Waylaid (3 page)

“Hey!” Peri cried when Rachel spun to the elevators, sequins glinting. “That’s my phone.”

“Thank you!” Rachel sang out, and Peri’s jaw clenched.

You can beat up my partner. You can try to steal my cat. But don’t you dare take my phone.
Peri made a hop-skip and jogged after her. “You’re not leaving with my phone,” Peri said, jerking Rachel to a stop as she hit the elevator button. Backing up, Peri’s hands fisted. “Don’t test me. I’m small, but that doesn’t mean you can walk all over me.”

Rachel hesitated when the doors slid open, and Peri wondered if she should pull her Glock just to hammer her point home. “Don’t I know it,” Rachel said tiredly, still in the hall as the door slid shut again. “So what do you propose, Peri Reed from Opti?”

Peri thought for a second, then unfisted her hands. “You mind if we go back and get my jacket? And maybe my boots?” She hesitated, a smile quirking her lips. “Put Jack on the couch. He has a coat that might fit you, too. Unless you want to go traipsing around Detroit in that.” She could stash the accelerator in their apartment safe, too. She wasn’t going to risk taking it into the streets with this woman.

Rachel’s expression eased, going from a calculating determination to a friendly acceptance. “That would be nice. Thanks.” She hesitated, then added, “I sure could use the help.”

You got that right
, Peri thought, deciding that if things went wrong, she could text Bill to come pick up the wack job. The Packard Mall would be as good a place as any, and better than most.

2

Peri’s grip on the wheel of her Mantis tightened as they drove sedately through Detroit’s night-slow streets to Packard Mall. Rachel wouldn’t stop fiddling with the vents, and it was getting on Peri’s nerves, the woman angling them just perfect to shift the stray strands of her red hair. It was far too long for a proper agent, and Peri was beginning to wonder who she had in her car. Rachel was an odd mix of confidence and curiosity.
This is very bad for my asthma
, Peri thought dryly, the inside joke having nothing to do with her health, and everything to do with her unease.

“What did you mean when you said I’m human?” Peri asked, trying to get Rachel to stop touching her car.

Rachel stiffened and sat back. “Nothing,” she said, flashing her an empty smile. “Forget it. This is a nice car. It’s electric? When did they start making them?”

“Since forever.” Peri slipped off the interstate, and Rachel watched the passing mix of green space and old Detroit, carefully preserved and protected, glittering in the dark. “But they only became popular the last decade or so when the CO
2
levels became an issue. When your choice is getting an electric car or losing half your population to a site-specific virus engineered by the United Nations, you take the car.”

Again Peri’s grip tightened. She was glad she hadn’t been part of the team that had delivered the virus, decimating Asia’s population when an entire continent had thumbed their noses at the UN’s guidelines and therefore threatened the entire world. Bill’s claim that it was perfectly acceptable to reduce a population at random when they had randomly increased it had never sat well with her.

“We don’t have electric,” Rachel said, oblivious to Peri’s mood. “But I don’t think we have the population you do, either.” Again she smiled. “Plague by way of GMO tomatoes. We call it the Turn, because everything turned around. Some things good, some things bad. My parents were in high school when it happened. I’m so-o-o-o glad I missed it. But there are days I think it had to have been easier hiding you’re dangerously different than trying to live with people who know you are.”

Peri nodded noncommittally and focused on the road. The woman knew of Detroit, cars, cell phones, and seat belts—even how to work the elevator. She wasn’t shocked at traffic, and had been only mildly impressed at the neon down at Lloyd Square. Yet she was convinced there was a magical portal in the mall that might transport her home to Cincinnati. Something was very wrong with her.
One too many drafts . . . Shit, is this what waits for me at retirement?

“I like your Detroit,” Rachel said, leaning to look at the droneway, which was busy and lit up as all traffic was forced over the river at sundown. “It’s very green. But dead.”

“Dead?” Peri slowed at a red light, hoping it changed before they had to stop.

Rachel gestured at the green space they were passing, held down by one of Detroit’s restored and rebuilt older mansions, now surrounded by three other empty lots. “You’ve got nothing but squirrels and sparrows in your trees.”

The light changed, and Peri hit the accelerator. Packard Mall was just ahead. “What do you want? Condors?”

Rachel said nothing as they entered the complex, driving under the old Packard sign. “Is that it?” Rachel said, peering at the three-story building with its adjacent parking structure. The central tower was lit up and glowing, a beacon in the dark to draw the idle and bored. “Busy. You have lots of nightwalkers.”

Peri had never heard late shoppers called that. Taking a chance, she turned into the VIP parking lot right in front, pleased when there was a spot open. “You should see it during the day,” Peri said as she pulled into it. “No, wait,” she said when Rachel reached for the door.

