Sleight (48 page)

CRUSH SMILED AND turned back to the man who had approached him.

“A minute please, Niko. Clear the room except for Mirabel, and locate the boy she brought with her. He seems to have gone missing.”

Trying not to make any noise I knelt by the podium, using it for cover.

“That little bastard had better not have run off,” snarled Miss Black.

Reaching out a hand, Crush cupped her chin. “Mira dear heart. Be calm.”

Blushing like a schoolgirl she grinned at him. “Yes, Alistair. I’m sorry.”

“Not to worry. Any new discoveries at the clinics?” asked Crush, turning her head to the side with his hand, looking her over like she was a prized mare.

“No, and it’s going to put us behind, especially since your pet was one of the losses. Using her to eliminate the washouts was brilliant. We were lucky to help the rogue get her mind and ability back the first time, but the injuries she suffered at the pier were too extensive. I think Irena used her once too often. Now we’re left with handling outcasts through other means, because Irena lost the assassin she hired too.” She dropped her eyes, afraid, or embarrassed.

More pieces dropped into place. Miss Black was talking about Weller, and the ‘pet rogue’ she referred to had to be Sonja. The mystery of Silver the model assassin was explained as well. They had been wiping out any recruits who didn’t pass muster. Griff’s veiled threat about what happened to non-winners echoed in my ears. But all of those little discoveries paled in the face of two major ones: Alistair Crush was the master Shade and Miss Black’s clinics were some kind of channel for recruiting. Justine, Oso, Brin and others had been lured or taken to the clinics and evaluated. Those found wanting, or uncooperative were destroyed.

“Mira, you are not competing with Irena, especially now that she’s gone. The lack of new acolytes is temporary. There will be more to take their place. The boy you brought though, I’m concerned about him.”

I almost made a noise, startled to have him mention me again, let alone allude to being concerned about me. I remembered his staring at me when I had sensed him. He was knacked, and I had a really good idea as to what one of his gifts was.

“Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him,” said Miss Black.

“My dear, your meager talents would not be a match for him. Your charismatic influence is a shadow of mine, and not suited for a fight in any event. But you’re missing the point. He’s gifted. Significantly. I don’t think it’s surprising that he was the savior at your school. He was trying to use his talents to avoid being caught on camera today. Don’t put your position at risk by engaging outside of your area of responsibility.”

Miss Black frowned. “Him? Talents? The Brown boy? He’s crippled. I just found out that he’s been living under an assumed name and that he’s a fugitive, a runaway.”

“Really? Let’s not publicize that. We’re on video with him after all.”

“But I—”

Whatever she was going to say was choked off in midsentence when Crush reached down and grabbed me by the collar.

“There you are!” he said as he dragged me from the false security of the podium’s shadow. “I knew you were close by.”

I tried to tear out of his grasp but he was too strong. Focusing my will I tossed a telekinetic punch at his face.

Nothing.

His grip tightened and he lifted me off my feet. My collar cinched tight and I couldn’t catch my breath. And then I didn’t want to fight anymore.

“Now, the question is what to do with you.” He grinned, putting his face within inches of mine. “I’ve never been much for delayed gratification. Which to be honest, is ironic in my case,” he laughed.

My vision was getting fuzzy at the edges and my chest heaved as I tried to draw a breath. My hands hung at my sides and I wondered idly why I wasn’t trying to protect myself.

His eyes flashed and his grin morphed into an angry frown. “If we still had my pet rogue available we could make tremendous use of you. But alas, she’s not. Which I suspect you may already know. But we have other resources.”

He grabbed my throat with his other hand, adjusted his grip and shook me. I started feeling tired. He dug through my pockets and pulled my phone out. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it under his heel. Waving a hand Crush signaled to his bodyguards. Oso and the other black-suited goon walked over to us.

“Take him to the new clinic,” said Crush.

“Alistair, do you think that’s wise?” asked Miss Black. She’d been standing by watching him manhandle me without any qualms. All of a sudden she had concerns?

Crush rounded on her. “Shut up. Go to your car. I don’t want you near any of this.” She hesitated, her eyes darting from me to Crush, her chin trembling.

“Now!”

