Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

JASON

I was going to owe the motel for new carpet and the view outside the unit wasn't getting prettier. "What time is it?"

Erin sighed and didn't bother to say, Five minutes later.

I peered out at the parking lot, swaying in place as if I could make time go faster. I'd crashed and slept through the morning, between the twelve-mile run and the relief of hearing from Sunny that Alan was safe, for now. Then we'd eaten and spent the afternoon looking at my photos of the compound, drawing a site map, discussing what we could do… if we had an army or a bulldozer.

The sorcerer Darien and Silas were sending our way wasn't likely to be either of those things, but maybe she'd tip the scales closer to even.

A battered pickup turned in at the motel, drove slowly down the line of units, and parked outside ours. A tall, wiry woman with long dark hair tied back in a braid swung out of the front seat and strode toward our room. If I had any doubt this was Zahira, the subtle motion of her hand, launching a rune at our door, dispelled it. Checking for a trap, no doubt. A crow launched out the open window of the truck and landed on her shoulder.

Erin tapped off the ward she'd put on the room and swung the door wide before the woman could knock. "Welcome to you both. Come on in."

The crow said, "Or not. I keep telling you, Z, this is a mess Darien's landing you in."

Zahira sighed like they'd gone through this before. "And I owe Darien enough to step neck-deep in manure if he asks me to." She gave us a nod, not offering a hand. Alan had told me sorcerers didn't touch without explicit invitation. "I'm Zahira and this is Coal. The Weaver sent us."

"Come on in," Sylvester called from where he lounged on one of the beds. "The more the merrier. Although this is the most boring adventure I've ever been on. I think we're waiting for Alan."

Zahira cocked her head as she came inside, giving Sylvester a long stare. Dale got up from their seat and went to stand at Sylvester's bedside. "Alan's the sorcerer NSEP kidnapped," they said, jerking their chin up as if daring her to say anything about Sylvester.

"Yeah. I got that from Darien." She swept an intent gaze around the room. "I only have the basics. That was one long-ass drive, and I didn't take many breaks. Who's who?" She turned to me. "You must be the ordinary human boyfriend."

"Jason," I told her, resisting the urge to stand taller and show her I topped her by three inches. I was pretty ordinary, and her air of confidence was a good thing, given what we were planning. "Erin, a Healer; Dale, also a Healer; and Sylvester, Alan's mentor."

Sylvester waved his cuffed wrist in the air, the bright metal glinting. "I'm, y'know, I'm retired. But I can still pack a punch when I need to. Still good for something."

"I'm sure you are." Zahira's matter-of-fact tone, without shock, pity, or disdain, made me like her already. She asked Erin, "Is this everyone? No familiars?"

Erin said, "Sunny, Alan's familiar, is up by the prison, keeping watch. The rest of us haven't been that fortunate."

"I tried," Sylvester commented. "You didn't like him. Well, I didn't either. Set fire to the kitchen. So rude. But he was pretty and bright."

Erin shook her head at Zahira's questioning eyebrow. The whole firedrake saga was much too long to get into right now. Erin asked, "What particular aptitude do you bring to the table, if you don't mind saying? Darien and Silas just said you were a strong sorcerer, and as you can see, we're short on power without Alan."

"You know Darien and Silas well?"

"We've only met them once," I told her. "They liked Alan, though, and we've spoken with Jasper more often."

Zahira nodded. Coal said, "Slowly, Z. Be cautious."

She raised a hand to stroke his chest feathers. "I'm not afraid of powerless humans and Healers."

"Perhaps you should be," Erin said. "Powerless humans took Alan, after all. Enough chemical firepower can outweigh magic."

"Truth," the crow agreed.

Zahira told him, "We can hardly make plans if they have no idea what I can do." She turned back to Erin. "I have an affinity for metal. In my daily life, I'm a sculptor. I blend my blowtorch and my power in creating art." She smiled, a bright expression on her narrow face. "In decades past, I might've bent spoons for applause and tips."

"Or steel girders," Coal muttered.

"That's… Okay, that could be useful," I said. "One obstacle to getting Alan free is a metal fence."

"I can deal with a fence," she promised. "But I need to see everything you're up against. I doubt the fence is the only problem, or your pretty muscles and a bolt cutter would've solved it."

