Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (23 page)

“Do you have any idea where Calvin put the Xenen artifact he bought from Fark?” Everett asked Cameron.

“Inside a locked vault in the back office,” Terra said. “He knew how much it was worth.”

“Yes,” agreed Cameron. “Your power of Memory seems to be working.”

“By itself, it is.” She walked toward the back of the shop, Everett and Cameron following close behind her as she stepped into the office. “And I think you’re right about the serum mixture, Cameron. If we cut the amount of the accentuating agents to—”

Terra ducked down, and the clang of a fist hitting a metal file cabinet resounded through the room. The big man who’d attacked her didn’t let out so much as a gasp, even though punching the filing cabinet must have really hurt. He turned around, his eyes focusing on Terra. Now, she wasn’t a short woman by any means, but this giant towered two full heads over her. He didn’t seem too concerned that she was Elition either. He probably figured being so much bigger was advantage enough.

Three more men filed into the room. None of them were as tall as Big Boy, but they were tall enough. They were also wide. Like as wide as the doorway. It was almost amusing to watch them squeeze inside. Almost. It was hard to laugh when there were four subscribers to the School of Pain standing between Everett and the only path of escape.

“What are you three doing back here?” Big Boy demanded, his voice every bit as deep and thick as Everett had imagined.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He lumbered forward, his giant lobster fists ready. Everett dodged the punch aimed at his head, but it brushed against his shoulder. He stumbled forward from the impact. He’d only caught the tail end of the punch, and it had nearly sent him to his knees. This was not good.

He was trying to scrape together a better strategy when a burst of wind blasted past him, smacking hard against the four muscle men. The blast knocked them against the wall. Three of them passed out from the impact, but not Big Boy. He was far too stubborn.

“Uh, Terra?” Everett said as the enraged man stomped toward them. “I think you need to hit him again.”

“My energy is running low. Those mind blasts actually take a lot of power. Give me a minute.”

Everett didn’t think they had a minute. Being thrown against the wall had clearly affected Big Boy, just not enough to knock him out. He staggered forward, his steps heavy and uneven. Maybe they had a chance. But Terra wasn’t any help at the moment; she stood leaning against the wall, breathing deeply, eyes dazed. Beside her, Cameron stared up at Big Boy with wide eyes. He didn’t even seem to remember that he had a fighting staff on him.

So that left just Everett. Big Boy thundered forward, his legs spread wide to steady his floundering steps. He didn’t appear to have much left in him. If Everett could hit him hard enough, he would go down. Maybe. A kick to the head might do it. But Big Boy was tall, and unlike Elitions, Everett was not a master of gravity-defying gymnastics. He’d have to get him lower…

As Big Boy replayed his one attack—a stone-fisted punch—Everett slipped aside and struck low. Big Boy might have been slow, but not when it came to protecting his groin. His hand shot out to protect it. Everett hit the hand, slamming it against the very area it had meant to protect. Big Boy crumpled over, and Everett kicked him in the head. He collapsed, finally out.

Everett looked over at Terra, who was standing on her own again. Cameron stood beside her, gaping at Big Boy’s body.

“Let’s find what we’ve come for,” Everett said, rubbing his shoulder. It hadn’t enjoyed meeting Big Boy’s fist. There was probably already a huge bruise forming under his shirt. He wasn’t about to peek now, though. There was no need to be grotesque when there was work to do.

“He put it in here,” Cameron said, tapping the handle of a vault lodged inside the wall.

Everett took a closer look at the door. He had no trouble bypassing normal locks, but he hadn’t done many vaults. That was a whole other level above lock-picking, a level beyond his abilities. He was about to try anyway when Terra spoke.

“Don’t bother.” She pressed her palm against the door. “It’s not in there anymore.”

“Then where is it?” Everett asked.

Cameron opened his mouth to speak, but he never got a word out. A bullet split through the room, taking him in the shoulder. Everett spun around. A man in a giant hat stood in the doorway, the barrel of his gun staring them down.

“The next one goes through your head,” he drawled. “Unless you start talking and tell me what the hell you’re doing in my shop.”

