. “I know.” He frowned. “You know where his criminal office is?”

  “I know where they dragged me to hear that I wasn’t going to be getting my own paycheck. I doubt he’s moved.”

  “Then I guess we go there tomorrow.” He held out his hand. “Give me the phone, and I’ll go try to call Special Agent Jim.”

  “Denise,” I said.

  “What?”

  “He’s going to want to know who else is involved. My name is Denise Clayton. I was going to be a magic-cop, one day.”

  He held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Denise.”

  He came back from using the bakery wi-fi an hour later, looking grim. “Voicemail. All I ever got was voicemail. I left a dozen messages, but nothing else. I couldn’t get past the unsolicited whacko filter when I called direct. Every call got routed to voicemail, no matter what I said.”

  It wasn’t any less than we’d had an hour ago, except hope. “Well, maybe your buddy will check his messages and believe you then.”

  “Right.” He sounded about as confident as I felt.

  “Well,” I said with hollow cheer, “we still have my shiny new tattoo. And I’ve been practicing using so much more power. It’s a pretty big battery.”

  “Well, good. We’re going to need it.”

  I’d returned Tart to Donny with an apology and a promise to try something later. I didn’t include that later I might be dead.

  Abel and I spent the night on the air mattress, not sleeping. Not doing anything else, not like that, but just not sleeping because we were terrified.

  The next morning, we delayed for a while, picking out clothes from our extremely limited options and taking turns washing our faces and generally sitting around avoiding the inevitable. Finally, without any real discussion or verbal agreement, we left the tiny apartment and went to the street where Zax’s inconspicuous front door was guarded by a less-inconspicuous bouncer.

  We walked up the street like we had some tiny right to be there, but not like we believed in that right very strongly. I clenched my jaw to look intimidating, but also to keep my teeth from chattering and my knees from giving way. Beside me, Abel didn’t look much better.

  The muscle at the door didn’t seem impressed with our performance. He gave us a dismissive jerk of his head to show which way we should head out.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Countelbuck,” I said. My voice was steady. Mostly.

  “I’m afraid that requires an appointment,” the man said.

  I was stuck. Where should we go from there? If this were a movie, I’d have a smart remark to fling back and a big showy entrance, but—

  The door opened and another man came out, lighting a cigarette. My mouth took over. “Here’s my appointment card,” it said, as my tattooed arm rose and made a grasping motion, seizing the cigarette smoker without ever touching him. I lifted my arm and the smoker, and I swung both to the side, smashing the smoker into the bouncer and sending them both sprawling.

  Well, I guess there was a little Hollywood in me after all. My one-liners needed some work, but it wasn’t bad for a first effort. I walked through the door Abel held for me.

  “That was impressive,” he murmured.

  “I know, right?!” I answered, probably ruining the effect.

  We pulled the door shut behind us, even though they probably had keys, and went deeper into the building. It was a long corridor with cheap fluorescent lighting and all leftover seventies orangey-brown paint, as if being in the lair of a local crime lord wasn’t bad enough. Still, I felt a little better about our progression this time, carrying the confidence of our successful entrance.

  A guy came around the far corner and looked up, needing a second to recognize that we didn’t belong. “Hey!” he shouted, reaching for what I presume was his gun.

  I grabbed him and shoved him through the earth-toned drywall, hitting a stud on the way. “And stay down,” I snapped. He did, but that might have had more to do with the wall stud than my witticism.

  Still, we were striding more confidently now, and I almost wished we had some theme music blasting behind us or maybe an explosion to walk away from.

  The hallway behind us exploded.

  I’m pretty sure I didn’t scream. I’m pretty sure that if I did scream, the sound of it wa
s lost in the boom, so it’s basically the same as if I didn’t scream.

  I let go of Abel and looked back at the non-burning end of the hall, where three men were standing in some sort of phalanx formation they’d probably practiced in a mirror. The middle one was Zax Countelbuck. The one on his left was the pet wizard who’d nearly been brained with my geraniums. I guessed the other one was the other pet wizard.

  “I don’t have to miss,” called the pet wizard on the left.

  “He’s right. He’s a pretty good shot.” Zax pointed a gun at us with one hand and a finger at the floor in front of us with the other. “Why don’t you stand right there and tell us who you are and why you’ve come to start a war.”

  “We didn’t come to start a war,” Abel answered. “I came to see my brother.”

  There was an awkward pause, and then Zax tilted his head and squinted. “Abel?”

  Abel held out his arms, somewhere between an offered hug and a ta-da pose. “It’s me.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What, are you surprised I’m out of the Phantom Zone your witch stuck me in?” Abel gave him a stern look. “Good thing I’m used to your brotherly pranks, or I could take that personally.”

  Zax gave a nervous grin. “Yeah, I’m thinking that didn’t go as planned.”

  “Depends how you mean. Yeah, I was put away, but yeah, I’m out again.” Abel shrugged. “Kind of awkward talking about it in the hallway, though.”

  “Especially while the hall’s on fire,” I added.

  Zax glanced at each of his hired wizards and then jerked his head backward. “Come on back to my office, then.”

  We followed them around the corner and to an interior, more protected room. Zax took security seriously. There was a big cheap desk and three cheap chairs in front of it, like some villainous businessman’s penthouse office, only furnished from IKEA.

  One of the wizards was already pouring drinks into short glasses, a topaz liquid which looked expensive. Zax passed one to Abel, who took it at arm’s length, and the other to me, and I took it with the non-tattooed arm, just in case. Zax took a sip of the third. “So,” he said. “Abel. I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t expect you.”

  “Did you really hire a woman to seal me away forever?” Abel watched Zax drink and then took a drink himself. “Because that’s a bit rough. Maybe worse than missing Mom’s funeral.”