Firewall (Magic Born) (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

2064

Hayes dropped a hand to Tuyet’s neck, running his fingers through her hair. Her sobs were the only sound in the room, that and the ticking and beeping of machinery. Halif lay comatose and heavily bandaged in the bed.

“Permanent vegetative state” was the last thing he remembered the doctor saying before she left the room.

“This isn’t right.” Tuyet swept her hair from her face and looked up at him. “He should be at peace.”

“I know.” He could barely get the words out.

“This isn’t living, Dale.” She turned back to Halif and took his hand, so lifeless and still, in hers. “This is hell.”

She broke apart then and finally, after days of holding it in as best he could, Hayes let himself break with her. He gathered her in his arms and they cried together, their grief so strong it filled the small hospital room like poisonous air threatening to suffocate them both.

In time they stilled, but they clung to each other for a little while longer. A few stolen moments of solace weren’t enough. They never were. By the time Gibson knocked on the door, they were standing apart.

The warrant officer entered the room. She placed a hand on Tuyet’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

Hayes said, “Where is he?”

Gibson was reluctant to answer. “In the waiting room at the end of the hall.”

If he’d been able to feel, it might have been rage that sent him out of his friend’s hospital room and down the hall. Fury. Hatred, even. But grief had carved such a wide, deep hole in him that right in that moment, Hayes couldn’t feel anything.

Channing sat slumped in a chair wearing an expression of supreme boredom. Hayes dragged him up by the throat and shoved him against the nearest wall. “You were told to cover him. Why did you disobey orders?”

Channing struggled to free himself. “Let me go!”

Hayes squeezed harder. “Why did you leave him on his own?”

“Fuck you!” Channing kicked at Hayes, catching the side of one foot.

Hayes slid awkwardly on the slick floor, losing his grip on the other man’s throat. Footsteps sounded from behind. Hayes ignored them, raising his fist.

Gibson grabbed it and forced his arm down. “Don’t do this.” She stepped between the two men.

“Go back to the room,” Hayes said, eyes on Channing.

“This isn’t going to help Osman. You want something done, do it right.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and shook him, forced him to look at her. “Captain.”

Channing glared back at him with all the rage Hayes wouldn’t let himself feel. Just below the surface of it was something uglier.

“Captain Hayes,” Gibson said.

Hayes moved away from Gibson and spoke to Channing. “Why did you ignore a direct order and leave your team member without any cover?”

“The situation was under control. The guards were unconscious. Osman was in the system.” Channing rubbed his throat. “There was nothing more for me to do so I went to check out the storage rooms. There was no way to know that guard would wake up.”

“Which is exactly why we don’t leave them unprotected while they’re trancehacking! That’s when they’re at their most vulnerable, and you know that, you stupid fuck. That man is full of bullet holes and in a coma because of you.”

“There was no way to know!”

“You disobeyed orders and you left your teammate unprotected. You are done, Channing. I’m gonna have you brought up on charges. I’m gonna do everything I can to get you thrown out of the Rangers on your worthless ass.”

Hayes turned and walked away, ignoring the stares of medical staff and people in the waiting room. Ignoring Channing too and his sputtering, angry threats. None of that mattered. He paused outside of Halif’s room, leaned his forehead against the door. The sound of Tuyet crying softly reached him.

Channing had disobeyed orders but Hayes had given them. Instead of coordinating the op himself and sending Gibson to work with one of the witches, he’d done the same thing he always did. Gibson running the show, Halif and Channing as support, Hayes and Caron on point—that was how he always did it. He used the excuse of wanting to be in the field but it fooled few. Yes, he was better in the field than Gibson. Yes, she was better at running their mobile op command than he was. But Hayes knew deep down that he would have configured the team the same way no matter what. It allowed him to both work with Tuyet and keep Channing away from her.

There was no escaping the feeling that his hands were dirty on this too.

Hayes couldn’t go back into that room, not feeling this way. He took the elevator to the parking garage and climbed onto his bike. He’d been in such a hurry to make the meeting with the doctors, he’d grabbed the wrong helmet. The last time Halif had come over to ride the V10, he’d left his mirrorball helmet. Swearing, blinking away tears, Hayes jammed it on his head and sped away.

