Chapter 6

WhenI escaped. Not if.

Lienna hadn't revealed I was a prisoner, but the old diviner seemed to have, well, divined that nonetheless. And he also knew I didn't plan on staying one.

But what was the phone number? A hotline for fugitives on the run from the MPD? Because that would have been super helpful a few days ago when I was attempting to cross international borders.

As Lienna led me down the Kitsilano Klairvoyant's front steps, I considered our surroundings. My abjuration chaperone had her back to me and there was probably an alley nearby I could slip into. I wasn't wearing running shoes, but at least they had laces, so…

No. Not yet. We were a long way from catching up to Quentin, which meant I'd have plenty of opportunities—hopefully better ones—to escape.

Back in the smart car, Lienna started up the puny engine. "Well, that was informative."

"I'd say so," I replied, pretending not to notice the sarcasm dripping from her words. "We know to keep an eye out for smoke, and we should ask some old and wise folks for help at some point."

Scoffing, she found a gap in the intermittent residential traffic and pulled into the lane.

"You don't believe him?" I asked. "For a fancy abjuration sorceress, you're sounding a lot like a skeptic."

"I'm not skeptical of magic." She accelerated through a yellow light. "I'm skeptical of a man who calls himself a clairvoyant when he's actually a diviner, cheats unknowing humans out of their money, and has no reason to perform a real reading or give us truthful answers."

A white box van behind us burned through the intersection as well, garnering honks from the other cars. Vancouver traffic has no chill.

"Who says he's cheating the humans who come to him for readings?" I studied her profile. "Do you have any basis for your assumption that he's a conman?"

"His association with you and Quentin."

A scowl pulled at my lips, but I banished it. "Didn't you hear him say he disliked KCQ all along? Not all mythics are bad, you know."

"Says the guy with sixty-one pending charges."

"I don't even know what half of those charges are for. I was just doing my job."

"You knew what your guild was doing wasn't legal."

"You say that like I was one of the masterminds in Rigel's boardroom. I was an intern. Need to know basis and all. I was just the guy who did the thing."

"What thing?"

"With my abilities." I waved my hand vaguely. "The… whatever it's called."

Her attention darted from the road to me and back. "You don't know the name of your abilities?"

"I have it on good authority that I'm a type of psychic, but that's it." I stared through the windshield, not interested in her searching looks. "KCQ was the first time I met other mythics—and learned what a mythic was. They sure as hell weren't explaining the nuances of MPD law."

Lienna brought the car to a halt at a red light. I automatically braced as that van stopped close behind us, its grill filling the rearview mirror.

"The charges against you," she said abruptly. "A lot of them are too flimsy to hold up in front of the Judiciary Council. They hit you with a whole bunch off the top to scare you."

Was she serious? Her lips were pressed thin with displeasure, but whether over my criminal activity or the bogus stack of charges, I wasn't sure.

Her eyes turned briefly to me, a flicker of sympathy in their warm brown depths.

"Well, the scare tactic worked," I admitted quietly. "I've got two weeks until my sentencing and no lawyer to help me figure it all out."

"You don't need a lawyer."

A cop telling a suspect they didn't need a lawyer seemed like awfully shitty counsel. She might claim—or even believe—most of the charges against me would fall through, but that wasn't a risk I planned to take.

It was late afternoon, which meant rush hour was upon us and the city's traffic was becoming inevitably cluttered. As we rounded a corner, the smart car nearly rear-ended a jet-black Tesla at the tail of a long line of stationary vehicles, all waiting for a red light somewhere down the block.

Lienna hit the brakes, and the white box van, still close behind, almost turned us into an accordion, stopping a few precious inches short of our car.

"Our criminal system works differently," she continued, oblivious to our near-smoosh experience. "KCQ's lawyers were scamming the human courts. In mythic law, your sentencing is entirely up to whoever's in charge."

"Like Captain Blythe?"

"In minor cases, she makes all the decisions, but when it comes to more serious cases—"

"—like mine—"

"—you're at the mercy of the Judiciary Council. Although the captain has a big say in the matter."

The line of cars inched forward and Lienna hit her left turn signal, sliding toward the lane that would take us onto the Burrard Bridge. The white box van followed us into the lane.

"So what you're saying is that I need to turn up the charm while around Blythe and desperately hope she puts in a good word for me."

"I think the captain might be immune to all forms of charm."

"Oh, I don't know about that." I gave Lienna an exaggerated grin. "I can be extremely charming when necessary."

She coughed in a way that sounded a lot like a laugh. "Is that your secret psychic ability? You're a mythical charmer?"

"Is it working?"

A snicker actually escaped her. She cleared her throat and said in a bad attempt at a stern tone, "Don't forget I'm an abjuration sorcerer. I'm impervious to your powers."

