Illusive (3 page)

“Also, East Coast cities tend to be more profitable than the Midwest,” Devon says.

Ciere yearns to tell him to shut up.

“That, too,” Guntram agrees. “And you would know about profitability, wouldn’t you? Nice job in Newark. If you hadn’t used stolen cash to book that hotel room, no one would have found you.” He holds the Polaroid between thumb and forefinger and uses it to gesture at the bobblehead.

At that moment, a voice rings out. It’s the fed, raising her voice to a middle-aged man. “Give me your tags,” the fed says.

The man scrabbles at his collar, and his hand comes up empty. “I told you,” he says heatedly, “I don’t know where they are. I think I forgot them—”

“Then you will come with me to the security office.”

The man gapes at her. “I haven’t done anything wrong. You can’t detain me.”

Wrong answer. Feds don’t back down from such obvious challenges. Predictably, this fed pulls a long baton from her belt.

By now the entire train station is watching, captivated by the drama. No one is paying attention to the two teens on the bench or the two men sitting beside them. “What do you want?” Ciere repeats.

Guntram speaks quietly. “You’re to the point. I like that in a person. Well, Ms. Kitty, it’s not all that complicated. I want the money you stole.”

“I don’t have it.” Ciere holds the puppy a little closer. “Not anymore.”

“I assumed that might be the case,” Guntram says. “But I recommend you dig the cash out of whatever hole you stashed it in. That is, unless you’d like this picture and a note slipped under the door of the nearest federal bureau’s office.”

Ciere’s jaw drops. Mobsters don’t give the feds tips. It’s unthinkable. “You wouldn’t. You’re lying.”

“I’ll be entirely honest,” Guntram says evenly. “I hate the feds. I just happen to hate poachers more.”

A sharp snap breaks through their conversation, the sound of a baton hitting flesh. Ciere winces and briefly closes her eyes. She doesn’t need to turn around to see what is happening. The fed must have gotten tired of arguing. When Ciere opens her eyes, she sees Guntram watching her. “You’re what, fifteen?” he asks.

Her lips twitch, and she barely manages to voice the correct answer: “Seventeen.”

“Too young.” Guntram’s eyes wander past Ciere to the
scene that’s taking place behind her. She hears the thud of the baton, the cries of the man, and the silence of the crowd. “You wouldn’t remember when the Allegiant Act was signed. When everyone was rounded up,” Guntram continues. “Like cattle, only with less dignity. People forced into lines, pricked with needles, tested for antibodies, and then told to wear dog tags or else they’d be considered a threat to national security.” He reaches out and his fingertip traces the silver chain encircling Ciere’s throat. Her own tags are tucked under her dress. “You’re too young,” he repeats. “Your generation can’t remember a time when we all weren’t collared. Speaking of which…”

His hand suddenly clamps around her forearm. His fingers are calloused and surprisingly warm. When she instinctively yanks back, his grip doesn’t break. Devon makes a sound like he’s choking back a shout, but Conrad’s hand clamps down on his shoulder, holding him in place. Ciere wants to thrash, to start hitting this man until he lets go, but with that fed only a few feet away, she doesn’t dare.

It’s over after barely a second. Guntram releases her and she recoils, a strange prickling running through her arm. Her wrist is heavy and cold, weighted down by a silver bracelet.

It’s smooth, the only decoration a slight indentation where someone might slip a key. It looks like any normal metal bangle. Ciere tries to pull it over her hand, but it catches. The metal rests snugly against her skin.

“This,” Guntram says, and he sounds remarkably calm, “is a little device developed for Alzheimer’s patients. Don’t bother trying to take it off.” He holds up a hand, and Ciere sees something gold glitter in his palm. “Unless you use this key, it’ll automatically begin broadcasting a signal to emergency services. For your own good, of course.” His smile is an unpleasant thing.

“That’s a tracker,” Devon says, like Ciere hasn’t already figured it out.

“We like a little insurance on our investments,” Conrad pipes up, and his deep voice sounds amused. Unlike Guntram’s, his speech carries a thick German accent.

Ciere chances one more look at the fed. She is threading zip ties around the man’s wrists. She drags him to his feet and hustles him roughly past the crowds, towing him in the direction of the security office. Only after the pair has disappeared does the chatter pick up again.

“You saw what a fed just did to a man who probably left his tags at his motel,” Guntram says evenly. “He probably took them off to shower and forgot to put them on again. Now, what do you think those same feds will do to an illusionist who walked out of a Newark bank with forty thousand dollars?”

Ciere shivers, and her fingers twine around the bracelet.