2067

Tuyet swung the two grocery bags into Channing, hoping the soup cans hit him in the face. She had no intention of waiting around to see. He cried out, digging his fingers into her upper arm. She twisted her body to escape his grip and pushed through the crowd.

Where the hell Channing had come from, she had no idea. One thing she was sure of: he wasn’t working with Hayes. The two men hated each other.

There would be time to figure out what was going on later. Right now she had to lose Channing and warn Hayes. She raced through an alley, peeling off her jacket as she ran and leaving it on the ground. A stream of people flowed past the mouth of the alley. She slipped into the crowd and headed in the opposite direction from where she’d come, away from her apartment.

Two blocks. Three. No sign of him. Tuyet moved as fast as she could without attracting attention from patrol officers. She swiveled her head constantly, scanning faces in the crowd. Her phone vibrated. She had it set to do that for contact from only a handful of people, so she took it from her pocket and read the new message.
Channing in city.
Can u run trace?
Too late for that now.

Tuyet spotted him half a second before he found her. A nasty grin creasing his face, he pushed and shoved his way in her direction. She looked around for options, finding none. Too many cops, way too many civilians, still too much daylight. Her best bet was to lose him again and head for the tunnels.

She took advantage of a hole in the crowd and darted across the street just before he reached her. He kept pace on the opposite side, the grin still plastered to his face. Channing was dangerous when he got reckless. It had caused problems on missions at times, but there’d always been someone to stop him from going too far. This time it would have to be her.

Three more blocks, then a side street with considerably fewer people. The sun hung low in the sky, slowly giving up its last bit of golden light for the day. The river’s industrial tang replaced the greasy smell of fried food. Tuyet glanced behind her. No sign of him, but she didn’t believe for a second that she’d lost him. She focused on the phone still clutched in one hand, sliding part of her awareness into a working trance. The vivid neon night world of cyberspace superimposed over the grunge and dirt of this sparse section of Rockenbach, too close to Riverside and its nightshade dens for anyone to consider it remotely safe. Quickly, she sent a reply to Hayes followed by an emergency beacon to Silver Wheels.

The tunnel was close, but she didn’t want to risk exposing the entrance. Channing needed to be unconscious before she made her escape.

“I know you’re out here, Caron,” he called from somewhere to her left.

She slipped around the side of an empty building missing most of one outer wall, then crouched to examine the debris on the ground. Trash, broken concrete and rebar, little bits of unidentifiable stuff. The most useful thing was a chunk of concrete big enough to hurt but still small enough to hold in one hand, with a foot of rusted rebar sticking out. She didn’t want to kill Channing though. Not unless she absolutely had to.

“Then come and get me, you little bitch!” She picked up the concrete chunk.

“Don’t you worry, I will. Been waiting a long time for this.”

“You couldn’t beat me before. What makes you think you can now?” Energy flowed beneath the ground, a river of power she itched to call to her fingertips.

“You don’t have anybody to protect you now. No Hayes to keep the big bad wolves away.”

She laughed loud enough for the sound to carry to him. “What makes you think Hayes was protecting me from you? It was the other way around, you idiot.” One good hit was all she needed, either with the concrete or magic.

Gravel crunched just a few feet away and to the right. She edged closer to the corner of the building, trailing the fingers of her left hand on the ground. All this concrete and steel would give her plenty of strength, but it was harder to draw electricity in an area where no one lived. Harder, but not impossible. She whispered words to the Enchantress and the Madman to ask for their help.

“There’s a reward for you, did you know that? Me, I don’t think you’re worth that much, but I’ll sure as hell take the money.”

The last Tuyet knew of Channing, he’d been drummed out of the Rangers and demoted. If he was serious about collecting a reward, he must not be in the service anymore. If his name had shown up in any law-enforcement rosters, Silver Wheels would have known. All that added up to Channing being a civilian with no backup.

“What’s the matter, Scotty? You broke? I’ve got a twenty I’ll give you if you’ll go away.”

“You always were such an arrogant cunt. No wonder Hayes sniffed around you like a bitch in heat. You two were just alike.”