Leaning, she watched the security drone hum overhead. It would register her car and charge her account, and while she usually hated leaving a record of where she was, giving Bill something to trace her by if there was trouble seemed prudent tonight. But even given that, there was no need for the drone to document Rachel getting out of her car. The video of her would be harder to get rid of than the woman herself in case there was . . . an issue later.

Rachel settled back, eyes wide when Peri used her phone to change the color of her car, shifting it from black to a solar-absorbing white by adjusting the amount of energy running through the Detroit-only paint job. Even the lot’s security light would keep the charge up. “Okay. Now we can go,” Peri said, doing another visual before getting out of the car.

Rachel followed, the thump of her door loud in the electric-lit night. “You have to make your magic,” she said softly as she watched the glow of the drone in the distance. “That is so sad.” Heels clicking, the tall woman started for the obvious entrance, Jack’s coat bumping about her calves. Peri hesitated, and Rachel turned, her eyebrows high in question. “You’re coming, right?”

“To watch you step into a magic mirror and vanish? You bet.” Peri reluctantly leaned back into the car, sliding her Glock into the car’s safe and locking it. She’d never get anything so crass past the mall’s security. Feeling naked, she shut her door.

Rachel eyed her cautiously as she waited for Peri to come even with her. “It’s not a magic mirror. Ley lines are bands of natural focused energy. You don’t think reality is perfectly homogenized, do you? You get that much free energy in one place, you can use it.”

Peri didn’t answer, instead pushing them into a faster pace. She didn’t like feeling short as she strode along beside Rachel, her two-inch boots doing nothing to bring their heights even. She couldn’t help but notice how people were turning to look at them as they headed for the main doors, even if most of Rachel’s clubbing sparkles and spandex were hidden underneath Jack’s overcoat. Peri had never felt short beside Jack, but he didn’t accompany her to the mall wearing six-inch heels, either.

“Where do you think we should look for your line?” Peri asked as they hit the double glass doors together, the wind from the equalizing pressure blowing their hair back.

And then Peri stopped, realizing she’d left Rachel behind.

She turned, seeing the woman gawking like a goober at the holographic, interactive mannequins outside the first store. It wasn’t busy, so their programming had lots of time to analyze the passing shoppers and change the outfits on the mannequins to something the approaching shopper might like. The more sophisticated ones would actually wave and lure you in with canned, flirtatious chatter. It was obvious that Rachel had never seen them before.

A worried frown furrowed Peri’s brow. You couldn’t fake shock like this. How could the woman know about electric cars and cell phones, and not about shopping mules? “Rachel?” Peri called, trying to bring the woman back.

Rachel licked her lips, clearly still amazed. “There are no vampires, witches, or even a Were here. No wonder you have to dress so extreme and be so loud. It’s the only way you can set yourself apart. Everyone is the same.”

Peri quizzically looked over the loitering teenagers in their Goth black and glow-in-the-dark hair, her gaze rising to the fast-walking people in business suits with their phones to their ears, to the strolling upper-class retirement folks with little bags, the holographic logos on them screaming out their
“
BUY
”
message. This was “the same,” according to Rachel? “The line?” Peri prompted, and Rachel seemed to bring herself back, shaken but resolute.

“I don’t know. Let’s try the center.”

Wondering if she should just call Bill to pick the woman up, Peri angled them in the right direction. Immediately she slowed as Rachel insisted on lingering at every storefront, pausing at every mule trying to get her to buy a new coat or set of heels. But eventually they reached the center, the large open space five stories tall with a glass ceiling, now dark with night. There was an enormous oak tree in the middle, carefully tended and growing right out of the concrete left over from the exodus. The mall had been repurposed around the defunct Packard car manufacturer as a reminder of how quickly Detroit had been swallowed up when everyone had left. But Peri simply liked seeing a two-story oak tree growing out of a mall.

“You have a tree growing in your mall,” Rachel said flatly, and Peri shrugged, sitting down at one of the café-like tables under it. The adjacent eatery wasn’t open, making it a somewhat private place even as people passed.

“You want something to eat?” Peri said suddenly, thinking the pale woman looked even more white. “You don’t look so good.”

Rachel didn’t sit down, turning in a slow circle with her head up and eyes vacant. Her focus was distant, as if seeing the mall as the derelict Packard factory it had started as. “There’s a line here,” she said, fingers spread wide at her side. “But it’s dead. Like the ones in Arizona.”

Peri perked up. “Where?” she asked.

“We’re standing in it,” Rachel said, hands fisting. “It’s right here!”

She’d meant where in Arizona, but Peri glanced at the passing people, their attention drawn by Rachel’s rising panic. “Maybe you can turn it on?” she suggested, and Rachel’s focus sharpened on her.