Guntram leans in. “You will give us that money, or I’ll give the feds this picture and your location.”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispers. “You don’t own that bank. Your Syndicate wasn’t hurt when I robbed it.”

Guntram rolls his shoulder. “That bank was in our territory—territory we’re investing in. And we protect our investments.”

A memory tugs at her, the voice of the old mantra Ciere has lived her life by:
Don’t let anyone see what you are, understand?

“All right,” she says.

“No,” says Devon.

“All right,” Ciere repeats. “I’ll get the money. But… I need some time.”

Guntram nods. “That’s fair.” He pulls a small tablet from his pocket and unfolds it. He glances over the screen and nods again, as if to himself. “I’ll be in this general area for a week. I assume that’s more than enough time to collect your cash?”

No.
“Yes.”

Guntram fishes something out of his jacket—a business card. A picture of a falcon in flight stretches from corner to corner, and there’s a name and number spelled out in black lettering. “You can use this to get in touch with me.” She reaches out to take the card and the tracking bracelet slips a few inches down her arm, settling in around the muscles. Her pulse beats hard against the icy metal.

W
ynnewood is one of the many Philadelphia suburbs. Like most of its neighboring townships, Wynnewood is classified as an elsec—an elite sector. The houses are all brick and stone, tall and proud, their owners competing with one another to see who can grow the most perfect lawn.

A taxi approaches the Montgomery County elsec gate, the car grinding to a halt. The gate looks like a toll station, only with armed guards. A man with an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder strides forward.

Ciere fishes her tags out. They hang from a loose chain around her neck. Other people tuck them into wallets or attach them to bracelets; she has even seen one woman who wore each dog tag as an earring. The government doesn’t care, so long as a person has their tags on them at all times.

Ciere doesn’t bother to conjure any illusions—there are too many cameras at the gate and little point in fooling the gate guards. Her ID tags will confirm her face and false name. The tags themselves are counterfeit. Kit knows a woman in Minneapolis who can create the microchips and implant the correct government codes.

This guard leans through the open window and says in an uninterested tone, “Tags?”

Ciere hands him both hers and Devon’s. His are likewise programmed to let him into any sector—the difference is that the tags are legit.

The guard flashes both sets of tags under a scanner and hands them back. “Go on through.”

The gate creaks open and the cabbie edges forward. Past the gate, it’s obvious the area is an elsec: perfectly shiny cars sit in driveways, people wearing designer clothes stroll along the sidewalk holding the leashes of designer dogs, and every house is at least three stories tall. There is no sign of homelessness or poverty—that kind of thing upsets the neighbors.

When the cabbie asks for directions, Ciere says, “Turn left onto Penn Road, then left again onto Bolsover Road.”

Kit’s house is a clone of its elsec neighbors. In other words, it’s ostentatious and worth an absolute fortune. The garden wraps around the front of the house, and while Kit’s beloved tulips are no longer in bloom, his calla lilies are. A
wrought-iron fence, evergreen trees, and Asian bamboo wall separate the house apart from its neighbors. But while the whole effect is pretty, Ciere knows from experience that poison ivy weaves through the bamboo and the wrought-iron fence holds an electrical charge capable of knocking a full-grown man off his feet. To top it off, she once saw Kit researching miniature land mines.

The house is pretty, but it’s also nearly impenetrable.

A red light blinks on the house’s gate—another one of Kit’s safeguards. Ciere waves her tags in front of the sensor and the light blinks green, the gate snapping open. “Come on,” Ciere says when Devon hesitates.

“You know he hates me,” Devon says.

“Kit doesn’t hate you,” Ciere hedges, fumbling for her house keys, when the door swings open.

Kit Copperfield is a lean man in his thirties. He has stark features with hollow cheeks, wide at the cheekbones and narrow at the chin. His red hair is long enough to brush his shoulders. Along with the house and neighborhood, his outfit gives the impression of wealth—he wears pressed slacks, a crisp white shirt, and a waistcoat. He looks like a successful businessman. From the eighteenth century.

“I told you,” he says, “to keep a low profile.”

Ciere winces. “Yeah, about that…”

Kit points his index finger at her. “You. Inside. Now.”

Ciere ducks her head and scurries through the open door.

“You,” Kit says, seeing Devon for the first time. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing a dog with you,” he adds to Ciere. He glances at the puppy in Devon’s arms. “And a pet.”

Devon edges past Kit into the foyer, keeping close to Ciere’s back.

“Copperfield,” Devon replies with a grim little smile. “Found a buyer for that Pollock yet?”