God damn, she hated that word. She’d like to break it in half, wrap it up in hot pokers and shove them into Channing from opposite ends until they met in the middle.

“That’s right.” She turned her makeshift weapon around to carry it by the rebar, rust and dirt pressing into her palm. “We’re both better than you.” She stood and faced the direction his voice came from. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Channing stepped out from behind a ramshackle building. The years had not been good to him, his bland handsomeness washed away by signs of alcoholism. He might not have been the best agent on the team, but he still had all the training he’d needed to find her. And he had a gun with a silencer and laser sight.

Tuyet reached deep into the concrete and asphalt under her feet. “Why are you here, Channing?”

“I found you! Not some team, not your bitch Hayes. The DMS or anybody else. I. Found. You.”

The sun was finally low enough for streetlights to flicker to life, including one about twenty feet away that buzzed and shined with an old yellow bulb. She pulled its fire into her. “Congratulations. You must feel really special.”

“You all looked down on me. Not just you and Hayes. Osman and Gibson too. None of you wanted me there.”

In the distance she could hear a susurrus of noise from the main thoroughfare of Rockenbach. Conversation, music, the sound of people moving and working and living. She let that energy flow into and around her. “I’m sorry if you didn’t feel like you were invited to the cool kids’ table.”

He tapped his chest with the barrel of the gun. “I was every bit as good as the rest of you. Better, even, at plenty of things. But I didn’t play your games and kiss ass so the rest of you froze me out.”

Power lines swayed above. Old fiber optics ran below. She even managed to catch a bit of stray Wi-Fi out of the air. “We froze you out because you were an asshole. How did you find me?”

Channing laughed and shook the gun at her like an admonishing finger. “I never would have pegged you for sentimental. I always figured you were using him, you know. He wanted you, we all knew that. Some people thought you had feelings for him too, but not me. I thought you were stringing him along to get whatever you could get out of it. But then I saw that footage.”

Tuyet cocked her head. “What footage?” Magic rippled through her, snaking like a live wire. It wanted out, wanted to strike. But first she wanted to know how he found her.

“I work at Channel Four. I saw you in the crowd in some B-roll footage taken right before a march. Only it wasn’t you. It was Tina Jones.” Channing smiled. “You really surprised me with that.”

Tuyet schooled her features to betray nothing. Inside she was screaming—at herself, for being so sentimental, as he’d called it. Holding on to that glamour bracelet, wearing it sometimes, had been a huge mistake. And for what? To hold on to the past and memories of stolen moments with Hayes?

“I have to tell you two things.”

He looked at her with a quizzical expression.

“One, I’m really bored with this conversation.” She flexed her empty hand, her skin hot with the power running through her veins. “And two, you just fell for the oldest trick in the book.”

Channing snorted. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that?”

“Keep ’em talking.” Tuyet raised her hand, sending out a blast equivalent to a stun gun at dangerously close range.

It reverberated off of him, bouncing back to slam into her. The force of the blow threw her into the shattered wall behind her. She tumbled over broken brick, wood and drywall, landing on her back on a pile of debris inside the half-destroyed building. The impact knocked the breath out of her. Bright flares of white light exploded in her vision. She couldn’t move of her own volition, couldn’t control the electricity arcing through her and boosted by leftover magic she hadn’t had time to ground.

Channing had some kind of defensive magic on him.

Chapter Fifteen

Get back to your hotel before he sees you.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? She couldn’t just say,
I
need backup and here’s my location
, like a normal person. No, she had to try to take Channing on by herself.

Hayes was sure that was what her message really meant. Channing had spotted her, or she had spotted him. She wanted Hayes off the streets to keep him from being implicated in hiding her. It was nice of her to offer him an out, but he had no intention of taking it.

He opened up the magical energy app to see if it could tell him anything, wishing he’d been able to find a way to activate the GPS on her phone. With any luck, Tuyet would be able to stun Channing like she’d stunned him that first night in her apartment. The app showed magical energy spiking in an area several blocks from his present location. He texted a reply and got moving.

