Master of None (17 page)

“Hands out, please,” he said.

I complied with a frown and tried to figure out what kind of thug said
please.

He tossed the clipboard in my direction. Like an idiot, I grabbed it out of the air. Maybe I could use it as a shield if he fired on me. It might slow a bullet down by half a second.

“I take it your name isn’t George,” I said, deliberately not looking in the direction Ian should be.
Do something, damn it.

“No. It’s Quaid. And you’re a hard man to find, Mr. Donatti.” He reached behind his back and produced a set of handcuffs. “You do know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Trevor’s too good to come after me himself. You know, I thought he’d be running out of thugs by now.”

His confusion lasted only an instant. “Maybe you should be grateful I found you before these thugs,” he said calmly. “I’m collecting you for theft. You’ll probably be safer in jail.”

Shit. If he was a cop, he would’ve flashed a badge by now. And he’d said collect, not arrest. That left exactly one possibility. “You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Actually, I prefer the term ‘bail enforcement agent,’ though technically you’re not a skip. There’s a fairly large personal reward being offered for you by the rightful owner of a copper dagger, which is currently in your possession.” Quaid flicked open a cuff one-handed. “I don’t suppose you’re going to come quietly.”

I decided to skip the small talk and smashed the clipboard down on his gun hand.

The gun thumped to the floor. I shoved Quaid hard and kicked the weapon away. By the time I realized the bounty hunter hadn’t moved much, he’d found a new weapon—handcuffs that doubled as brass knuckles. His metal-enhanced fist felt like a wrecking ball when it rammed my gut. I dropped, gasping, and tried to scuttle back.

That was when the pepper spray hit my chest.

I didn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe enough to get sound out. I had time to wonder why he hadn’t gone for my eyes before I realized it didn’t matter. My face was on fire, and the tears streaming from my eyes weren’t putting it out. Burning mucus streamed from my nose. I would’ve been disgusted if it hadn’t hurt so much.

Something—probably a foot—pushed me flat on the floor. A hand grabbed my wrist and forced my arm back.

“Release him.” The voice wasn’t Quaid’s.

To his credit, the bounty hunter didn’t react strongly to
what must have been the startling sight of Ian materializing out of nothing. He did, however, release me.

“Took you long enough,” I panted. Righting myself proved difficult, but I managed to gain my feet. Fuzzy shapes swam before my eyes. I swiped a palm under my nose and cringed. “Can you cuff him to something?” My voice wheezed from my swollen throat. I hoped I’d articulated enough for him to understand. I heard footsteps, then clanks and clicks.

“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” Quaid said, still as calm as a hot bath. “I’ll find you again. It would be much simpler for you to just give up now. I’ll go easier on you than your thugs or the police.”

I shook my head and blinked a few times. My eyes refused to stop tearing, but my vision cleared a little. Now the smudges had different colors. Ian had chained the bounty hunter to the headboard of the first bed in the room. He sat on the floor, watching both of us with an expression that suggested he actually expected me to take him seriously. It creeped me out.

“Sorry, Quaid,” I said. “I’m really busy right now. You’ll just have to bust me later, okay?”

He nodded once. “I’ll take you up on that, Mr. Donatti.”

I turned toward a blurred, Ian-shaped smudge and wished for a tissue. “Let’s get out of here. Where’s the door?”

Ian grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. The door closed. “Why did you not tell me about this man?” he said.

“I thought he’d make a fun surprise,” I snapped. “Christ, Ian, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Why’d you wait so long to stop him?”

“You seemed to have things under control.”

“Right. Before or after he pulled the gun?” I took a few
steps and walked straight into a light pole that jumped in front of me. “Crud.” I rubbed my forehead. “Who put that thing there?”

Something resembling a laugh escaped Ian. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks.” I sidestepped the pole and headed for a big dark blur I assumed was the parking lot. A click sounded behind me. I spun around and fell against Ian. He grabbed me but didn’t let go.

Quaid stood on the sidewalk just outside the room, frowning at us. He’d retrieved the gun. Crud. Why hadn’t I thought to tell Ian to get his keys? I almost said something before I realized we were probably invisible. Assuming this was the same deal as the wolf, I figured we’d be all right if I kept my big mouth shut.