It’s an old jab. Kit fences a lot of stolen property, but he specializes in art. He collects what he can, bits taken from museums and private collections. He once mistakenly bought a counterfeit Pollock (“Number 33”), and Devon pointed it out. Devon knew because the real “Number 33” was on a wall in his father’s office. It’s still a sore point for Kit, that he hadn’t recognized the forgery immediately.

He shuts the door and locks it. “This is why I never had children,” he mutters, scowling. “Tell them to clean their rooms, and they leave their socks everywhere. Tell them to eat their vegetables, and you find them sneaking candy. Tell them to keep a low profile, and they rob a bank in the middle of Newark!”

Ciere stomps into the living room and drops her backpack by the couch. It is a gorgeously decorated room, complete with a circular staircase winding upward to the second story. Two of the rear-facing walls hold wide stretches of windows with
ironwork wrought into them. Paintings grace the rest of the walls, and the furniture is ornate and older than Devon and Ciere put together. What most people don’t know is that the front windows are tinted against outside observers, the paintings mask several safes, and most of the furniture is stolen.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t bother to tell me that Jersey is being invaded by the Gyr Syndicate,” Ciere says. “I had to find out through other channels.”

“I told you to keep your head down.”

“But if you’d given me a reason, I might have actually listened to you.” Ciere flops onto the couch and crosses her arms. “All you said was, ‘I think you should keep a low profile for a while. Safer that way.’ Instead I had to find out that the Gyr Syndicate is sniffing around on my own.”

“And would you have laid low?” Kit asks.

Ciere thinks about it. “I might have robbed a safer mark.”

Kit frowns. He carries all his emotion in his mouth—in the curve and dip of his lips. Ciere has spent years watching that mouth thin out in anger, twitch in amusement, or turn down in scorn. It’s the only way she can tell what he’s thinking. His eyes are always cold.

“At least nothing went wrong,” says Kit.

Ciere’s hand flutters to the band of metal encircling her wrist. Involuntarily, her eyes stray to the door and windows—her mind automatically cataloging how long it would take
to sprint to them. It’s a stupid response; she’s safe here. But part of her still yearns to run, to flee, to escape. She opens her mouth to tell Kit that
no, something went wrong
, but what comes out is, “Yeah. We got lucky, I guess.”

Devon starts to say something and abruptly changes his mind and clears his throat instead. “Dry throat,” he says.

Kit stands. “Let me get you both something to drink. I have a feeling this conversation will require tea.” He vanishes in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Devon and Ciere alone in the living room.

Devon rounds on Ciere. “You cheeky little liar.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Ciere hisses, dropping her voice to a whisper. “ ‘Yeah, sorry, Kit, but I’m being blackmailed by a mob boss. Got any cookies to go with our tea?’ ”

“Of course not,” Devon replies, straight-faced. “Ask for the biscuits and
then
tell him about the blackmail. I doubt he’ll be inclined to feed us when hears your news.”

Sometimes Ciere wonders what it would be like if her life were normal. If she hadn’t been vaccinated, hadn’t ended up with an immunity. If Kit really were her uncle, like he pretends to be, and Devon really just her best friend instead of her best friend/hacker/partner in crime. If this were a normal house, and its inhabitants weren’t criminals. Maybe she’d go to school like Devon, or live away from the city, or—

Or maybe her mother would be alive.

She cuts off that line of thinking as quickly as possible. Because her mother isn’t alive. Ciere isn’t normal. And Kit isn’t her uncle. He’s a crew leader, which means putting the welfare of the crew over that of the individual. If Ciere brings the wrath of the Gyr Syndicate down upon them all, Kit will have no choice but to cut her off.

“He doesn’t need to know!” She taps her foot against the hardwood floor. “We can handle this.”

“We?”

“You were the one who demanded to come along,” says Ciere. “Hey, you become a thief—you deal with the consequences.”

“Consequences like finding yourself in a river with concrete shoes?”

“Exactly. Or in our case, having the feds on our ass.” Ciere grimaces. “Actually, I think I’d prefer the concrete.”

“So we’re really not going to tell him?” Devon jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen.

Ciere thinks about how Kit’s mouth would turn down, how his eyes would fix her with that cold stare. She’s not a child—specifically, she’s not
his
child. There’s nothing like blood binding them together, and Ciere knows that no one is irreplaceable. Illusionists are rare, but it’s not like Kit couldn’t find another one eventually. The thought of being kicked out, of finding herself on the street, makes her feel sick and cold. She can’t do that again.

“No,” Ciere says firmly. “He doesn’t need to know. We’ll do his job, get paid, and then give the money to Guntram.”

“That’s our plan?”

“And it’s not open for discussion.”

