Dresden
Ten Pin Alley
I'm too old for this.
That's what I thought while I sprinted through the tiled, sparsely lit floors of an abandoned storage building on the outskirts of Chicago. Thomas, my disgustingly fit-and-handsome-without-trying vampire half-brother running just a few yards in front of me, didn't seem to share my evaluation of the situation. Instead, he pushed through a door, shoulder hitting metal, and kept up our improvised emergency exit – only to lead us right into a boiler room. He turned back to me, arms raised in a sheepish 'any ideas?' fashion.
Dead end.
A bullet whizzing right past my ear gave me new motivation to pick up the speed. I bustled through the now open door, whirled around and kicked it closed. I took a second to catch my breath and summon my will, and just as our pesky pursuers audibly closed in on the door, I whipped up a gust of wind; strong enough to break the metal barrier between us and them from its hinges and blast it through the aisle we had come from. On its way, it crashed into our persecutors with a couple of satisfying muffled groans.
Thomas came back – now that the tables had turned, of course – and inspected my handiwork.
"Think that got all of them?"
"Maybe I should consider a career in professional bowling," I retorted. Down the hall, there were now the unmoving bodies of three of our pursuers – completely knocked out by the door. They were Marcone's men – certainly not the highest quality he had, but good enough shots – and had been assigned with the dull task of guarding the contents of a certain box.
A box the Council hat assigned me to find and entrust to them once recovered.
A box my brother had had tucked under his arm until now. Holding it out in front of him, he frowned at the closed lid.
"What's in this, anyway?" He had been dragged into this mess somewhat by chance and hadn't had the chance to ask when I had tossed him the box earlier.
"McGuffin," I answered curtly, staring along the aisle again. We'd have to go the whole way back to get out of the building, only…
"Uh huh," Thomas deadpanned, returning it to me.
The shadow of a slender figure became visible against the floor's walls – the person belonging to it had to be in the side passage at a right angle to us, unsure about how to proceed.
Quietly, I clicked my tongue. "Didn't get the practitioner."
Recently, Marcone had started hiring people with a magical affinity. No people strong enough for the Council to take notice and react, but skilled enough to raise their odds. The type that feels special and wants it to be recognized, but isn't actually special enough to be impressive. In other words, easy to hire and manipulate, if you knew which buttons to push.
I suppose it made sense, what with Marcone being the first human freeholding baron under the Unseelie Accords now, but that didn't mean I liked it. What I liked even less was him forming them into perfectly capable killers—even without their expanded skills. The man knew the Seven Laws of Magic well enough to be sure to tell his people not to kill with their magic. Killing with anything else, however, was fair game – as far as the Council was concerned.
As a result of his newest recruitments, Elaine Mallory had contacted me more often as of late. The woman was a relic of my past, my first girlfriend and love, then presumed traitor, then presumed dead; someone who I wasn't sure I could trust but did anyway – an uncertain relationship, to be sure. She had also started to aid the setup of the Paranet – a Network of low-level magical talents, aimed to support its members in dealing with their prowess. Elaine had complained about how the Network got dragged into Marcone's latest hiring practices. Seemingly, the boss of Chicago's underworld could be a very persuasive employer. Very stubborn too, in my experience.
"Shouldn't be too difficult for you, right?" Thomas dragged me out of my stupor. The shadow of Marcone's practitioner had halted in its place – perhaps its owner was contemplating if he or she were willing to take their chances against me and my brother, or later against Marcone, empty-handed, failed in their mission.
I sighed, covered my face with my free hand and mumbled a spell; a short moment later, a surprised shout came from the side passage and the shadow had disappeared.
"Let's go," I said, now slightly annoyed. I hated playing the Council's errand-boy, and if this wasn't a "retrieval of magical item" – job, then I didn't know what was.
We rounded the corner of the aisle and passed the struggling, semi-desperate practitioner – it was a young man, barely passing 18, and even that only if you squinted – who had gotten stuck in the sinkhole I had conjured up. Usually, I never get the chance to use a spell like that.
Usually, my opponents know that fighting involves movement.
"Maybe get yourself another job while you still can," I said, nodding at him. Part of me wanted to reach out to him and drag him out, but his defiant stare told me enough to know that it would only lead to an unnecessary struggle for the McGuffin.
The newcomers never know when to stay down.
Exiting the building, Thomas seemed to have decided that staying around wasn't worth the trouble. I got an exaggerated "Au revoir, mon frère! Le devoir m'appelle!" in a flamboyant tone, a hand raised laxly to wave as he jogged away – presumably to do the hairdresser job he'd gotten himself. I'd found out about that one almost half a year ago – he used the work to feed off of his clients in small doses, all the while play-acting as a gay pseudo-French guy. To say I wasn't happy about him using it as an opportunity to get in on his clients' life force would be a euphemism if I've ever heard one. But I knew he wouldn't stop, and any further pestering from my side wouldn't get me anywhere.
I frowned at the innocuous box under my arm.
All he needed to do was fool around and play with rich women's hair, and my brother's job probably paid better than mine ever would.
That suspicion was only substantiated after I had delivered the box and its contents to the middle man who would take it to wherever it was supposed to be and received my reward directly. Normally, the payment would have been transferred, but for small sums such as this, it seemed as if the higher ups didn't want to bother. I stashed it away without a comment and went on my way home.