Magic Tides

3

“…My second brother, Kody, but we call him Copper, because his hair is red, but Mommy says that all of her brothers had red hair, but it turned blond when they got to be grownups, so Copper is going to be blond for sure…”

The little girl’s name was Nika.

“…And my oldest brother, Rylee, has a German Shepherd puppy, and the puppy is named Kenobi, and his paws are this big, and he’s going to be a big dog for sure…”

There’d been no warning. We’d been walking for about 10 minutes when Nika took a deep breath and suddenly all the words came out. She hadn’t stopped talking for the better part of the hour. Something must’ve convinced her that we were okay, and she was safe, and all the fear and anxiety she’d held in since the Red Horn snatched her off the street was pouring out of her like a geyser.

“…And Kenobi will be a good protecting dog, because Kenobi is a Jedi name...”

They had played the whole series in a drive-in theater during a tech wave, and Nika’s family went to see it. We’d gone to see it too, although their sword fighting made me squeeze my eyes shut a few times.

“For sure?” I asked.

“For sure for sure.”

Once she started talking, the other kids had thawed little by little and were now listening.

“I have a dog,” the oldest boy said. His name was Caiden and he’d insisted that he knew how to ride so Thomas let him have the reins. I kept an eye on him to make sure I had time to lunge for the horse if it got spooked.

“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.

“Yeti.”

“What kind of dog is he?” Nika asked.

“He’s big and white and he has lots of fur…”

The Wilmington chapter of the Order occupied a historic firehouse on the corner of Castle and 5^th Avenue, downtown. A handsome two-story brick building, it had a tomato-red door, white trim, and four-story bell tower. Over the years, the bell had gone from useful to decorative and back to useful again. In an age where a magic wave could take out phones any second, the ability to sound the alarm without electricity was priceless.

The knights had made a few modifications, including grates on the huge downstairs windows. The pale metal bars fluoresced slightly if you squinted at them just right. Steel core plated with a thick layer of silver. Nice.

“…And Copper said that he should have a puppy too, and Daddy said…”

Thomas and I took the children off the horses.

Going to the Order hadn’t been the plan, but I had four severely traumatized children on my hands. Get in, get out, don’t mouth off, don’t lose your temper. Low profile. I knocked on the door.

“Come in!” a female voice called.

We did.

The inside of the former firehouse was clean and bright. A single room took up most of the downstairs. The walls were brick, the floor concrete sealed with white. Three desks waited, two in a row on the left, and one on the right. Bookshelves lined the walls, some holding books, the others offering a variety of ingredients, and on the left a metal rack held assorted weapons. There would be more in the armory, somewhere deeper in the building.

The two desks on the left stood empty. A woman in her fifties sat at the one on the right. She looked strong, not just muscular but solid, with a round face, sharp dark eyes, russet-brown skin, and black, curly hair, cut short and streaked lightly with gray. Claudia Ozburn, Knight-Protector and the head of this Order chapter. Curran and I had done a basic background check on who was who in Wilmington, so I knew her by reputation. She was dangerous, smart, and had, reportedly, very little tolerance for nonsense.

Claudia looked at the children, then back at me and raised her eyebrows. The kids went silent.

“We found some missing children,” I told her. “I’d like to petition the Order to return them to their parents.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the Red Horn’s human kennel.”

Claudia’s expression didn’t change. She reached into the desk drawer on her right, took out a piece of paper, and pushed it across the desk to me. “Fill this out.”

Form J-7, unaccompanied minor. In my brief stint with the Order, I had processed so many of those, I could do them in my sleep.

Claudia turned to the children. “You are now under protection of the Order of Merciful Aid. You are safe. We will take good care of you and make every effort to get you back to your parents.”

I went through the form, ticking the right boxes on autopilot, put “Kate” in the contact field with my phone number, listed the children’s names and descriptions, signed, dated, and slid the form back to her. I could’ve had Thomas do it, but it would’ve taken a lot longer. Thomas didn’t look like the type to bust down gang doors. She would’ve kept him for questioning. This was faster.

“You’ve done this before,” she said.

“On occasion.”

She studied the form. “Kate with no last name. Are you a merc?”

“Used to be.”

“Guilded?”

“Yes.”

“Which city?”

I really didn’t want to give her any more information than I had to. “Atlanta. Thank you for your assistance, Knight-Protector.”

“When I call Atlanta’s chapter, what are they going to tell me about you?”