Her heels thudded on the stage as she hurried back to the table to collect her things. Shaken, she glanced back at Crush as she left the room.

Lowering me so that my feet touched the floor, Crush kept his hand on my throat. Looking at Oso he said, “Put him in the SUV, in front with you where you can see him. If anyone questions you, tell them he’s sick. Pay attention. He’s talented.”

Oso frowned and narrowed his eyes at me. He’d always straddled the line when it came to my welfare. I felt like my luck had run out.

Niko ran up onto the stage, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find him sir. What do you want me to do?” He glanced at me, obviously angry that I’d evaded his search.

“Get outside and make sure that Mirabel has her wits about her. We can’t afford to have her draw attention to herself. The time and money I’ve invested in her can’t be compromised,” Crush said.

As deeply as she was involved with the Shade activity Miss Black clearly wasn’t viewed as reliable. Niko gave me another dirty look and turned away to carry out Crush’s instructions.

Pushing me roughly at Oso, Crush released me. My will to fight returned but I was busy trying to catch my breath. I wheezed and tried not to puke. I started to reach out to Oso mentally and then thought better of it. If his partner or Crush were telepathic I’d blow any chance I had of getting away.

“You,” Crush said to the other bodyguard, “Get the town car. Bring it to the front of the building.” The goon jerked his head in assent and left through a door at the back of the stage.

Crush snapped his fingers at Oso. “Follow us, but not immediately behind. Move!”

He pulled his jacket down, smoothing the line of the material snug to his shoulders. He straightened his tie, and ran a hand over his short cut hair. Shaking his head he turned and walked away. His pace was unhurried and relaxed, the air of a man who was supremely confident that his instructions would be followed.

OSO GRABBED ME by the back of my jacket and marched me toward the stage exit.

“Don’t whisper-talk or speak out loud, and don’t try to mess with me or I’ll have to hurt you,” he whispered.

When we walked out into the brighter light of the parking lot I squinted until my eyes adjusted. Oso switched his handhold on my jacket for a stronger grip using his left arm. Hugging me hard he worked at making it look like he was helping me stay upright when in reality he was dragging me.

Opening the SUV’s front passenger door he let me get in under my own power. He locked the door and hurried around to his side. I had three choices: a) I could lock him out creating a standoff, b) I could hop out, camouflage myself and take my chances at being able to escape, or c) I could waste time thinking about it until he’d gotten in and I had no options available to me.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed his door shut. He gave me a disgusted look.

“You show up at all the bad times. You know that?” he growled.

I decided to reverse course back to option ‘b’ and used my knack to pop the locks. He punched a button on his door and the locks sucked down.

“Don’t be stupid. You’d never get away,” he said as he turned the key in the ignition.

“You’re going to take me to that clinic?” I asked stupidly.

“Yes.” He looked ahead out the windshield. He put the truck in gear and slowly cruised through the parking lot.

“Why are you doing this? Just let me go. You’ve always said you’re looking for redemption. Is this how you get it? Handing me over to them?”

The SUV swung around a corner and the rest of the parking lot came into view.

“I can’t let you go. When I told you that God would forgive me if I protected you I only saw the little things. Now I see the big things.”

That didn’t inspire me with confidence. “What the hell does that mean? You leave one gang and you join a bigger gang?” I started running scenarios through my head. Knack the steering. Create an illusion that would make him crash. While we were moving through the parking lot neither seemed like a good idea.

He shot me a dark glance. “Two times! Two times you show up wrong. Just because my English isn’t good, doesn’t mean I’m not smart. I’m smart. I know what I don’t know. You don’t think in the future. I do.” He spotted a town car that must have been Crush’s, and let another car pull out between the SUV and the car carrying his boss.

Big picture? Thinking ahead? What he was referring to escaped me. “How did you end up with these guys anyway? That guy is organizing all of the Shades, and you’re on his security detail? How does that happen?”

Swearing, he cranked the wheel and pulled out into the street. “You are just a boy. You know that? Just a boy. Nino. This is another test.” He rattled off a bunch of Spanish that was too fast for me to follow. “You shouldn’t be here.”