* * *

Every part of her body ached. Every muscle, every bone, parts she didn’t have a name for. The stabbing pain of a thousand tiny needles rolled through her. Worse than the rebounded stun shot itself, it was a product of the defensive magic.

Channing knelt with his forearms on his knees, the gun loosely held in one hand. “You’re in a bad way here, Caron.”

Tuyet tried to speak but couldn’t make her mouth work.

“Why the hell are you even here, anyway? Figured you’d be overseas somewhere.” He sighed, glancing around at the debris that littered the space. “Not that I really care. There’s people at Ranger headquarters that want to know but me, not so much. I’ll be happy to take that reward and go.”

Her phone vibrated. Channing caught the telltale sound and plucked it from her pocket. She tried to move away from his touch but her limbs wouldn’t cooperate.

“How about Thai for dinner, it says. From Ricky.” Channing gazed at her with disappointment. “So who’s Ricky? Does he know you still carry a torch for your old captain?”

Thai for dinner was a private code she and Hayes used while working undercover. He was looking for her. The stabbing turned to burning over random patches of skin. Whatever Channing had, some kind of charm or talisman, she had to get it away from him. It didn’t have the feel of magic tech, the silvery electric taste of her kind of magic. This was old-school like the glamour bracelets.

“It’s bad enough the poor guy’s going to have to watch you stand trial, but to know you found a replacement? That’s bound to sting. You know you ruined his life, right? They keep him chained to a desk now. He’ll never get another promotion, or a transfer to a better job. I guess he’s just sitting there, waiting for his thirty years to be up so he can get his retirement bennies.”

The burning subsided enough that she was able to move to her side. “You talk too much.”

“I know how much you like the sound of my voice. So how’re you doing with this? I’m not willing to carry you so it’s either you walk or I call the cops and DMS. What’s it gonna be?”

He wore no rings or bracelets. No piercings that she could see. Where was it? “What’s in it for you, Channing?” She coughed, but it felt wrong. God, now what? “You’re never getting back in the Rangers.” The last few words slurred.

Her body was going numb. From the sound of it, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Channing had probably bought the cheapest charm he could find, or he hadn’t paid close attention when told of the side effects. He’d never had much respect for what magic could do.

“That reward money, for starters,” Channing said. “Hayes took away what I cared about most when he got me busted out of the Rangers. That’s why I hope you get the death penalty, Caron.” He leaned close, his face inches from hers. “I want to take something from him.”

“It’s been three years. He doesn’t care anymore.” It was a struggle to speak but she could do it with enough effort.

“We’ll see.” Channing stood, tapping the gun against his leg. “I still cared after all this time.” He laughed as he kicked her in the stomach.

Tuyet barely felt the blow, but it still stole her breath and left her gasping.

“Come on, get up.” He nudged her with the toe of his boot. “That rebound should be wearing off by now.”

She couldn’t catch her breath and her pulse was all over the place. “It’s not working right.” Her legs wouldn’t move. Whatever had been keeping panic at bay—shock, fear, pain—was quickly dissolving.

“I’m not in the mood, Caron. Get your ass off the ground and get moving.”

Her breath would only come in short, sharp gasps. She dug her fingers into the ground and tried to drag her useless body away. She wasn’t going to die here, at the hands of someone like Channing. Not. Going. To happen.

Channing grabbed her shoulder and flipped her over. “You don’t look good. Looks like I got some bad product.” He pointed the gun at her head. “Federal trials are expensive. The reward’s for bringing you in dead or alive. Maybe I should do the taxpayers a favor and execute you right now, traitor.”

“Channing!”

Tuyet closed her eyes for a second. Relief beat back the panic, at least for a moment.

Channing whirled the gun on Hayes. “What are you doing here?”

“He was sent to arrest me,” she said. The numbness in her limbs was wearing off, replaced by darts of pain.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hayes demanded. “Why can’t she move?”

“Oh, that.” Channing glanced down at her and gestured with the gun. “It seems I got a defective defensive charm. So how ya been, Captain?”

Make him believe it
, Tuyet thought.
Sell it like you’ve never sold any cover story before
.

Hayes said, “Step away from her.”

Color leached from the edges of her vision. She blinked and the sky went gray.