She would call. I could tell by her expression. Claudia had a nickname in the Order. They called her the Badger because she was stubborn like one and once she got a hold of something, she wouldn’t let go.

“When you call, ask for Nick Feldman. Tell him Kate brought some kids in. He will vouch for me.”

Nick and I had our differences. He was almost a stepbrother, and Conlan called him uncle. He still thought that I was an abomination, but he and I talked before we left for Wilmington. He understood my reasons for leaving and laying low. He wouldn’t stab me in the back.

“Okay, Kate. Where are the two of you going from here?”

None of your business.

“To the Farm!” Nika piped up. “Where the undead things are! They are going to save Thomas’ son. He’s been kidnapped.”

Oy. When did she even pick all that up? Thomas and I said, like, two sentences about it, and we’d kept our voices low.

“How nice,” Claudia said. “Since you’re heading that way, will you deliver something to Barrett Shaw for us?”

I had intended to avoid Barrett Shaw like a hole in the head, but we were going to the Farm, and she would take care of the kids. There was no way to weasel out of it.

“Sure.”

Claudia rose, walked over to the small side room, and came back out with a bird cage wrapped with silver wire and covered with a cloth. She lifted the cloth for a second. Inside a small ball of light hovered like a fur pompom made of greenish glow. A will-o’-wisp. Nobody knew for sure what they were, but it took supernatural speed to catch one and a lot of knowledge to contain it. And carrying it around was a really dumb idea, because will-o’-wisps attracted all sorts of weird magical crap to themselves.

“I trust you to get it there safely.”

Kate Lennart, the Order’s errand girl, at your service. “I’ll make every effort to.”

I hugged the kids, said my goodbyes, picked up the cage, and Thomas and I escaped the office.

“You don’t look happy,” he observed.

“It could’ve gone better,” I said. “Will-o’-wisps are expensive, dangerous, and hard to catch. If some merc you didn’t know walked into your office, would you trust her to carry it across town and safely deliver it?”

“No. I’d get someone I knew to do it.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” I strapped the cage into Cuddles’ saddle bag.

Had Nick called down to Wilmington and given them a heads-up to expect me? If so, what did this errand mean? Was she trying to put me in my place? Was this a show of trust from Claudia? Was this a message to Barrett intended to communicate that I was allied with the knights? I doubted Barrett would recognize me. I’d never met him.

Maybe I was overthinking this. Maybe Claudia felt that saving Darin was a good thing, realized that the Farm would hardly welcome us with open arms, and wanted Barrett to understand that she knew why I was showing up on his doorstep.

I climbed into the saddle.

“To the Farm?” Thomas asked.

“To the Farm.”

So far I’d run into the Order, and I was about to go and throw a stick into the undead hornet nest that was the People’s base in Wilmington. I would need to mind every P and Q because if they found out who I was, I would never hear the end of it.

On paper, the Farm lay less than 5 miles away from the chapter, on the other side of the Cape Fear River. Since the Memorial Bridge was no more, the best and fastest way across the river was the ferry, which ran continuously during the daylight. If things went according to plan, we would get there in under an hour. Even in half an hour, if Thomas’ horse could keep up with Cuddles, who for unknown and probably abnormal reasons, had the gait of a Tennessee Walker and the speed of one, too.

Things didn’t go to plan.

Thomas squinted at the shady-looking captain standing by a small workboat. “What do you mean, the ferry isn’t running?”

The captain spat to the side. He wore a grimy gray sweatshirt, equally grimy khaki work pants, and old boots. A beige baseball cap with an embroidered American flag in a shape of a bass covered his hair, and a pair of ancient shades hid his eyes. He hadn’t shaved in about a week, and the dark stubble sheathing his narrow chin clearly had beard ambitions.

The workboat behind him looked about as worn and gritty as he did. A flat-bottom aluminum barge, it was about 30 feet long, with a sturdy railing along the flat deck and a narrow rectangular cabin at the stern, just big enough for the captain and maybe a couple of people. Pre-Shift, it would’ve likely hauled small cargo loads and would easily fit an average-sized truck. Today it was hauling passengers, and the deck had smears of horse manure on it.

We were on the dock, with the stubby remnants of the Memorial Bridge jutting over the river to the left of us. In front of us Cape Fear flowed, its blackwater the color of greenish pewter. A handful of boats braved the crossing, crawling to and from the other bank.

