Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (3 page)

“What’s going on?” she asked warily.

“The council can best explain.” He stepped away, clearing a path to the door. “I promise you, Ashley. We mean you no harm.”

She paused. “Ashe,” she said. A look of confusion moved through his eyes. “I go by Ashe. Not Ashley.”

He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. Still watching him, she walked toward the door.

The mundane forms of two sedans waited in the service drive. Inside, the wizards sat, watching Cornelius as he crossed to the second vehicle and held open the door. Hesitating briefly, she joined him by the car and then slid into the back seat, half expecting when the driver turned the ignition that the vehicle would suddenly sprout wings and fly. But the car simply started, and a moment later, the two sedans rolled out onto the main roads.

Turning, she glanced through the rear window.

Skyscrapers towered in the distance over the urban sprawl. Billboards for shops and gas stations crowded the next strata of air below, and on the roads, cars were everywhere. In a few seconds, the portal had carried them for miles, right to the edge of the city and far from any wizards that might have been following her.

Unnerved, she turned back around. The fabric seats itched beneath her and she shifted uncomfortably. Glancing down, she caught sight of dust and cedar chips still flecking her jeans from the dash through the pet store.

A humored smile touched her face, dying almost instantly. She wondered if Bus and Spider had gotten out of town alright.

Pain rose at the question, and she tried to push the thought away. She’d see them again. Once this was done, once she’d finished what Carter asked, she’d head straight back to the Abbey or wherever the Hunters were staying. And the rest was nothing. Together or separate, those two were tougher than she’d ever hope to be.

They’d be fine.

With dirt-smudged hands, she brushed the dust from her legs as her gaze rose to the window. Up ahead, Cornelius quietly ordered the driver to take the next onramp and silently, the man complied. Cars swept around them, racing for the highway, and the two sedans accelerated, joining the throng. In the distance behind them, the skyscrapers faded into the smog.

Exhaling slowly, Ashe tucked the gun beneath her jacket and tried to remain calm as the cars sped northward, deep into wizard territory.

*****

At one o’clock, the Rio Dulce hotel was solely occupied by those few travelers unlucky enough to have reserved more than a single night’s stay, and the ostensible housekeeping staff, most of whom were taking a cigarette break by the building’s side. Over the years, the hotel had changed hands so many times that locals had long since stopped keeping track of the current name, and from the look of the cheap vinyl sign covering the old marquis, even the present owners weren’t holding out much hope for this incarnation’s longevity.

Shoving his car door closed, Harris eyed the building skeptically. It didn’t seem the kind of place a businessman like Jamison would choose for a meeting, but maybe that was the point. Ritzy hotels in better parts of town would have more traffic, and thus more chance for discovery.

But still, this place was a dump.

He strode across the parking lot and then pulled open the front door, trying to ignore the sticky palm prints coating the glass. At the desk, the young clerk barely looked up from her computer as the door announced his entrance with a sad ding. The reek of cleaning solution filled the air, though the stained carpets and grimy windows gave no evidence of where the substances had been used. Down an adjoining hallway, shrieking children with beach towels clutched in their chubby arms raced pell-mell for the pool area, while two bored-looking adults sauntered after them, occasionally shouting hypocritical reprimands to stay quiet.

Grimacing at the noise, he glanced around. Beyond the sagging couches in the lobby, Simeon leaned against the wall, talking softly into his cell. A door waited beside him, the sign above it designating the space beyond as the hotel conference room. At the sight of Harris, the man nodded to the door before returning to his call.

Without a word, Harris walked past him.

Nearly two dozen people milled around inside, talking quietly. On the opposite end of the room, a chipped wooden podium faced the rows of metal folding chairs that filled the rest of the space. Obliquely, he watched the other people as he lowered himself onto a creaking seat, and then shifted uncomfortably as the uneven legs made the chair rock.

Only a few of the room’s occupants glanced to him, their expressions almost uniformly wary, before returning to their hushed conversations.