“I don’t take orders from you anymore,” said Channing.

Tuyet craned her head, the effort sending sweat pouring from her skin. Hayes stared at her in horror, mouth parted, blue eyes darkened to slate thanks to her screwed-up vision. She wanted to tell him to lie. Let Channing take her in, arrest her himself. It didn’t matter because she could feel her body weakening rapidly. Dark magic worked its will on her, tainted and poisonous. All she wanted was two more minutes alone with Dale Hayes, but she wasn’t going to get it.

“No,” Hayes said. “You don’t.” He came to a crouch at her side, less than a foot from Channing, and spoke softly. “Curry or stir fry?”

Tears leaked from the sides of her eyes and rolled into her hairline. Whether from pain or sadness, she couldn’t tell. Her lungs burned from the effort of breathing and her face was numb, but she managed to force out a single word. “Curry.”

Stir fry meant serious distress. Curry was code for life or death. Hayes tackled Channing at the knees, slamming him into the broken wall.

* * *

The difference between working out in a gym and fighting for real was vast and painful and tasted of rage. Three years behind a desk fell away as Hayes let that rage engulf him. Best friend in a coma, the woman he loved in mortal danger—he had a lot of it to share with their former teammate.

Channing used the wall for leverage, kicking out with both feet. Hayes rolled to one side to avoid getting hit. They were both standing in seconds. Hayes grabbed Channing’s wrist and yanked him forward. Channing stumbled off balance, giving Hayes the chance to take the gun. It clattered into the mess of debris. Channing tried to turn his clumsy momentum into a lunge, swinging out wildly. Hayes kicked, his shin catching above the other man’s knee. Channing toppled forward. Hayes caught his arm and twisted it as he moved swiftly behind him. With his free arm, he put Channing in a chokehold. Channing flailed for several seconds, then went limp. Hayes let him drop, not caring if the bastard cracked his head on the concrete.

In the ten seconds it took to get back to Tuyet, a storm of emotion rattled in his head. Disappointment that he didn’t have the luxury to continue beating on Channing. A rueful wish that he’d trained harder in the gym to make up for not being an active Ranger anymore. But mostly fear—Tuyet was barely conscious when he reached her.

“Talk to me, Snow. What happened? What do you need?” He was afraid to touch her, not knowing what kind of injuries she had. But God, he wanted to, so he covered her hand with his and hoped it didn’t hurt her.

“Bad defensive charm. It rebounded.” Her voice was too weak.

Hayes gently gathered her in his arms. “How do we fix you?”

“It’s killing me.”

No. No, that was unacceptable. Un-fucking-acceptable. “There’s gotta be something.” He looked around, as if some idea or first-aid kit or miracle might pop out of thin air. “What about magic? Can you draw from earth for strength? Or concrete or steel?”

“The charm was natural magic, and wrong.” She coughed, a harsh, wracking sound from deep in her body. “Like whoever made it either didn’t know what they were doing or wanted to hurt people.”

“Okay, what about your magic? The streetlight, maybe.”

“You gave yourself away. Shouldn’t have done that.”

“You know people in the zone, right? Healers. Tell me how to get there, because I know you’ve got to have a way.”

“Dale, I love you.” Tears slid from her eyes.

“No! You’re not allowed to tell me you love me and then fucking die on me. God damn it, this is not happening.” He took a mental inventory of what he had on him: cell phone with magic apps, wallet with ID and twenty-three dollars in cash, a pack of gum, and—

A small but powerful stun gun in an ankle holster. Fuck. “Snow, what about electricity? Would that help, like a shot of adrenaline?”

Tuyet didn’t answer. Her eyes were closed, body limp in his arms. Still a weak pulse in her wrist. There was no time to think or debate or search for help. He laid her on the ground and rucked up his jeans leg, fingers fumbling with the strap on the ankle holster. The stun gun was small and cool in his palm. He placed his thumb on the button. “I’m not losing you, Snow.”

He pressed the stun gun to her heart and mashed the button. Electricity crackled over her torso, recognizing its like in the magic within her. Her body convulsed, mouth open wide in a silent scream. He let off the button and checked her pulse. Still weaker than he liked.