“See the purple?” The captain pointed at the purple flag flying off a mast on the remains of the Memorial bridge. “Dangerous marine life, hazardous conditions. The name’s Scully. I’ll take you across for $200.”

“That’s robbery,” Thomas ground out. “The ferry is $20.”

“Well, the ferry ain’t running, and purple flag means hazard pay. I’m takin’ a personal risk.”

“We can wait for one of those.” Thomas nodded at the boats making their way toward us.

“It ain’t gonna be cheaper,” Scully said. “Besides, I don’t see a lot there that can take on two horses.”

Cuddles wasn’t a horse, but it was beside the point. There was an edge to Thomas’ stare. He’d gotten up this morning with a definite plan: either he would get enough money together and buy his son back or he wouldn’t. He was afraid to hope for Column A and almost certain he would end up with Column B, and he had put his emotions into a steel-hard grip to cope with it. Instead, he got Column C. We were making unexpected progress toward finding Darin, and he was seeing the first glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel. His control was slipping.

Some part of Thomas still expected that he would have to pay for his son, and he was carrying his life savings on him. He was acutely aware that every dollar he spent was one dollar less for Darin’s ransom. Right now, Scully was standing between Thomas and his son, impeding our progress, and he was shaking us down. It was a very dangerous place to be.

The captain was about as trustworthy as an unpiloted vampire. The will-o’-wisp’s cage didn’t fully fit into the saddlebag, so I had settled for kind of strapping it in, and he’d glanced at it four times since we’d started talking. He was a sailor, and will-o’-wisps loved marshes. Scully would’ve seen hundreds of them in his time on the water and would know that they went for about $50K apiece. I could see the butt of a crossbow laying on the passenger bench in the boat cabin. He probably had a shotgun or a rifle in there as well.

“Make up your mind,” Scully drawled. “You want across or not?”

Any other time I would’ve waited for a safer option since I had Thomas and two mounts to guard. But we had no time. If the Red Horn had warned Onyx and he warned his buyer, our chances of finding Darin would plummet. There was a fifteen-year-old kid out there held against his will by some asshole, and gods alone knew what was happening to him while we stood on this shore.

Thomas unclenched his jaw.

I tossed a chunk of silver to the captain. Scully snapped it out of the air. Paper money was fragile, but silver was expensive and much more durable. And I’d given him about $50 more than he’d asked.

“Take us across. That’s all. Don’t get fancy. Keep the bird in hand, and your head attached to your neck.”

“Whatever you say.” Scully made a small, mocking bow. “Welcome aboard.”

I showed Cuddles a carrot, and she clopped her way onto the boat, like it was solid ground. Thomas’ horse took a bit more convincing, but in the end everyone boarded, Scully got into his cabin, and we were off.

Enchanted water motors normally made enough noise to raise the dead, but the boat motor was submerged, and the river muffled the sound to a tolerable hum. We weren’t moving very fast, but the shore was growing farther away. The green wall of smooth cordgrass sheathed the banks like a fuzzy green blanket. Something large writhed in it. Something thick and brown…

The beast slid toward the water, mashing the cordgrass aside. It resembled a giant leech, three feet thick and six feet long, with a leathery brown hide glistening with water and mud. Its blunt, eyeless head rose, swaying, as if sampling the wind. A round mouth opened, revealing a ring of rectangular nasty teeth leading to a throat studded with barbs. The beast slipped into the water.

A juvenile Tinh Đỉa, a long way off from its original home in Vietnam. Sooner or later, some merc from the local Guild would be coming down here to take care of it. Probably sooner since they grew fast, reached eighteen feet in adulthood, and ate anything that moved. Maybe the city would contract the Order to do it.

I glanced at Scully in his cabin. He’d modified the boat windshield so instead of one glass piece, he had two of them overlapping, and right now he’d slid the left half of it aside. There was only one reason for that modification. It let him shoot without leaving the safety of the cabin. It was a good plan, but a crossbow was wider than the opening, which meant his killing field was pretty narrow.

The boat slid over the dark water. The river teemed with life, and most of the magic it radiated didn’t feel friendly.

I moved over to Thomas and murmured, “Go to the right side of the boat and wander toward the cabin.”

He didn’t give any indication he had heard me.

I walked away from him toward my donkey.

Something bumped the boat in passing.

Cuddles snorted. I patted her muzzle. “I know.”