His brow drew down. The suspicion shouldn’t have been warranted. After all, Simeon had let him in here same as them. But then, he supposed they hadn’t gotten this far in fighting Ashley’s people by being instantly trusting.

He looked back to the front as another door opened, admitting Jamison into the room. Immediately, the others dropped whatever they’d been saying and took their seats while, with a face that could have been chipped from granite, Jamison approached the podium.

Harris’ jaw tightened. From the man’s expression, there seemed a good chance Brogan had died.

“Thank you for coming,” Jamison said levelly. He flicked a switch to cue the ceiling projector and then glanced back at the screen on the wall. A picture appeared, grainy and oversaturated. Harris recognized it. He’d taken the shot with his cell only a couple days before.

“Cole Jamison,” the man continued. “My son. As some of you know, Taliesin took him from me. Now we have the chance to take him back. Obviously, I wish him unharmed. The same goes for the little girl who may still be in his company. Any others may be killed if necessary, though bringing them in for questioning would be preferable. And, of course, the reward for his retrieval will be… considerable.”

A low murmur of chuckles rose and fell around Harris at the man’s words.

“He was most recently seen in Monfort two days ago with this child.” The security camera photo of the little girl appeared. “His captors have gone by the name ‘Smith’, and he may also be using that name rather than his own…”

Harris struggled not to feel like an impatient schoolboy as Jamison’s lecture went on, empty of any mention of Ashley, Brogan or anything else he didn’t already know.

“Simeon has information on the specific areas I wish you to target,” Jamison concluded. “Any questions can be directed to him.”

Without another word, he headed for the door, while the others broke off into their groups as before. Incredulous, Harris rose and hurried toward the front.

“Mr. Jamison,” he called.

The man paused, glancing back.

“Is that it?” Harris asked.

Impatience flickered beneath Jamison’s emotionless visage, and he turned to the door again.

“Isn’t there any word on Brogan?” Harris pressed. “Ashley? Anything?”

“Brogan’s alive,” Jamison told him shortly. “For now.”

“And Ashley?”

Jamison’s eyes went to Simeon, and the ponytailed man stepped between them. “You have your instructions,” Jamison said.

Harris moved to avoid the other man. “I’m not going after your son.”

With a hand on the doorknob, Jamison paused, and then his head turned back to Harris. His eyebrow rose eloquently.

“I’ve been thinking about something Brogan told me,” Harris continued. “About the fact wizards don’t know I can see them. They don’t think I’m a threat, Mr. Jamison. But your son does. I didn’t get a chance to explain anything to him in the car, and from his reaction, I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m one of the bad guys. I don’t want to be a liability to you, but if I go after Cole, I guarantee you he’ll run when he sees me.”

Jamison watched him, his face unreadable, but Harris could feel the tension building in the man.

“But Ashley won’t,” Harris persisted. “She might remember me, but she won’t run. Hell,” he added, trying to keep the anger from his voice and only partly succeeding, “she probably won’t even care I’m there. You’ve got this whole group going after Cole. But someone needs to stop Ashley too, before anybody else gets hurt. That’s where I can do the most good right now.”

Jamison said nothing, and Harris fought to keep his irritation down. He resented needing the man’s permission, but as the morning progressed, he’d been forced to admit the reality of the situation. This man and his associates held the purse strings. Brogan had paid for his search for the kids after the police department had put him on leave, and wandering off the reservation without at least a nod in Jamison’s direction would presumably bring his investigation to a rather bankrupt halt.

Even if it’s what they wanted anyway. Even if it made the most sense. But this was a deeply personal issue to Jamison, for all that he acted like a paragon of impassivity, and Harris didn’t want to bet on the man’s understanding if he just left without an explanation. Not where Cole was concerned.

His mouth tightening, Jamison nodded and then glanced to Simeon. From his pocket, the ponytailed man took out a pen and business card, and scribbled something down before handing the latter to Harris.