* * *

527AX January 18, Lear

The beaded tassels dangled from Calvin’s hat, making it look like he had a giant garish lampshade planted on his head. They swayed and dinged as the beads bounced against one another. That didn’t appear to bother Calvin, though Everett wondered how he could even see past the clinking curtain across his forehead. Though if the bullet in Cameron’s shoulder was any indication, he could see just fine.

“Speak, thieves.”

Everett took a step forward, his hands raised in the air. “We aren’t thieves, Mr. Calvin.”

“That ain’t what it looks like to me, sonny.” He dipped his chin to his gun. “Or to Josie here.”

He’d named his gun. Charming.

“It looks to us like you’re all poking your noses back here where you don’t belong. Maybe you’re after my jewels, the ones worn by my dearly departed Josie.” His wrinkled face hardened. “Well, I can’t allow that.”

Not only had the man named his gun, he’d named it after his dead wife. That was almost romantic—well, if it hadn’t been sort of creepy too.

“We have no interest in your jewels, Mr. Calvin,” Everett assured him. “We’re investigators, not thieves.”

Ok, so that wasn’t entirely true. In fact, they’d just stolen a set of jewels, ones worth a million times more than whatever Calvin had stashed away inside his measly vault. Everett didn’t think telling him about their theft of the Selpe imperial jewels would inspire any confidence, though. It certainly wouldn’t make Calvin decide to lower his gun.

“You don’t look like law enforcement,” he said, suspicion tightening his finger on the trigger.

“We’re private.”

“Tell your associates to come on out of the shadows where I can see ’em. Then I might think about what you’re saying.”

Cameron and Terra stepped forward, stopping on either side of Everett. Calvin’s eyes grew wide when he saw that they were Elition. They grew wider yet when he got a closer look at Terra. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

“That’s…” His mouth dropped open. “Do you know who you’ve got there? That’s Emperor Selpe’s wife.”

Terra frowned at him. “I have a name, you know.”

“Terra Cross. Your posters are all over Lear. And Seastone too. I saw them last month when I was there.”

“They are everywhere.”

“On Seastone, there were even Selpe soldiers handing out papers. Here, let me see if I can find one.” He went over to his desk, and pulled a sheet of twice-folded paper out of a drawer. All the while, he hadn’t dropped his gun. “Here it is.” He unfolded the sheet and handed it to Terra. “Bringing you in is worth a whopping five hundred thousand Crowns.” He whistled. “That’s sure a lot of money.”

Terra glared down at the sheet in her hands, and it burst into confetti.

Calvin backed up a step. “The posters didn’t mention you could do
that
.”

“Only when she’s really angry,” Cameron said.

“You look familiar too.” Calvin’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Cameron’s face. “You’re on some posters too, aren’t you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Maybe he looks familiar to you because he’s Terra’s brother. Her overprotective brother,” Everett added.

It was more like the other way around, but Calvin didn’t know that.

Cameron played along nicely. “I wouldn’t recommend you try to collect on her bounty,” he said with a hard glare. His eyes even went a bit whiter. Well, he had said that he’d been practicing.

Calvin set his gun down on the desk and lifted up his hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Well, now that we’re all not interested in hurting one another, perhaps you could help us, Mr. Calvin. We’re interested in knowing the whereabouts of a special item you acquired last year.”

Calvin cackled. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, sonny. A lot of ‘special items’ come through my shop.”

“Xenen. It was Xenen,” Terra said, disgust coating her words, as though saying their name tainted her.

Calvin chewed on his lower lip.

“You bought it from a Rev mercenary named Fark. He had a rose tattoo with the name ‘Trixie’ on his left shoulder,” said Everett. “Ring any bells?”

From the look on Calvin’s face, it was ringing all the bells in Lear and then some. But he didn’t look eager to share what he knew. In fact, his eyes had drifted over to the gun on the table.

“Terra, do you think you could go through his mind to find out what we need to know?”

She gave him a wary look. “Sure. But I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ll have to poke around a lot in his head, which will definitely really hurt him.” She gave Calvin a wicked smile. She’d caught on. Thank goodness.

“As long as you find out where the Xenen artifact is, it doesn’t matter what happens to him.”

Calvin paled.

“Or whether he’s ever able to move again.”

“Fine!” he shrieked. “I’ll tell you. No need for any poking around in my head. I bought it off that Rev fellow last March. Sold it right away too. Made a nice profit.”