Thomas made his way toward the cabin on the right. Two more steps and he was out of Scully’s range.

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

“Giant sturgeon going upriver. Nothing to worry about,” Scully called out.

The Shift had given a lot of fauna a boost, as if it tried to compensate for the human-wrecked ecosystem. Animals, both common and magic, flourished, and fish were no exception. Atlantic sturgeon now grew to almost 20 feet and topped 1,000 pounds. They were also bottom feeders. Their spawn season was about over, which meant they should be going down river, not up. Something was driving them to the surface and away from the ocean.

The steady hum of the engine gently tapered off.

I stepped closer to the cabin, hanging to the left. I still wanted him to think he had a shot.

The engine died. I dipped my hand into the pouch on my belt and pulled out a handful of the contents in my fist.

Three, two, one…

Scully leveled a crossbow at me. A compact Ten-Point, good brand, designed to bring down medium-sized game. He’d drop a human with one shot.

“Alright, boys and girls, here’s what’s gonna happen. You bring me the wisp, pass it through this window, and hop on into the water. I’ll let your horses out on the shore.”

Thomas lunged for the cabin door, grabbed the handle, and yanked. The door remained shut. Scully had locked it.

“Go on!” Scully waved the bow at me from inside the cabin.

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or I’ll shoot you or your horse, you dumb bitch.”

“She’s not a horse. She’s a donkey.”

“What the hell do I care? Get to it.”

“You’ve thought this through?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I threw a handful of wolfsbane powder into the cabin. Wolfsbane was a shapeshifter deterrent. A shapeshifter caught in it would collapse into sneezing and coughing fits and go scent-blind for a couple of hours. It didn’t work as well on humans, but any person suddenly inhaling a cloud of talcum-fine dust would react.

A bright yellow cloud bloomed inside the cabin. Scully choked, staggered back, and sneezed. His head went forward, his crossbow dipped down, and the telltale twang announced a shot fired.

“Aaaaaaa!”

I leaned to look down. Yep. The crossbow bolt pinned his left foot to the deck of the cabin. Captain Scully, Supergenius.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Unlock the door,” I told him.

Thomas smiled.

I glanced at him.

A little light sparkled in Thomas’ eyes. “He shot himself in the foot trying to rob us. Literally.”

“Yes. Scully, unlock the door. That red puddle by your foot isn’t strawberry syrup.”

“Fuuuuck!”

“Less cursing, more unlocking, unless you want to keep bleeding.”

Scully eyed me like a cornered dog. I unsheathed Sarrat and put it to his throat through the window. “Unlock. The. Door.”

He reached over and popped the lock on Thomas’ side. Thomas got into the cabin, confiscated the crossbow, tossed it onto the deck, and unlocked my door. I came around and looked at Scully’s impaled foot. Judging by what I could see of the shaft, the head had gone clean through his foot and about two inches through the deck. Good crossbow. He was lucky the bolt was wood and not metal.

I sheathed my saber, got my knife out, grabbed the bolt just above the boot, and sliced the shaft with my knife.

Scully yowled.

“Grab him,” I told Thomas.

Thomas grabbed Scully by the shoulders.

“You’re going to lift your foot off the bolt. I’ll help you.”

I clasped his boot, and Scully jerked back. “It hurts, you dumb bitch!”

“That’s the second time you called me that. I’m going to let it slide, since you’re in pain. Don’t say it again.”

“Why don’t we leave him like this until he gets us to the other side?” Thomas suggested.

“I doubt he sterilizes his bolt heads. Who knows what nastiness rode into his foot on that bolt and is now eating him from the inside? We’re not complete savages, Thomas.”

Scully got a wild look in his eyes and grit his teeth.

“Relax your leg and count to three,” I told him.

“One…”

I yanked his foot up. The foot came free. Scully screeched. Thomas muscled him out of the cabin and onto the deck.

“Can you drive the boat?” I asked Thomas.

“Yes. My dad had one.”

“You drive, and I’ll go watch our sharpshooter friend.”

I checked the passenger bench. The storage space under it yielded a first-aid kit that might have been older than me. I took it and walked out onto the deck. Scully had managed to pick himself up and was now leaning against the rail. His foot was bleeding, and a small puddle pooled by him on the deck.

The horse ignored him, while Cuddles gave him her “kicking” eye. If she wasn’t tied at the nose of the boat, she would’ve wandered over toward the cabin and stomped on his injured foot a few times for funsies. I’d seen her take that initiative before a few times.

