Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) (34 page)

I ground my teeth, irritated. She was being totally unreasonable. “It’s a safety precaution. Where I’m taking you—you can’t know its location. I’d just blindfold you, but even that’s not enough. If you have
any
sensory input—sounds, smells, directional sense—it could be extracted from you … it’d be more than unpleasant. Please.”

“No.” Her scowl deepened.

“Fine,” I said, “if you really aren’t interested I can head by a hotel and drop you off for the night, swing by and pick you up tomorrow morning.”

“You really won’t take me unless I’m comatose?”

“I know how it sounds, but this is important. Look, I’ve worked with the Guild for a long time, but I’ve always had some suspicions that not everyone there was totally above board. That’s one of the important lessons I learned during my fix-it years—bad people are everywhere, and it’s important to protect yourself. So … I took certain precautions. Came across a lot of items of power that I didn’t want to see end up in the Guild vault for one reason or other. Useful stuff and dangerous shit. Like the Crook of Winter. I can’t risk someone else finding the place.”

She looked down and fidgeted with the seat belt for a moment, before finally snapping the buckle in place and sighing in resignation. “If you mess up
anything
inside my head—anything, you hear me—the things I do to you will make Fast Hands look tame. You understand?” She paused, locking her most murderous death gaze right on me. “I’m serious.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, with a mock salute, “loud and clear. I’ll be very, very careful—you’ll wake up feeling like you had a long nap.” I opened myself to the Vis, drawing fire and life—swirling chaos and meticulous order, in equal parts—into my body, the sudden influx of power was so friggin’ exhilarating. Time slowed, taking a deep breath, my senses sharpened—I could hear Ferraro’s heartbeat, just a little too fast, smell the sweet scent of her. I exhaled and let those thoughts go, bending the power to my will.

The flows were fine things, a weave made of delicately wrought water, air, and spirit—I cast out my hand, like flicking some water free, and a few flows of blue smoke drifted free, darting into her nose and mouth like a plume of cigarette smoke.

“Sleep,” I whispered under my breath, a gentle suggestion laced with the power of Vis. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, then her head bobbed down and back up, like she was nodding off after a long day of work.

“Lean back,” I said softly, “its okay, just a little nap. Don’t fight it.”

She looked at me for a moment, groggy, eyes heavy, then nodded and leaned back in her seat, head arched back. Her eyes fluttered one last time before closing completely, her chest already rising and falling in the steady rhythm of deep sleep. I let go of the Vis and fished my iPod out of the glove box—way more handy than carrying around a crate of CDs, let me tell you—hooked it up to the stereo and put on “None of Us Are Free”, by Solomon Burke. As the funky jazz beat filled the interior, I popped the car into gear, pulled out of my spot, and cruised out of the lot, bound for the Farm.

The drive was a couple of hours along the US 50 W, with a few twists, turns, and switchbacks thrown in for good measure. There wasn’t much of a chance that someone had followed us from the Hub, but better to play it smart.

The ride was peaceful, exactly what I needed after a shitty couple of weeks—relaxing to some good tunes, out on the road surrounded by a whole lot of natural beauty. The road curved and arced around looping mountain turns, rocky hills covered with evergreens off to my right, while the lake—Blue Mesa Reservoir, a giant expanse of blue stretching into the distance—sat off to the left. I even rolled down the window for a bit, sure it was chilly, but I turned the heater on blast, and let the clean scent of mountain air fill the cab. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kinda nature purist—I like the city with its dirt and grime and life—but once in a while it’s nice to be someplace so quiet and unspoiled.

Occasionally, I’d take a peek at Ferraro as she snored softly in the seat next to me. Watching someone sleep is kind of creepy and stalkerish, I know, but it was hard not to stare a little. She was a naturally good-looking woman … but sleeping, she became more. Sleeping she transformed into something beautiful. When awake, she was so serious, weighed down by responsibility and some hard years, but asleep … well, her normal scowl vanished and she looked almost happy. It’s amazing how much a little change like that can affect things.