Still, the bounty hunter seemed to be looking right at us. Quaid stood motionless in front of the door. His nostrils flared a few times, almost as though he was smelling for us, like a dog. He glanced to both sides, moved forward, and raised his gun.

I couldn’t tell whether he had a bead on us. And I didn’t want to find out.

Ian tensed and jumped, hauling me into the air like an arcade crane machine extracting a stuffed prize. Oh, good. And me without my barf bag. I indulged in a few seconds of hating him for flying off like this, but the bullet that passed just under my feet changed my mind.

This time, we didn’t make it far. Ian wobbled through the air, no more than twenty feet above the ground. He brought us down in a patch of woods within sight of the hotel and let go considerably sooner than I expected.

Falling five feet wouldn’t have hurt so much if I’d known
it was coming. My face wasn’t designed for shock absorption. Ian saved himself from a stern lecture by crashing down next to me in what looked like a more uncomfortable position, mostly because of the broken stump he bounced off before coming to rest in a crooked heap.

I moaned. Ian didn’t.

I scrambled up, moved to him, and tried to check for visible damage. Not that I had much in the way of visibility. No blood was apparent, but he’d taken on that Charlie Chaplin pallor again. I crouched and said, “Hey. Do you need, uh, contact or something?”

He opened his eyes. “I cannot amplify . . . what is not there.” He sounded as if he’d run the Boston Marathon.

“What?” I rocked back and stared at him. “You mean you don’t have any mojo? Why?”

Ian shifted an arm and pushed himself into a seated sprawl. “Sustaining a portal between realms requires a massive amount of power. I have just done it twice.”

“How do you get it back?”

“Time.”

Perfect. The one thing we definitely didn’t have. “Okay. Did that guy see us back there? I mean, we were invisible, right?”

“Yes. And I do not think he could actually see us. He seemed to be tracking with other senses. Or perhaps he is simply lucky.”

“Great.” At once, Quaid had moved out of fringe worry territory and approached full-blown threat. I shifted until I could almost see the motel. The blurring had more or less eased, and now everything resembled a double-exposed photo taken with too much flash. A figure that had to be Quaid approached our
spit of trees. He moved slowly. Ambled, really. As if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Can you walk?”

“Probably.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.” I offered a hand, but he ignored it and stood on his own.

The last thing I wanted was to move around, but hiding out here would be like trying to get lost in a post office lobby. “We need wheels,” I announced.

Ian gave me a doubtful look. “Your woman’s van will be recognized. We cannot risk it.”

“I know. We’re gonna have to boost a car.”

“You want to steal one?”

“Yeah. Like, now.”

“Fine.” Ian sighed. “Does it not bother you to steal from other people?”

“Look, we don’t have time for an ethics lecture.” I shoved him in the opposite direction from the hotel. “I’m a thief. It’s what I do. Besides, I’d never steal from somebody who couldn’t afford it.”

“How admirable of you.”

“That’s me. A modern-day Robin Hood. Come on.”

We set off south, toward the smell of money and away from Quaid, sticking to the fringe of woods. The usual little prickle from my conscience had become a full-blown chafing, thanks to Ian’s reprimand. Stealing had never bothered me before.

I decided to hate him for a while. It made me feel better.

A good fifteen minutes passed bounty-hunter-free. Ian looked a few shades better, and I could almost see the edges of the world again. I glanced behind us, didn’t spot any movement.
Then again, my vision wasn’t exactly a hundred percent.

“Ian,” I said softly. “Is he still close?”

Ian blinked and tossed a look over his shoulder. “I do not see anyone.”

“Good. Maybe he gave up.” Doubtful. Still, I managed to drop my guard a bit. “Soon as we hit civilization, we’ll grab a ride.”

“Wonderful. While we are stealing cars, perhaps we should rob a bank as well.”

“Shut up. You can’t fly, you don’t have enough juice to disguise the van, and we can’t walk clear of the danger zone.”

Our path had drifted closer to the narrow access road leading out of the travel center. In the distance ahead, a series of squarish blobs suggested a commercial district. Perfect.

Something hummed nearby. Tires on pavement. I twisted around, squinted back, and saw a vehicle I couldn’t identify bearing down on us. Instinct suggested this was Quaid.

The shot fired from the front window confirmed my hunch.

