What was it one of my roommates had once told me? It was easy to steal something big if you just looked as if you had already bought it.
And since I didn’t know where the exits were, didn’t even know the floor plan, that’s exactly what I was going to do. Walk out of this place with a naked girl on my shoulder.
First, I repeated a mantra. My voice was shaking-hells, all of me was shaking. I pulled magic up into my hands and then into a glyph of Obscuring. That spell was most often used by people who wanted to cover up dry patches in their lawns or fruit sellers hiding bruises. It didn’t work well on large-scale things like people, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.
I arranged Rheesha’s arms and legs and lifted her across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. She probably weighed ninety pounds.
I took a deep, calming breath, opened the door, and strode down the hall.
I have never taken a longer, more nerve wracking walk in my life. Calm, stay calm.
The door to my left, one door away from the glass and lead monstrosity, opened.
Don’t look, don’t look. But I looked.
His eyes were soft brown with flecks of gold, and they widened in surprise when he saw me. He was dark skinned and had the bone structure that hinted at Native or Asian in his blood. It was just a moment, but I was sure he recognized me. Too bad I’d never seen him before.
He stepped closer, and I noticed he wore a clean white shirt and black slacks-a waiter’s uniform-and he smelled of pine cologne. He touched my wrist gently.
“This way.” He tugged me back through the door he’d just come through and down a windowless passage that was maybe a delivery entrance. I noted belatedly that he was muttering a mantra, throwing around hiding, warding, and other high-level spells that I wouldn’t expect a waiter to know, spells that left the taste of mint in my mouth.
We exited on a side street. He let the door close behind him.
“Who is she?” He pulled off his shirt and handed it to me.
“Rheesha Miller.” Smooth, Beckstrom. Way to keep a secret.
The man shook his head. “I didn’t know. Do you have a way to get her to the hospital?”
Before I could ask him why he was helping or even who the hell he was, the sound of a Ford truck started up. Apparently Pike had no trouble Hounding me. “Do I know you?”
“No. But you’re Beckstrom’s daughter, right?”
I nodded.
“Welcome home.” He glanced over as Pike’s truck turned the corner. Then he ducked back inside, as if maybe he didn’t want Pike to see him.
Crazyville. But damn, anything that got me out of that hell hole was okay with me.
Pike got out of the truck and left the engine running. “Allie?”
“She’s alive.”
Pike helped me get her inside the truck, and I draped the white shirt over her. Neither of us said anything on the way to the emergency room. Rheesha slept. Pike didn’t look over at me, his gaze locked grimly on the street ahead. Only the bobble-headed dog nodded like everything was going to be okay. I, for one, hoped the dog was right.
I spent the next month dealing with the police, the courts, and a constant migraine. I got one look at Trager during a hearing, and he got one look at me. He was a frightening man, and he has since taken up residence in my nightmares. From what the police told me about him, I had just made myself a very dangerous enemy.
Pike didn’t call, didn’t thank me in any way. He really was a bastard. He owed me a hell of a favor, and I was not going to let him forget it.
But right now, there was someone else I wanted to talk to: Mama.
I strolled into the restaurant and took a table near the window. The smell of coffee, steak, and onions made my mouth water. I looked around for Mama and spotted her coming out of the kitchen. She strode straight over to my table, filled a cup with coffee, and set it in front of me.
“Why did you tell Pike he should send me in after that girl?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “You are strong, Allie girl. She needed you. Pike needed you.”
I took a drink of coffee. It was fresh, rich, and hot. “This is really good,” I said. And yes, I was surprised.
“You come here any day or night. Any time.” Mama nodded. “Coffee always be fresh for you, Allie girl.” I knew that was all the apology and thank you I was going to get out of her. That, and the best steak dinner I’d had in years, were enough for now.
Eye Opening by Jason Schmetzer
Eddie Timmser didn’t know where Gong had gotten the pistol, but he did know he didn’t like looking down the barrel of it. He leaned away from the safe and held up his hands. “Hey, come on, man,” he said. “It’s not my fault. I can’t see this one.” Jesus, I should have stayed home tonight.
“What’s your deal, Eddie?” Gong asked. The light from Eddie’s penlight reflected from the burnished steel of the safe door and cast shadows across Gong’s narrow eyes. The pistol jerked an inch closer. “All the places we been together, buddy. Now you can’t see this one safe?” A sneer twisted across Gong’s lips, making the perspiration on his upper lip shimmer in the light. “I’m not buying.”
Buddy? The last time they’d worked together, Eddie’d spent three months in lockup before his public defender got him out on a technicality. Gong had make it clear away, with the loot and the rep to go with it. And now he was back, forcing Eddie to work again, to use his sight to make a fast score. As if there weren’t enough honest jobs where a guy who could see through walls could make a living.
“I can’t see it,” Eddie said. “It happens.”
He resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. It hurt to look through metal, hurt right behind his nose when he concentrated and squinted and looked with the eye he couldn’t see. It hurt more when he looked at something he couldn’t see through, like now. There was a mother-big headache brewing behind his eyes, and his pills were in the truck.
This always happened to him. Every time he tried to go straight, something happened. Someone would call with a big score. A favor he’d forgotten all about would get called in. He looked at Gong. Someone would threaten him.
He looked away from the gun and played the light across the surface of the safe again. Something flickered. Eddie leaned in close, ran his fingers across the metal. There was a pattern etched in the tough steel, just barely there. He held the light close and moved his head alongside the safe.
“What is it?”
“There’s something here,” Eddie said. “Some kind of pattern.”
Gong lowered the gun. He bent down and held his head close as well, close enough that Eddie smelled the sweaty stink of fear and the beer on his fetid breath. Eddie wrinkled his nose and slid back a bit. “That’s got to be it,” he said.
“Got to be what?”
“That’s what’s blocking me,” Eddie said. “I don’t know how this works, but maybe somebody does. Maybe somebody knows that there are people that can see through metal like freaking Superman. And they know how to block it.”
Gong frowned. “What, like magic?”
Eddie stared at him. “I can look through metal, Gong. What the hell do you think that is?”
“It’s called magic,” a deep voice said from behind them.
Gong spun, the pistol already coming back up. Eddie just let himself fall backward off of his haunches, against the safe, and twisted to see what was going on. He didn’t have a gun-hated guns-and wouldn’t have used it if he did. Gong was shouting something, brandishing the gun, but Eddie barely heard or saw him.
Eddie was thinking about going back to jail. Not today, he thought.