"You should eat, Z," Coal said. "And sleep before you do anything strenuous. Passing out does no one any good."

"You should've incarnated as a mother hen," Zahira told him. "I'm not going to pass out. But I wouldn't mind a snack."

"I'll get you some food." Dale moved toward the small in-room fridge. "I'm not much use for strategy."

"Don't sell yourself short," I told them. "Your ointment's our biggest win so far."

They ducked their head and smiled, then turned to get out some food.

Once Zahira had eaten three sandwiches, declining ham and salami in favor of lots of cheese and tomatoes, we sat down with my notebook and the sketches we'd put together. Zahira looked through my photos, then tapped the outline of the compound map.

"As I see it, you have three problems. First is getting Alan out of his cell and the building."

Sylvester chortled. "No problem. Blast it all down. Boy can blow the roof off things. Did it to a greenhouse once."

Erin said, "We're hoping Alan can get out once he has access to his magic. Sunny's going to ask him tonight what he thinks."

"Then if he can get out…" Zahira slid a work-roughened tan fingertip across the diagram. "…your next problem is the fence and the guards on the compound."

"We're hoping to distract the guards," I told her. "If you can take care of the fence."

"All right. But then we hit the big, gnarly problem. What happens once we have Alan and we're driving hell-for-leather with those bastards in pursuit? I can probably mess up the gate, even put up a shield behind us to stop bullets, but it won't hold them back for long. Those NSEP fuckers hide behind Homeland Security on the human side. Who's going to keep them from just arresting all of us when we finally have to stop for gas?"

"I don't know." I got up and paced across the room, whirling at the wall, back and forth. "I don't know! But there has to be someone who's not cowed by a badge and a title. They can't just snatch innocent American citizens and make them disappear. I don't care who the fuck they are."

Zahira held up a hand. "I'm not arguing with that. Just saying we need a plan, a destination, someone on our side?—"

My new burner phone alerted with the Hawaii-5-O ring tone I'd chosen for my brother Robert. I snatched it out. "What's up?"

"What mess have you got yourself mixed up in, little brother?" Robert demanded.

"I'm thirty-six and bigger than you. Enough with the little ."

"Bigger, but clearly not smarter. You remember that Oscar Ibsen guy you asked me to track down?"

"Yeah?" I'd set Robert to work finding out about Oscar. He'd muttered about abuse of his authority, but what was the point in having a homicide detective brother if I couldn't call on him when I really needed to? I told him finding a missing person like Oscar wasn't abuse, it was police business.

"Well, I ran down some info. No warrants, no arrests. He was a part-time machinist, part-time maker of ornamental glass lamps. He left his job two years ago with a letter of resignation and everything looking legit. Paid two months' rent to break his lease. But his next-door neighbor, an old lady, reported him missing, maybe abducted. She said two men in a dark car took him away one morning, and when the movers came for his stuff, he didn't show up himself. She said he'd never have left without saying goodbye to her and her cats."

"I told you there was something fishy."

"They wrote her off as a lonely old conspiracy theorist and I'd do the same. Except. Three hours after I ran his name through the system, I got a message from Homeland Security. ‘Desist in any investigation of subject Oscar Ibsen.' When I looked back to check the old lady's name, the missing person report was gone."

"Fuck."

"So, I repeat, what the hell have you got yourself into?"

"I don't know." I hesitated, unsure what to tell Robert. When I came out as gay and with Alan, Robert hadn't been an asshole like some of the family, but he'd kept a distance. The easy relationship we'd had as fellow first responders had gone cool over the intervening months. Still, he was law enforcement and he was family. "Alan got arrested by a division of Homeland Security for no good reason, and when we tried to get him a lawyer, they told the lawyer they didn't have him, had never touched him, and had no idea who he was."

"Maybe he wasn't arrested. Maybe he's hiding."

"I was fucking there, Rob. They held a gun on me and shoved him in a car. They showed me their badges."

"Shit. Maybe the badges were fake. Maybe it's some con or a kidnapping. Did you report it?"

"Would a con be able to redact that missing person report on Ibsen?"

After a long silence on Robert's end, he said, "I can't go up against Homeland. My captain would have my head on a platter for even trying. Can you ask the lawyer to try again?"