Stifling another grin, I took a quick look over my shoulder. The big-ass van was still on our tail. I could see two figures inside but couldn't make out any details.

I turned back around. "Hey, have you noticed—"

"Yeah." She glanced in the rearview mirror. "Since we left the diviner's house."

"Do you think it's following us?"

"Let's find out."

As soon as we reached the far side of the bridge, she cranked the wheel to the right, screaming across two lanes of traffic and turning onto Pacific Street, completely neglecting her turn signal.

Holding on for dear life, I resisted the urge to step on an imaginary brake pedal. "Give me some warning next time you Tokyo Drift around a corner there, hotshot."

"I'm not Japanese." She did a speedy shoulder check, then changed lanes to pass a vehicle that was impeding her Formula 1 progress away from the van. "I'm Chinese."

"I figured that, but you are both fast and furious."

In my mirror, I saw the white box van cutting off an expensive BMW to keep up with our impromptu route change.

She took a sharp left turn under the Granville Street Bridge. "They're definitely following us."

"Who the hell are they?"

"Do any of your enemies drive an ugly white van?"

"What makes you think I have enemies?"

She whipped around another corner so suddenly my head almost bounced off the passenger side window. "You're a KCQ member."

"I was," I corrected.

Skyscrapers rose up around us as the smart car zigzagged toward the center of downtown, the van keeping up with us every tire squeal of the way. It struck me that this was my first genuine car chase, but the thrill was seriously dampened by two unfortunate facts: first, I wasn't driving, and second, we were in the least cool car possible.

"KCQ had a lot of enemies," she added.

I was about to retort with something about being guilty by association when she directed our runt rocket onto an off-ramp that dropped underground and into a loading bay for an upper-class hotel.

"Shit," I muttered as we bounced over a speed bump. "Dead end."

"Exactly."

She reefed on the wheel one final time, spinning the smart car a hundred and eighty degrees. We came to a stop facing the way we'd come in, surrounded by the U-shaped concrete risers of the loading bay, with the metal door behind us. Even inside the car, the place smelled like rust and trash.

"You sure about this?" I asked.

"Better here than out in public," she answered, ever the safety-conscious agent.

The van barreled down the ramp and skidded to a halt at the bottom, blocking any traffic from coming in. Or going out. We were trapped.

"I'm not an expert," I said, "but isn't this the part in the MPD manual where you call for backup?"

She pulled her phone out of her satchel and checked the screen. "No reception."

Oh goody. We were stuck two stories underground inside a concrete and steel chamber with no reception. Hopefully the kind folks inside the van were lost tourists aggressively looking for directions.

Lienna touched her cat's eye necklace, whispered the incantation, then stepped out of the car.

I hesitated. Would I be safer in the car? Or out in the open with the supercharged sorcerer? I pushed the car door open and joined her, waiting thirty feet from the van. Safety in numbers, right?

The van doors flew open and two guys in their thirties got out, both dressed like they were on their way to a performance of The Newsies, clad in vests, collared shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and newsboy caps. They fumed with the kind of hostility you'd expect from road-raging assholes.

A groan escaped my throat. Definitely not tourists.

Lienna side-eyed me. "You know them?"

One of the 1900s paperboys glared at me. "Kit Morris!"

I guess that answered her question.

"KCQ goons," I informed her. "Telekinetics. Jeff and Geoff."

"What?" She already had her Rubik's Cube out and was spinning the pieces around.

"Jeff with a J and Geoff with a G."

She wrinkled her nose as though the very thought of a Jeff and a Geoff residing in the same space was an abomination. "Are they brothers or something?"

"Only in spirit."

Jeff and Geoff had been up-and-comers in the law firm, but not because they were lawyers or accountants or anything that required brain cells. They had an official title involving the word "consultant," but in reality, they were muscle. Muscle without principles. The guys my boss had sent after the enemies Lienna had alluded to earlier.

"Quentin told us you got picked up," Jeff said as he retrieved three throwing knives from his vest pocket and floated them above his upturned hand. "But he didn't tell us you'd flipped."

"Ori te formo cupolam," Lienna uttered, and the same watery blue shield that had saved my face from the volcanomage's fireball appeared, this time in the shape of a dome that fully enclosed us.

Jeff launched a knife. The weapon noiselessly struck the magical barricade, causing the tiniest ripple, and dropped harmlessly to the ground. If it had penetrated the shield, it would have found a lovely resting place deep in Lienna's throat.

"Put down your weapons," she commanded in her most authoritative voice, "or I'll be forced to take lethal action."

"You a copper now, Kitty Cat?" Geoff growled, utilizing the closest approximation of a clever nickname he'd ever come up with.