The boat motor started slowly.

Scully did his best to stare a hole through my face. Sadly, his eyes lacked the lasers he required.

“You ain’t shit,” he finally spat out.

“You’re right, Simo Häyhä.” He wouldn’t recognize the name. My best friend had named a rifle after him, because he was the deadliest sniper in modern history. “I’m definitely not shit. But you might be. Also, I don’t have a hole in my foot. How about you work on that wound before your blood drips into the water?”

I tossed the first-aid kit at him. He caught it and bared his teeth at me. “Fu—”

A green tentacle as thick as my thigh shot out of the river, wrapped around Scully, and yanked him toward the water. Scully dropped the medkit and grabbed onto the railing, clinging to it for dear life.

I lunged forward, Sarrat jumping into my hand almost on its own, and slashed across the tentacle. Blue blood slicked the wound. Barely broke the skin. Damn.

Four more tentacles thrust out of the river, straight up, flinging water into the air. The tentacles slapped onto the deck, one coming straight for me. I dodged left, and it crashed half a foot from me, wrapping all the way across the boat.

I sliced at the tentacle. It was like trying to cut through a car tire. I could saw through it all day and not get anywhere.

Scully howled.

The little vessel groaned, pulled sideways. Cuddles and Thomas’ horse screamed in alarm.

I kept slicing.

Thomas’ face was a pale mask in the cabin. He was spinning the wheel, but the boat kept moving sideways.

Scully’s screech hit a hysterical note.

The boat careened, shuddering, the other side of it rising out of the water.

Screw it. I drew my blade across the back of my arm, wetting it with my blood, sealing the cut the moment after it was made, and stabbed deep into the nearest tentacle. Magic buckled inside me, and I spat the words out. “Hesaad! Harrsa ut karsaran!” Mine! That which is mine, break!

The power words tore out of me in a flash of pain and magic. My blood shot through the beast and detonated.

The river exploded. Water shot straight up like a geyser to forty feet high.

The boat landed back onto the surface, rocking.

Chunks of rubbery flesh rained down around us, hitting the deck and the mounts with wet thuds. I lunged toward the front of the boat, grabbed the two sets of reins, and held on.

I had blown my low profile out of the water, and it was now raining down all around me.

Something slimy landed on my head.

We were in the middle of the river. The nearest boat was a good third of a mile away. That should’ve been enough of a distance to mask the power word usage. Right?

They might not have felt it, but they sure as hell would’ve seen the result. Curran would be thrilled. Just thrilled. At least I could repair my cuts now. In the old days I would have had to slap a bandage on my arm and then set the damn boat on fire to keep my blood from exposing me.

The chunks still kept falling. The deck was almost completely blue now.

Usually that phrase didn’t explode its targets, even with the added punch of my blood. Usually, it just broke bones. This had never happened before. There must not have been any bones for it to break. I would have to discuss it with my aunt during our bi-weekly phone call. She taught me this phrase and didn’t mention anything about aquatic creatures bursting. Kind of a crucial detail there.

The boats that were crossing the river reversed course and sped away from us.

If I’d known the monster would explode, I would’ve used something else. It was supposed to just quietly sink.

Scully gaped at me, still clutching the railing.

“This is your fault,” I told him and pulled a long, blue clump off my head.

He cringed.

“Don’t move and don’t say anything. I mean it. Not a word.”

He nodded frantically.

Ten minutes later we disembarked. As soon as we hit the dry land, Scully limped into the cabin, pulled away, made a sharp left turn, and headed up the river as fast as his boat could go.

“You have something in your hair,” Thomas said.

I picked another clump out. It felt limp like oyster meat. I tossed it into the river, took my canteen out of Cuddles’ saddle bag, and rinsed my hair.

“Better?”

“Some.”

I rinsed it a bit more.

“Low profile, huh?” Thomas said.

“Yep. Would you rather I had let that thing pull the boat under?”

He shook his head.

I pictured Curran’s face in my head. Hi, honey, I accidentally exploded some kind of baby kraken in the Cape Fear River in broad daylight in front of a dozen witnesses. Yes, I do remember that I was the one who originally insisted on the lying low thing. Yes, I do recall that you said it would never work. No, it’s not funny…

I put the cap back onto the canteen and slid it into the saddlebag. “Let’s get to the Farm while we still have some daylight left.”