“Who bought it from you?” Everett asked.

“That Avan spy who hangs around the Red Leaf. Morton Corse.” Calvin waved toward the door. “All right. You got what you wanted. Now instead of snooping through my shop, how about questioning Mr. Corse about the artifact.” He rubbed his unshaven chin, looking upward in thought. “Though I haven’t seen him around lately. I think he’s been reassigned.”

Morton Corse hadn’t been reassigned; he was dead. And for the first time, Everett wished Jason hadn’t killed the Avan spy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

~
Thread of Thieves ~

527AX January 18, Lear

THE TRAIL WAS as dead as Morton Corse’s corpse. Almost.

“It’s a good thing you brought me along,” Cameron told Everett as they left the shop.

“Do you think that you can really figure out what happened?”

“Sure. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Using Memory to follow the path a specific object had taken didn’t take too much skill. Peering directly into the past for a precise replay of a whole series of events… Well, that was considerably more complicated. Using the power of Memory wasn’t science. Like most things magic, it was an unwieldy gift. Sometimes, it showed Cameron what he wanted to see. Other times, it meandered off in random tangents, drawing him further and further from anything remotely relevant.

He and Terra would have to mix up an Enhancing Serum. That was a given. The serum increased his precision at least a hundred times over. Precision was precisely the thing he’d need to make this work—that and a whole lot of luck.

“According to Calvin, Morton Corse spent most of his time in Lear at the Red Leaf,” Terra said.

As they walked, she mixed up Cameron’s serum. She poured fire root into a canister of alcohol. The resulting burning smell was potent enough to singe the taste buds clear off his tongue.

“We should go there,” she said. “Standing on the site of a memory will strengthen your connection to it.” She handed him the canister. “The serum will do the rest.”

Cameron hovered his nose over the opening, then sneezed. “This smells awful.”

Terra grinned at him. “I’m sure it tastes worse.”

“Thanks. You’re really helping.” He hazarded a taste. It
was
every bit as disgusting as promised. “Aurelia’s crown, that’s vile! What kind of alcohol did you use in there?”

“Everett’s whiskey. It’s all we had on hand.”

“I don’t think it goes well with fire root.”

“I could have told you that,” Everett said. “And how did you get a hold of my whiskey anyway?”

“I swiped it out of your bag while you were making sandwiches on Calvin’s desk,” she replied, her face guilt-free.

An agitated ripple crinkled up between Everett’s eyes. “I was saving that whiskey for a special occasion.”

“When you sell the jewels, you’ll get enough money to fill your house from floor to ceiling with whiskey.”

“But none of it will be
that
whiskey.”

Terra expelled a heavy sigh. “There’s still a bit left.”

Cameron lifted the canister of repulsive serum to his mouth and chugged down the rest of it in one go. The last of it was still sliding down his throat when a cool heat oozed across his skin. Within his chest, his heart pumped and pulsed, spreading the stimulants throughout his body. Everything around him shifted into soft focus, masked behind a translucent layer of ethereal gauze.

“The Red Leaf is just ahead,” Terra said, her movements slow and streaked, her words muffled as though spoken underwater. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s do this,” Cameron said, stepping inside.

Two steps past the front door of the Red Leaf, an enraged bellow blasted through the lobby, echoing like a hurricane inside Cameron’s ears. But the outcry was harmless—at least compared to the ten Avan soldiers facing the door, their guns raised to shoot.

* * *

527AX January 18, Lear

Morton Corse stomped through the lobby of the Red Leaf, roaring out curses as he toppled over furniture. He sure wasn’t having a very stealth temper tantrum for a spy—especially a dead spy. Cameron blinked back the milky-white glaze of the memory, and for a few seconds he saw nothing but three men in suits leaning against the wall, swirling their wine glasses as they chuckled to one another. The lobby was pristine, the club’s patrons in good spirits, and no Avan soldiers or bellowing spies were anywhere in sight.

Then the ethereal film slid back over his eyes, ushering in the memory again. Morton Corse paced before the Avan soldiers with hands raised. He growled and stomped and fumed. His face was redder than the soldiers’ uniforms, and spittle dangled like melting icicles from his prickly chin.