Eventually, the US 50 W arched over the Gunnison River and shortly after I turned left onto a cutoff road, which bobbed and weaved back into the tree-covered hills. Another ten minutes of slow and careful driving—the snow wasn’t deep, but it could make the going treacherous—and I turned right onto an unobtrusive dirt road snaking its way even further into the boonies. The access road, just wide enough for the car, hooked and wandered for about a mile before coming to a cattle fence, with a metal gate that had a “Private Property”
sign posted on its front.

On the backside of the sign was a powerful sigil, made of silver and bronze, welded into place, then painted over so it was almost unobservable to scrutiny. The ward was a costly one, but it was a powerful deterrent to Rubes and most supernatural beings alike.

Any wandering souls who happened by this way would be struck with a fear so intense it would take a seriously compelling reason to continue on. If you’ve ever found yourself driving by an old creepy house that feels like the site of a horror movie, a place where something evil is lurking, just waiting to gobble you up, then you know the feeling. It also helped that just past the fence, framed by a thicket of dying trees, sprawled the most beat-up, ghoulish-looking barn you’re ever likely to see. If there was ever a place for a monster wielding a chainsaw to lurk, the Farm was the place. The Butcher from the police station would’ve felt right at home.

I pulled the Camino over, threw it into park, got out of the car, unlocked the padlock on the gate, and swung the thing open. The barn doors were likewise locked, so I ambled over and took care of them too, before getting back into the Camino and pulling into the barn itself. Though the outside looked to be old, rotted-out timbers, it was really only illusion—a mix between regular vanilla camouflage and powerful Vis constructs. In the Hub, dwellers will often pull the same trick: disguise the outside so that folks are less likely to take a peek indoors.

The barn interior wasn’t anything special exactly, but it certainly wasn’t as dilapidated as the outside would lead you to believe. A dirt-covered floor with some old hay strewn around. A workbench along the far wall, with some ancient hand tools hanging on wall mounted brackets.

There was a loft overhead, which looked appropriately ominous and foreboding, but which was really just an empty storage space. A wheelbarrow sat in one corner amidst some digging equipment—a couple of shovels, an old pitchfork, and a rusted pickaxe. Along the left wall, covered by a heavy-duty canvass tarp, was my motorcycle: a vintage ’43 Indian custom bobber. A mean-looking cruiser in black and silver, that could’ve come right off the battlefield of World War Two.

I rarely drove it anymore—long trips gave me backaches and the Camino is just too damn comfortable—but it was nice to have a spare set of wheels just in case the need arose.

I parked the Camino right in the middle of the barn interior, killed the engine, and promptly woke Ferraro from her Vis-induced nap. Removing the weave was far easier than forming it in the first place—just a simple construct of air, which filled Ferraro’s nose and mouth, pulling bluish smoke from her like a Shop-Vac hosing up loose dirt.

She sputtered for a moment, then sat up, eyes wide and wild. “What … where, where am I?” she asked, her voice pitched with slight panic.

“Calm down.” I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, which she immediately batted away. “You’ll level out in just a second—just be calm, breathe, relax.”

“Where am I?” she asked again, glancing left and right, taking in the gloomy barn interior.

“You’ve been down for a couple of hours, everything went fine. We’re at the Farm, okay?”

“This is the farm?” she asked, sounding completely unamused. “You sent me into a magic coma, so you could haul me out to an old, rundown barn filled with some shoddy farm equipment.”

I flashed her a devious half-smile. “Just wait.” I got out of the car and motioned her to follow. I headed over for the far corner of the barn—near the back stood an old hutch, shelves filled with assorted knickknacks, old work gloves, a beat-up spade, a random length of black tubing. It looked more or less like a shelving unit full of random, useless shit, the kind of place every garage seems to have for the odds and ends you just don’t know what else to do with.

“That cabinet better have a portal to Narnia,” she said, eyeing the thing askew.

“Patience.” I pulled open an empty drawer near the bottom, empty save for a small carving deep in the wood. I wove a complicated pattern of earth and fire, which looped and twirled back in on itself—the weave had no practical application, but when I dropped the construct into the carved design, it flared to life with a flash of gold. The hutch shifted and groaned, sliding back and disappearing into the wall—below was a steel hatch, a blast door. I flipped open the cover, revealing a long set of narrow steps that sank down into the ground, into my underground bunker and fallout shelter. The Fortress of Bluestastic Solitude.

