“He is my home,” she shouted, her voice edged with jagged-glass desperation.
I only had a few seconds before the spell would shatter, before she’d escape and I’d lose any hope of saving her. There was one card left to play, the words of the Lady in Red.
“What is a witch’s creed?”
She froze. The oblong grew to the size of a door, crackling with static and cold gray fog. Wide open, but she didn’t step through.
“You’re a witch,” I said, “so tell me: what is a witch’s creed?”
“Freedom,” she whispered, in a voice too soft for the power of the word. A voice that didn’t believe.
Then she plunged her arms into the gray and the spell ruptured, spitting us both into reality with a dizzying, ear-popping lurch of motion. I spilled onto hard gravel, rolling, and Caitlin’s hands caught me. She helped me up and Jennifer rushed to stand at my side.
Wind whipped by, icy and swift, and I snatched the second half of the plan—the other canvas sack, my intended destination—before it could blow off the edge of the roof.
We were on the other end of the block, up on the roof of the Siegel Suites. Fleiss looked to the distant cordon and then to the neon boneyard on the far side of a wall of cops. Her nails stretched, turning jagged and black, as she turned to face us.
“I will kill you all,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” I said. The wand flared, sensing the threat, and Caitlin and Jennifer both touched my shoulders. One riffle of canvas, a glimmer of shadow, and we were gone.
*
Caitlin was the first to burst loose on the other side, breaking free from the billowing sack in a full-on sprint. She ran, low like a panther, drawing a crackle of gunfire as she scrambled up a cold neon sign. The shooter on the makeshift catwalk had just enough time to scream before she was on him, her shark’s teeth tearing into his throat.
The distraction turned heads and bought us the two seconds we needed, popping out right on her heels. One for Jennifer to toss me the backup deck of cards she’d been holding onto, and one for me to let it fly. The cards flew in a hornet swarm toward the hostages and I twirled my wand, evoking Canton’s Multiplication. Fifty-two cards sprouted and became five hundred and twenty, forming a whirlwind. A desperate peal of bullets plowed into the cards, dropping a handful to the dust, but the hostages inside the fluttering shell were still in one piece.
Jennifer broke right, chrome gleaming in her fist. She let off two shots and a gunman’s head snapped back, blood spray trailing him down like an arc of wet rubies in the dark. I grabbed his fallen rifle, swung the barrel around, and let it rip, lighting up the park with short staccato bursts.
A thunderclap sounded from the visitor center. The cops had heard the gunfire and assumed the hostages were being executed. They were coming in.
I’m a lousy shot with a rifle, but all I had to do was keep the shooters by the exit pinned down. A ragged, wet howl off behind my left shoulder told me Caitlin was on the move, picking off anyone who tried to get close. Jennifer crouched low outside the whirlwind of cards, adding to the hail of bullets.
My rifle ran dry as white smoke erupted from the visitor-center doors. More shots echoed from that direction, the hoarse shouts of the incoming SWAT troopers ringing out over the dying groans of one of Fleiss’s men. I tossed my empty weapon to the ground and let the whirlwind fall; playing cards clattered to the pavement in a cardboard hailstorm.
Then I got on my knees next to the other hostages and laced my fingers behind my neck. Commissioner Harding was right beside me, looking like his eyes were about to jump out of his head.
“Great job,” I told him. “Getting yourself free and grabbing a gun like you did, shooting all those bad guys. You saved us all.”
The wind shifted and the white fog washed in. Sudden tears stung my eyes, and the back of my nose burned like I’d snorted a fistful of chopped red pepper. I looked to my left, seeing dark figures storm in through the smoke. And Caitlin and Jennifer, kneeling on my other side, following my lead and playing hostage. I figured I should say something pithy, but then I got a lungful of the smoke and the racking, heaving coughs began, and I couldn’t think about anything except how much I hated tear gas.
42.
Never underestimate people’s willingness to accept an obvious lie if it means they don’t have to think or work too hard. How had Earl Harding managed to slip his cuffs, overpower a gunman, steal his rifle, and kill at least six assailants without being shot? Because he was a goddamn hero, that’s why. Why did two of the bodies have .357 rounds in them, when the rifles were loaded with steel-cased 7.62? Silly question. You might as well ask why one of the corpses had his throat torn out and another was found with his chest ripped open, his shattered ribs bent outward like the bars of a broken cage.
Or better yet, don’t ask at all. Especially when the police commissioner, the mayor, and six hostages all recited the same story. Anyone who poked around beyond that would get a very firm, very brusque phone call from city hall. At the end of the day, one thing was clear: people who wanted a long and happy career didn’t ask questions, and people who toed the line got a nice, discreet bonus with their next paycheck.
My phone didn’t ring that night. Or the next day, or the next night. Teddy had just seen some impossible things, and he wasn’t ready to talk about it. I didn’t call him because…I want to say I don’t know why, but that’s not true. It was the realization that I’d managed to endanger his life just by brushing up against it.
We’d been out of each other’s worlds for over twenty years, and the day after our reunion, I put him on the Network’s radar. Now they knew I had blood in town, they knew he was leverage, and they’d shown they weren’t afraid to use him. They’d do it again if I gave them the chance.
So I couldn’t give them the chance.
The first thing I did was call up some of my Commission buddies and swap a few favors. From that moment forward, Teddy and his family were under a discreet twenty-four-hour watch by hard-eyed guardian angels with guns. I couldn’t kid myself into thinking that would be enough. If I wanted to keep Teddy clear of the Network, I had to go after them head-on. Tear the whole thing down, or at least convince them that crossing me was the most expensive mistake they could ever make.
Two days later, I got a chance to send a message. It came courtesy of Pixie, who had been tearing into Elmer Donaghy’s computer with a pair of tweezers and a microscope.
“Still haven’t cracked their messaging protocol,” she told me, “but I’m getting closer. Need more samples. I did get something, though. Right before he left his hideout, Elmer was doing some online banking. He had a discretionary account, tied to the waste-management company.”
I leaned in over her shoulder and nodded my admiration. “If it leads us to another Network front, we might just get that data you need.”
“Oh, it led somewhere, all right.”
She rattled a few keys, showed me what she’d found, and a light clicked on.
*
“Sir? Sir, you can’t go in there. Sir?”
I ignored Harding’s receptionist and pushed my way into his office with a smile. He had a wall of awards, a folded flag under glass and another standing proud in the corner, and a credenza littered with photographs of him glad-handing every celebrity he’d ever coordinated a security detail for. He pushed himself up from behind his cluttered desk, scowling at me.
“I just want to shake the hand of a hero,” I said. “You know this man saved my life? He’s a national treasure.”
“It’s fine, Dottie.” Harding waved her back. “He can come in. Briefly.”
The door swung shut behind me. He took his seat. We didn’t shake hands.