“Her last known location,” Jamison said. “And Simeon’s phone number, in case you find anything. Not much is left, but one of her wizard associates inadvertently alerted us to the location by using their magic to travel there as we were passing by, so she may still be hiding in the vicinity.”

Though it felt annoyingly submissive, Harris nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Jamison.”

With a distracted gesture of acknowledgement, Jamison disappeared through the door, leaving Simeon to tend to the others still in the room.

Ignoring them all, Harris made a beeline for the exit. At the desk, the clerk glanced up and then gave him an odd look, as though questioning why he’d been in the conference room. Crossing the lobby quickly, he slipped past the door before she could speak.

The drive home flew by and he barely noticed when the front door slammed behind him as he headed for the bedroom. Yanking open the closet, he scanned the shelves and then tugged down his suitcase, coughing as a wave of dust descended with the luggage. Grimacing, he swung the bag onto the bed, and then tossed a few shirts over to join it.

With shirts and pants shoved haphazardly into the suitcase, he hauled the bag out to the living room and dropped it by the door while he surveyed the apartment to see if he was forgetting anything.

His eyes came to rest on the box from Brogan, left sitting on the table for the past month. Between the cardboard flaps, he could see the duplicate badge – a replacement for the one taken by the department – lying half-covered by packing peanuts, same as it had been since he first tossed the thing back after opening the box. Being paid as a private investigator was one thing. Overtly faking credentials he no longer possessed fell into a whole other category.

Absently, his hand moved to check his gun.

That was different. The gun meant protection for the innocent. It was a weapon, but he was trained and he had a permit. And as for everything else, he’d never explicitly told anyone he was still on active duty. But if he took the badge…

He grimaced. He was splitting hairs, possibly microscopically. Each was as bad as the other in its own right, and all the rationalization in the world wouldn’t make that change.

But then, maybe that wasn’t the point. Like it or not, he’d need all the help he could get.

A few weeks ago, there’d been a time when he could still see the lines, and still believed that he could do this without irrevocably crossing them. And then a bunch of wizards turned an abandoned gas station into World War Three and a teenage girl brought a building down on a man twice her size. People with far more advantages than he could ever claim were fighting an invisible war in which he’d scarcely be noticed as a casualty, and not a single person in what he’d call the ‘real world’ would ever believe him enough to help him bring that war to an end.

He crossed the room. His hand wrapped around the badge.

It was illegal. Immoral too. He’d taken an oath to uphold the law, and this certainly wasn’t it.

His life had never been black and white, but it’d also never been this gray.

And he’d need every bit of help he could get.

Shoving the badge into his pocket, he headed for the door. He snatched the suitcase from the ground, hefted it into the hall, and then pulled the door closed. Across the corridor, the door to the neighboring apartment swung back, and the old woman from number six stepped out.

“Oh, John,” she said, startled. “Are you going somewhere?”

Harris nodded. “Something came up out east. Not sure how long I’ll be gone, though. Would you mind keeping an eye on the place for me, Mrs. Pulaski?”

“Of course,” she said pleasantly.

He lifted the bag and started down the hall.

“Have a safe trip,” she called after him.

He didn’t answer. With what he knew he was heading into, there wasn’t much point.

Exhaustion pulled at her as the hours crept by. Unmoving on the sedan’s back seat, she watched farms and grasslands blur endlessly into billboards and nameless towns. Gray clouds drifted by, pierced by intermittent sunbeams. Ignored since the meager meal of canned food the night before, her stomach chewed itself and made her head throb in rhythm with the growl of the tires on the road.

In the passenger seat, Cornelius pulled out his cell, answering yet another call in a voice too low to hear. A sound of frustration escaped him this time, and numbly, she glanced toward the front.

He returned the phone to his coat pocket without a word.

Ashe’s brow furrowed. As she looked back to the window, she caught sight of the driver. With the build of a human mountain and a stone-like visage to match, he was watching her in the rearview mirror.

Uncomfortable, she turned away.

Silence fell back over the car. The sun slid along behind the overcast sky while gradually, office parks and automotive stores took the place of farmland again.