“Welcome to the Farm,” I said, feeling pretty impressed with myself.

“A bunker in the ground,” Ferraro said. “After the Hub and the Hinterlands, somehow I was expecting … more.” Lady sure knew how to deflate a guy’s sense of self.

THIRTY-ONE:

Dinner and a Movie

Ferraro changed her tune a little once we were finally inside. The front room was roughly the size of a large shipping container—a couple of small cots hung from the wall, there was a couch, television, and small dining room table with a couple of folding chairs. It also had a bookcase full of dog-eared paperbacks, a portable electronic keyboard, and a guitar resting on a stand in the corner.

At the far end of the room, a small hallway connected to another reinforced shipping container, which housed a Spartan kitchen, a bathroom, a freezer, and a pantry with lots of canned goods and freeze-dried foodstuffs. I wasn’t interested in any of that though—what I really wanted lay past the giant steel door that led from the living room into the armory. I could feel it calling to me: the Crook of Winter.

Even though it was currently secreted away behind a steel safe, with heavy-duty wards, I could still feel it calling. Pulling at me. After losing my power completely, there was a big part of me that wanted nothing more than to take up the crook and fill myself up with all the power I could hold. Fill me up so I’d never have to be empty again.

I just needed to see it. Just for a minute.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a home,” Ferraro said, staring around at the room.

“This isn’t a home.” I headed for the armory door and disarmed the Vis constructs guarding it. “It’s a hidey-hole and a weapons-depot, not a place I live.”

She crossed the living room and peeked into the kitchen. “How’d you build this place?” she called over her shoulder.

“It was easy, actually,” I said absentmindedly. “I used to have a permanent storage container in a shipyard over in San Francisco, but as my collection grew I thought better protection was in order. Plus, having a place to crash if the shit ever really started coming down seemed pragmatic. I had one of those specialty contractors who make bunkers for end of the world preppers come out and build the space for me. Since they’re used to dealing with folks who are uber prepared and occasionally distrustful, they let me pay cash and asked almost no questions. A little glamour afterwards helped the contractors forget the important details.”

“Still … how did you afford to build it?” she asked, her voice filled with skepticism—like maybe she thought there was some nefarious wrongdoing in play. “I know a bunch of people with the IRS that would love to know,” she added.

“Hey, it’s not like I’m hard up for cash, you know. I’m a lucky guy, supernaturally so. I mean, I literally work for Lady Luck now. Gambling pays the bills just fine.”

“Wait.” She stopped and looked back at me. “I don’t understand—if you have money just lying around why do you live out of an El Camino?”

I glanced at her before turning my attention back to the door. “You just don’t get it,” I said. I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to see the crook. “I don’t
want
to live in a house. I walked away from white-picket suburbia. I like living in shitty motels and gambling for beer money. That’s what I want. Not everyone has to have the same friggin’ dream, okay?” We were both silent for a beat.

“Sorry for saying anything.” She shifted her feet restlessly and looked down at the brown carpet covering the steel floor. “I wasn’t trying to offend you.”

The door clicked as the locks disengaged and swung out on silent hinges. “Want a tour of the good stuff or what?” I asked by way of an apology.

She nodded.

The room beyond was a twenty-by-twenty-foot box filled with assorted badassery of every flavor. Against the right wall hung my stock of Rube weaponry—since helping out a gunrunning biker name Gavin Morse, my collection had grown considerably.

I had mounted wall racks with just about everything a Fix-It man could ever need: a trio of M-4s, an AK, a pair of AA12 machine shotties—each equipped with a 32-shell drum and a fire rate of three-hundred rounds per minute—some pump action shotties, and a host of handguns. Berettas, Glocks, Colt 1911s, Saturday Night Specials, a few sleek .22s, and a cadre of MAC 10s.

Heck, I even had a brand spanking new M240 medium machine gun, courtesy of one of the meanest Mexican drug syndicates on the West Coast. There were also extra K-Bars, a couple of beige Flak jackets, flashbangs, frag grenades, and even a coil of razor wire. One of these days, I’d get my hands on the MK19—an automatic machine gun grenade launcher; yeah, they make those—and I’d be whole and complete.