“Yeah. Right,” Rachel said sourly. “The entire demon collective couldn’t turn on their lines, and you think I can turn on Detroit’s?” She took a slow breath, and Peri watched as her panic was pushed out by a shaky determination. It was something Peri had practice with, but her growing feeling of kinship vanished when the woman sat down on the floor amid the empty tables, Jack’s overcoat falling open to show her sequined clubbing dress and black tights.

“Maybe I can reach Al,” Rachel muttered, eyes fluttering shut.

“Your partner?” Peri asked, still getting the vibe that the woman was a professional, but professional what?

Rachel’s eyes cracked open as she snorted. “No. He’s the best frenemy I’ve got. Hang on. This is either going to work or it won’t. I’ll know which in like three seconds.”

Again Rachel’s eyes shut. Uncomfortable, Peri toyed with the idea of turning her chair to watch her or pretending indifference. People were noticing Rachel, and if she didn’t get up off the floor soon, mall security would send a drone to harass them into moving. “Mall meditation,” Peri said to one curious onlooker. “She’s visualizing she has the money for the shoes she wants.”

But then Rachel gasped, and Peri’s attention jerked back to her. Rachel’s eyes were open but unseeing, and a curious feeling of time displacement pulled through Peri. She wasn’t drafting, as time was moving as it was supposed to, but the same sensation of dislocated reality suffused her, making her breathless.

“Al!” Rachel exclaimed to the empty space before her, and a passing man lingered, snapping a nicotine cap between his teeth, curious as Rachel leaned forward and stared intently at nothing. “Detroit,” Rachel said, voice hushed. “But not our Detroit, or the ever-after’s. There are no Inderlanders. Even in hiding. Al, the lines are dead. There’s not enough energy in them for me to get back.”

The feeling of wrongness grew stronger in Peri, but she couldn’t move, fixated by the look of anguish on Rachel’s face. “Line jump?” Rachel said, her expression shifting to a bitter anger. “With earth magic? I’m going to need something to power it, and the lines are dead. Aren’t you listening? I can’t even light a candle.” She took a ragged breath. “How would I know if there are any mystics? Detecting minute particles of creation energy is not my forte.”

Peri smiled as more people came to a halt, watching them from the far side of the open area. “Practicing for a play,” Peri explained, but it was clear they weren’t buying it as phones came out to take video.
Shit, this is going online.

“No, I can’t,” Rachel said as Peri dropped her head and tried to hide her face. “The line is just a skeleton.” She hesitated, then blurted, “Jenks? Maybe. He could at least tell me if there are mystics.”

This is getting better and better
, Peri thought as she stood, wanting to stop this. One of the managers of a nearby store was at the entrance to his shop, a phone to his ear as he called them in, probably. Mall security was tight and unforgiving, especially at night.

Rachel was holding out her hands as if in supplication, and, embarrassed, Peri reached for her shoulder, fully intending to yank Rachel to her feet and out of here. A quick 911 to Bill, and someone would be out here in five minutes. Problem solved.

But when her hand landed on Rachel’s shoulder, Peri froze, her vision wavering with a rainbow of red and blue. Hazed in the thick of it was a man sitting cross-legged opposite Rachel. He had wide shoulders and was wearing a vintage Victorian-green velvet suit, lace at his neck and wrists. Peri’s pulse raced as his eyes met hers and widened in surprise. They were red, the pupils slit like a goat’s. “Y-you’re . . .” Peri stammered, not sure if he was real or not. It felt as if she were rewriting time, but there was only one timeline playing out in her head. Only one.

The man’s cupped hands were extended, Rachel’s hands wrapping around them. “Curious,” he said, his cultured British voice echoing in Peri’s head as his thin lips moved, and then he faded away.

Peri let go and backed up, shocked when Rachel brought her cupped hands to her middle, her head down as she opened them up and whispered, “Jenks?”

Leaning forward, Peri saw a crumpled mass of gauze and glimmer. And then it moved.

“Holy pixy piss,” a tiny voice said as the glow faded into a four-inch man. “I feel worse than the time I tried to fly coach in a 747.”

Peri dropped to her knees beside Rachel, unable to look away from his sharply angled, tiny face, his tousled yellow curly hair, and his perfectly proportioned body dressed in a multicolored, tight-fitting body stocking. But that was nothing to her shock at his dragonfly wings carefully folded against Rachel’s cupped hands. “How did you do that?” Peri whispered, and the small winged man stood, wobbly on Rachel’s hands.

“I’m magic, babe,” he said, cocky as he stretched his wings. “I could fly through a keyhole backward, and that’s kind of what I feel like I did.” He cocked his head and frowned at Rachel’s huge smile. “I can’t smell anyone. You’re right. It’s all humans.”