Devon wisely chooses not to pursue the topic, instead scratching the puppy’s ears. The puppy thus far has been content to sit in Devon’s lap and eye the room curiously. “You notice he didn’t kick the dog outside?” Devon says. “Maybe he’s softening up. I thought we were going to have to take drastic measures to get the puppy past the front door.”

Ciere groans. “I’m sure he’ll have something to say later.” The pup, oblivious to the fact it is probably unwelcome in this house, begins chewing on its own paw.

When Kit returns, he holds a tea tray. His fingers dart over the teapot with deft precision, pouring tea into porcelain cups as thin and delicate as flower petals.

Ciere eyes her cup doubtfully. “Nothing stronger?”

“No.” Kit straightens and strides in the direction of the kitchen. He calls over his shoulder, “And don’t think I haven’t noticed the reek of smoke and booze on you. I will not have two drunkards in my house.”

This lack of alcohol is to be expected. Kit isn’t a drinker—he says it makes criminals sloppy. Ciere has always been curious about what secrets Kit might let slip while drunk, but the
one and only time Kit drank too much whiskey, he ranted about how Dada was an offense to modern art.

“That man’s sense of smell is mad,” Devon mutters, staring at his cup of tea. “He wouldn’t poison mine, right?”

“Kit wouldn’t. He’s got this thing about hospitality in his home. Honor among thieves, blah, blah, blah.”

“That’s reassuring.” Devon gives his tea another narrow-eyed look. “But I’m not a thief.”

Ciere opens her mouth to reply, but a tinny electronic jingle cuts her off.
Ding a ling ling, a ling ling ling.
It’s the sound of a default ringtone, and Devon rolls his eyes as he goes for his pocket.

“Your dad calling you again?” she asks.

Devon glances at the caller ID before pocketing the phone again. “Of course.”

“Why don’t you change the ringtone?” Ciere wrinkles her nose. “Honestly, who keeps their cell phone’s ringtone set to the default?”

“Boring people,” Kit says, gliding back into the room. He fixes Devon with a glare. “And rude people who don’t silence their phones in the presence of company.” He perches in his favorite high-backed chair and looks every inch the aristocrat he isn’t. When he speaks again, he directs the words at Ciere. “So what in the world did you want to rob a bank for?”

Ciere shrugs. “Just stocking up on some emergency cash.”

“Nice bracelet,” says Kit. “New acquistion?”

Ciere locks her expression down. She can’t afford to let him see her sudden surge of panic. “Took it from the bank teller,” she says, “along with the bobblehead. Figured I deserved a reward for a job well done.”

“I would’ve thought the money would be enough,” says Kit.

She shifts uncomfortably on the couch, feels the hard metal of the bracelet around her wrist and tries to ignore it. “The money is never enough.”

She has lost count of how much she’s squirreled away in offshore bank accounts. She allows herself a little paranoia; she knows exactly how easily a life can unravel.

After all, a sprig of lavender unraveled hers.

“So you said you had a job for us?” she says, changing the subject. “What is it? Deliveries? Message-running? Acquisitions?”

Devon snorts. “Translation, please?”

“Smuggling, acting as messengers, or more thefts,” Ciere says.

“Why couldn’t you just say that?” Devon says.

Kit’s smile freezes in place. “You,” he says coolly, “have yet to be invited to join this little undertaking.”

Ciere sets her teacup back in its saucer with more force than she should. “He’s invited,” she snaps.

Kit’s smile melts away entirely. “Ciere, what is that boy doing here?” He says “that boy” the way people say “rotting garbage.”

“He’s an eidos,” Ciere says.

“He’s a straight.” Kit turns his glare on Devon. “In fact, he’s heir to one of the most profitable investing empires in the US. He’s the straightest of the straight.”

Ciere glares right back at him. “He’s not like that. He wants out.”

“Out of wealth?” Kit scoffs. “Out of security? Of luxury? My God, what a horror that must be. Growing up in safety, even with an immunity.”

Devon raises a hand to Ciere, silencing her argument. “You can trust me. I’m not about to turn you in.”

“Well, obviously,” Kit retorts. “If you were
that
type you’d already be buried out back underneath the tulip garden. It’s not a question of your affiliations, it’s your upbringing.”

Devon looks bewildered. “My what?”

Kit laces his fingers together and sets them in his lap. “You’re not like us. Sure, you have an immunity, but you’ve never had to use it for profit. I’m sure you’ve shown off to your friends—cheated at cards a few times, memorized and sold test answers at school, but in case you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t boarding school. We’re not breaking into a teacher’s desk, and there won’t be detention if we’re caught. We take risks. We break laws. Are you ready for that?”