He pulled out his own telekinetic weapons: a pair of spiky, gold-plated spheres the size of croquet balls attached together by a leather strap. I'd told him more than once that they looked like King Midas's testicles, and he usually responded by punching me in the arm or something witty like that.

"I'll make you a deal, Kitty Cat," the bearer of balls growled. "You help us kill the MagiPol bitch and we'll keep you safe."

Bristling, Lienna eyed me. I hadn't missed her palming a couple of her stun marbles in her free hand.

Not wanting her to use those on me, I said, "Counteroffer: you travel back to 1992 and return Christian Bale's wardrobe, and I'll persuade Agent Shen not to transform your intestines into vipers that will eat you from the inside out."

Jeff and Geoff looked temporarily horrified by the thought, then hurled their weapons at the shield. They ricocheted off, the ripples across the blue dome more pronounced. Lienna retaliated by chucking her stun marbles at them. They passed right through the barrier, but the telekinetics easily waved them away with their psychic power—though the effort almost caused Geoff to drop his Golden Globes.

She scowled as the paperboy mafia bombarded her shield again. Was it just me or were the ripples getting bigger? There was no way they were hitting it harder. These guys were slightly above average telekinetics at best; they didn't have that "dig deep" quality. That could only mean…

"This shield only lasts a couple of minutes," she whispered.

"Then do something!" I hissed back. "Can't you shoot them or liquefy their skin or whatever?"

The KCQ goons regrouped their weapons and slammed them once more against the barrier. The ripples were definitely getting bigger.

Another slam. Bigger ripples.

"MPD agents don't carry guns and the only other artifacts I have are… not ideal." She showed me another pair of stun marbles, which had already proven to be less than useful. "These are all I've got."

While Geoff continued his telekinetic barrage, Jeff focused on a manhole cover near the van's front end, wiggling it free with his mind.

"Can't the cube do anything else?" I asked.

"Not while the shield's up."

Geoff noticed his partner struggling with the massive metal disc and added his psychic power to the effort. Between the two of them, the manhole cover easily lifted into the air.

Taking advantage of their joint effort, Lienna threw another marble at Geoff, but he redirected it away.

"Last chance, Kitty Cat," Geoff warned as they edged the cover closer to the shield. "You can either join Blue Smoke or I can kick your ass."

Lienna stiffened. "Blue Sm—"

"We can kick his ass," Jeff sneered, not noticing her reaction.

Shooting glares at each other, the telekinetics heaved the manhole cover at the shield and the entire dome wobbled. The cover hit the concrete with a deafening crash, but Jeff and Geoff had it off the ground again in a second.

"How long does the shield have?" I asked her sharply.

"Twenty seconds. Maybe less—"

The telekinetics lobbed the cover again. It slammed against the dome and the whole thing rippled like glass about to shatter. If the shield died and they had that beast in the air, they'd render Lienna two-dimensional in a blink.

Crap.

"Remember, I'm not the bad guy here," I told her.

"Huh?"

"And don't let them squish you," I added as Jeff and Geoff picked up the cover again. It rose fifteen feet and aligned to drop on our heads.

She squinted at me. "Wha—"

The manhole cover crashed onto the dome, and as the watery wall burst apart, I shoved her hard. She stumbled backward, and the plunging cover smashed down where she'd been standing.

I tore the shark tooth necklace over my head and my powers rushed back. Damn, that felt good.

Lienna darted away, and as Geoff and Jeff co-aimed the cover at her—a more difficult feat against a moving target—I focused on the two men. Or rather, on their minds.

They hurled the cover, missing Lienna by two feet. As it hit the asphalt with an ear-splitting clang, Jeff's knives rose into the air and Geoff's golden balls floated upward with a wave of his fingers. They'd abandoned the heavy metal disc for their usual weapons—which meant Lienna had about three seconds to live.

But I was already in motion, striding toward Geoff. I swept right past his spinning orbs, walked up to him, drew my fist back, and sucker-punched him in the gut. As he doubled over, I grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face down into my knee. His nose crunched, and he ragdolled against the concrete.

Jeff gawked as his buddy collapsed, then blinked at me in disbelieving shock. I knew the moment he realized what I'd done. Rage twisted his face, and his knives spun to point at me.

He was so busy preparing to murder me that he didn't notice Lienna speeding toward him. Her fist struck his jaw so hard I heard the crack, and he was down before he knew what'd hit him.

Victory! With the telekinetics vanquished, I glanced around for any other dangers we might need to worry about. My peripheral vision caught a glimpse of movement, and as I started to turn back toward Lienna, sharp pain burst across my ribs.

All the muscles in my body contracted, and the world went black.