“Move!” I grabbed Ian and pulled him along, full speed away from the road. The scruff of trees thinned and stopped altogether, and soon we were pounding over the soggy ground of a pseudo-swamp. Dead bushes bleached to skeletal sticks thrust from the ground at irregular intervals. I didn’t bother avoiding them. Cold muck splashed my jeans, and the occasional hard step sprayed droplets in my face, adding to the already delightful blend of dried tears and snot. The stench threatened to close my throat permanently.

I kept half an ear out for the sound of Quaid crashing through behind us. Didn’t hear him, but my own heart pounded loud enough to drown a rock concert.

Eventually, I lost forward momentum when Ian came to a
dead halt. I jerked the arm I still held and damned near went facedown in the mud.

“Stop, thief,” Ian whispered. “Be silent. Even if he catches up to us, he cannot see us.”

I stared at my hand, his arm. The invisibility sheen surrounded us, as it had back at Trevor’s. “Thought you didn’t have any power left,” I whispered back.

“I do not. You are doing this.”

“Holy—” I clamped my mouth shut, afraid I’d break whatever I was doing if I kept yapping. Slowly, I turned my head back in the direction of the road. A figure I assumed to be Quaid was moving away. He’d almost reached the trees and his car beyond them.

I watched until the car disappeared from sight and let go of Ian. “Damn. Wish I knew how that worked. It’d be a hell of a lot handier if I could control it.”

“No doubt it would assist you with your work,” Ian said. This time, he didn’t sound quite so pissed.

I smirked and took in the drying filth that coated me from the waist down. “I don’t suppose you could conjure up a shower?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. Let’s get out of here.”

Despite my hatred of flying, I probably wouldn’t have minded levitating a little. Walking back through the swamp sucked worse than running.

S
MALL
TOWNS NEVER CEASED TO AMAZE ME. OUT OF THE FOUR
cars parked behind a little diner down the road from the hotel, three were unlocked. I decided on the newer Acura sedan, because it looked just expensive enough to carry theft insurance,
and lured Ian into the passenger seat with a promise to make sure the owner got it back after we’d escaped with our lives.

How I’d keep that promise, I had no idea. I only hoped we’d survive long enough to figure it out.

I opened the driver’s door and shoved the seat all the way back. “Do me a favor,” I said, rummaging through pockets for the butterfly. “Tell me if anybody comes out of there. This shouldn’t take long.”

Ian stared down at me. “What are you doing?”

“Baking a cake.” I found the blade and pried the cover off the steering column. “What’s it look like? I’m getting the damned car started.”

“Must you break it to get it started?”

“Will you just shut up and play lookout? We’re not gonna get very far if we get arrested.”

“Fine.”

Under the weight of Ian’s we-do-not-approve vibe, I stripped and twisted the red wires together, then exposed the ignition wire and sparked it. The engine revved and stopped twice before it finally caught. I climbed in and pumped the gas a few times, glanced at Ian. “Seatbelt,” I said.

He fastened it with slow deliberation. “It seems superfluous to follow traffic laws when you are stealing a vehicle.”

“Yeah, well, safety first.” I adjusted the seat and buckled my own. “Let’s roll.”

We made it onto the road without incident. I headed for the Thruway but changed my mind halfway there. Easier for cops to spot a stolen vehicle on an open highway—and my luck dictated that if we got pulled over, the jake would be on Trevor’s payroll. Instead, I hit Route 31 and swung east, hoping for a bright idea about where the hell to end up.

Wherever it was, it couldn’t be far. With zero sleep in forty-eight hours and my stint in Trevor’s basement, not to mention pepper spray, stimulating romps through woods and swamps, and a handful of Ian-induced adrenalin spikes, I’d passed empty six crises ago.

I glanced at Ian. His color had more or less returned, and he looked as normal as I supposed a djinn in a human suit could. “Hey. You know how to drive?”

Ian frowned. “Why?”

“Because I can’t see too well, and I’m beat. Any minute, I’m going to start weaving all over the road, and we’ll attract unwanted attention, if I don’t ram us into something first.”

“Oh. Perhaps we should find a place to rest, then.”

“So you can’t drive?”

“No.”

“Great.” I leaned over and switched the AC on full blast. Frigid air poured from the vents as if it was being piped straight from Alaska. “I need coffee or something. Tell me if you see a Dunkin’ Donuts.”