"Funny thing about that." Bitterness tinged my voice. "The man went off on a sudden three-day vacation hours after asking the Homeland branch about Alan."

"Shit." Another heavy silence sat between us. "What the hell is your boyfriend mixed up in?"

Magic. But I hadn't told my family Alan was a sorcerer. They were still adapting to the gay, and for some of them, the Asian. And Alan was unregistered and wanted to stay that way. I didn't even want to mention NSEP by name. "Nothing. Teaching fucking grade school. Reading books and running with me and cleaning up after his bird. Nothing!"

"If you say so, but they had to have some kind of reason. What are you going to do?"

I trusted Robert, some, but I didn't trust him not to put my supposed safety over Alan's by messing up my plans. "I guess I'll find the nearest Homeland office and camp out on their doorstep till they let me see him."

"And if they still deny they ever had him?"

"I'll invest in a good sleeping mat and a cooler."

"Be careful," Robert warned. "You don't want to push those boys too far. And what about your job? When will you get in trouble if you don't report back for duty?"

"Seriously? You expect me to abandon Alan and just trot back to fighting fires like a good little robot?"

"That's not what I meant?—"

"The hell it's not. Imagine if they'd snatched Will, and what you'd be saying to Sarah." Sarah was my quiet sister, but she was fierce in defense of her family and adored her husband.

"That's not the same thing, though, is it?"

"You know what? Fuck you." I stabbed the red button with my finger, and turned off the sound when the phone immediately rang again.

"Sorry, folks." I turned back to the group. "Robert's a turd, but at least he confirmed that Oscar told Alan the truth, and that Homeland Security really is mixed up in this thing, not some fake."

"That doesn't solve our dilemma," Zahira pointed out. "Your brother's clearly not going to be your savior once we're on the run. So who is? I don't think hiding from NSEP is an option unless you have a sorcerer with mad vanishing or disguise skills in your pocket."

"I don't." I ran a hand over my face. "Maybe Darien and Silas do."

"It's the middle of the night in Paris," Erin pointed out. "I wouldn't wake them up to ask that. Not till we have a better plan. If Alan doesn't think he can get out, or the lotion didn't even work, hiding won't be an issue."

I clenched my teeth because I needed to imagine Alan secretly slipping that cuff off. Picturing him still trapped, his magic smothered, the way Sylvester complained about in his more emotional moments, made me sick to my stomach. "I'll run up there after sunset and see what Sunny reports."

"Or you could wait for Sunny to fly down here at midnight, like we planned. And not be caught lurking around the compound."

"I won't get caught." Those stalking skills my dad emphasized when bow hunting had to be good for something. "And I don't want to wear Sunny out with a bunch of flying."

Erin looked like she was going to contradict me, but Dale said, "That's a decent point. And it must be hard for you to be safe down here when he's up there."

My throat clamped down and my eyes stung. I managed to force out, "Yeah."

They nodded. "So get some sleep, and then you'll have energy to run later."

"Good idea," Erin agreed, her tone softer.

The crow mantled its wings. "And you, Z. Let's go rent our own room so you can ward it up and sleep. Meet back here when?"

"In the morning," Erin told them. "Seems unlikely we'll have much news before then. I'll text you, Zahira, if that changes. Do you want to take more food with you?"

"I'll probably indulge in takeout. Give myself a bonus for taking this trip."

"We'll cover your expenses," I told her. "The room, meals, just let me know." She didn't seem like the type to run out and have a steak dinner on my dime.

Zahira shook her head. "You don't owe me anything. The chance to hit back at the human side of NSEP and make it hurt? That's all the payment I need." She pushed to her feet, and the crow glided to a landing on her shoulder. We all watched her as she strode out.

"She could've stayed with us," Sylvester said as the door shut behind her. "Pretty lady. Powerful lady. Classes up a room."

"And what am I?" Erin asked. "Chopped liver?"

"You're my girl." Sylvester blinked a few times. "Where's my boy? That Alan? Not like him to miss an adventure."

"He's busy," Erin told him. "But he'll be back with us soon." Her eyes met mine as she said, "I believe that."

I stretched out on the bed I'd shared with her, closed my eyes, and tried to pretend I truly believed it too.