“Snow?” Black ribbons of hair had fallen across her face. He moved them out of the way, caressing her cheeks, her forehead. “Snow, can you hear me?”

He counted to thirty in his head. When she still hadn’t responded, he pressed the stun gun to her heart again. This time the blue-white lines of electricity moved over her in waves, hugging her frame and dancing from spot to spot. A noise escaped her lips.

Hayes whispered her name. She shivered. He took her hand and immediately had to drop it because of electric shock. Energy arced off her body and went anywhere it could ground, including into him. Hissing from the pain, he shook her as quickly as he could then let go. “You need to ground. Come on, Snow.”

“Too much,” she croaked.

“I know, I’m sorry. You can slap me around when you feel better. Can you move?”

“It hurts.” The last word ended with a scream and she squeezed her eyes shut, her face contorted with pain.

Blue-white light emanated from her, as if she was trancehacking without a dampener. The glow grew stronger, lines of energy arcing from her body.

“Help me. Please,” Tuyet moaned as her body lifted off the ground.

Hayes stared. He’d never seen anything like this. “What the fuck is this? What the fuck did I do to you?” He thrust his hands in his hair, rocked back on his heels.

The streetlight winked out, leaving what was coming from Tuyet as the only light. She reached for him. “I need help grounding.” The words came out slow, choppy, punctuated by pops of red witchlight in the air around her.

“What do I do?”

She dropped to the ground, crying out as she slammed into the concrete. Hayes grabbed her hand, gritting his teeth against the sensation. Her body rose again, higher this time, her limbs jerking. Every hair on his body raised and his skin pebbled into goose bumps. Something pushed against his awareness, wild and tasting of metal and rain. Lines crisscrossed his vision, the same blue-white shade that arced from Tuyet’s body. He blinked to clear the lines but instead of disappearing, they coalesced into sharp pathways on a field of inky black. Ones and zeros tumbled through space. Random words replaced the numbers. An image here and there. None of it made any sense.

Then something that did make sense came at him out of the dark—the photo of him and Tuyet on the beach, her skin dipped in gold and her hair a raven in flight, and him staring at her in rapt worship.

The photo hidden behind a password on his phone.

He was trancehacking. Somehow, someway, he was trancehacking.

“Dale!” Her voice came to him as if underwater, miles away and carried on slow currents.

Two images of her fought for dominance in his mind. In one she smiled on a faraway beach, in the other she lay helpless as magic twisted through her out of control. Surrounding both was a dark field lit by senseless words and images, background noise trying to drown out everything else. Hayes focused on the image of Tuyet on the ground, in pain, needing his help.

“Tell me what you need, Snow.”

“Hold me down. I can’t.” She screamed, face contorted. “I can’t latch on to anything solid.”

Electricity and witchlight covered her. Just holding her hand had brought the most incredible pressure to his head he’d ever felt and drawn him into the magic tearing through her system. What would holding her down do? He covered her body with his before the thought even finished. He managed to get his hands under her to cushion the fall before she came to the ground again. She still cried out, the impact not gentle. Neither was the series of electric shocks that rocketed through his body. Cursing, he pressed himself to her, trapping her between his body and the ground. A kaleidoscope of witchlight flashed around them at seizure-inducing speed. Hayes shut his eyes and dropped his head into the curve of her neck and shoulder.

The touch of her hand on his arm barely registered at first. He waited for some indication it was deliberate, rather than an accident of the convulsions. She stroked upward, slowly, then tightened her fingers around muscle. He had his answer. Releasing a breath in grateful relief, he glided his lips across the sensitive skin of her throat, more reflex than a conscious attempt at a kiss. Her body responded as if the touch burned her with pleasure, arching into him, limbs wending around his. He found her mouth with his, every nerve in his body exploding with such intense sensation that he couldn’t tell if he was feeling pleasure or pain. It went on and on, the sweet slide of her tongue and the stinging, stabbing shock of electrical current and the strange, unfamiliar something that might have been magic. It threatened to hollow him out from the core. Burn away everything but blind desire for this woman, this creature made of magic and gold and endless night.