No kidding. I hadn’t wanted or planned to be at the ceremony. “You didn’t answer my question. How did you get involved with them? Why would you?”

“Mucho mas preguntas!” He spat. Good. Now I’d pissed him off. He flexed the hand holding the steering-wheel. “I’m too close. I can’t stop now.”

I could see the town car two cars ahead. We were heading east. I wanted to know how long I had until I would need to try something desperate. I was mad at myself for missing my opportunity in the parking lot, even if an escape might not have worked.

He scowled at me. “You messed this up. In the underground, today, you ruin everything. If you didn’t come I would pass the test and they would trust me. Now I have to protect you.”

“How is sticking me in a car, and kidnapping me, helping me?”

“I know what I don’t know. I don’t know if Crush can see my mind. I don’t know who might be watching me with you to make sure that I do what I am told. I don’t know who might shoot you. If I let you go back there you probably get shot.”

Wow. So he really was thinking ahead, and I was beginning to feel a little less anxious about being in the car with him. At least for the moment.

“What happened to you? After the warehouse when Sonja kidnapped me. When you got shot. How did you survive that?” He’d tried to save my life when I’d been kidnapped. He’d only managed to create a distraction and got himself shot in the process. When I’d come to in the hospital, Breno, One-eye and I were the only ones the police had found. Sonja, Tank, Justine and Oso had been gone.

The town car made a turn and we followed.

“That is how this started,” he said. “Men came. They took all of us to a medico, doctors. I met Brin and your little girlfriend was there too. I called the police. Told them where you were.”

That answered another nagging question.

“But Tank shot you. Why would they help you?”

“At first, they only wanted to eat my magia, but the boss lady, the woman with red hair, she liked me. Brin, Justine, the skinny boy, Isaac and me were all there. It is how they find soldiers.” I thought back to the meeting again and the fact that most of them had already known each other. “The bruja, the witch, she broke the rules. She hurt the wrong people. They fixed her, but she had to prove she was good again. But then she made a big mistake. She tried to catch your friend, the fire maker, he hurt her again.” He smiled.

A few more threads untangled themselves in my head. Tank, Dell and Sonja had all been burned in the waterfront fire after all. They’d tried to recapture Breno, and he’d literally burned them, and destroyed Pier 56 in the process. No wonder Tank had been motivated to offer Sonja a ‘twofer’.

“My magia was too good to waste. I have to pass many tests. Underground that was one test. Protecting Crush is a test. So, if I pass many tests, then they trust me. Then I can work on the big thing. My important thing.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

A big ugly grin peeled his lips away from his teeth.

“I kill Crush.”

I let that sink in for a moment while we followed the town car. Somewhere in Oso’s conflicted and complicated thinking he had decided that taking out Crush was going to be a bigger ‘good work’ that would elevate him in God’s eyes. I wondered if I should point out that God didn’t condone killing, as in ‘thou shalt not’, which punched a pretty big hole in his redemption theory. Then again, maybe better to keep my mouth shut. Hadn’t I been plotting something similar?

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. You messed up my plan. I have to think.”

That set me back to worrying about my own skin. But my thoughts strayed in another direction. I was in trouble, sure, but I was also in a spot where an opportunity might present itself. I knew who the master Shade was and I was going to be very close to him in short order. His knack-negating power seemed to depend on physical contact. His mind influence, he’d called it charismatic, was powerful when you were in his presence, and undeniable when he placed a hand on you. The effect was lessened when he wasn’t touching the person he was trying to affect.

“How are you going to handle me?” I asked. “Are you going to just turn me over to Crush?”

Oso took his foot off the accelerator and let another car move in the lane ahead. “See that is a new thing.” He glanced over at me, a sly smile on his face. “That is new. Sometimes you find luck. It just comes. Other  times you have to make the luck. My thing, my magic, it helps me make luck. You know? I think maybe sometimes, it happens both ways.”

“Both ways?”

“Crush, he never comes to the clinics. It’s no good for him to be seen there. When we know where he is going to be it is when there are a lot of people. He has lots of people around him. Today he has only three. Me, Nikko and Brady. I know their minds. They don’t like Crush. Maybe they don’t like him a lot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Today maybe I make my own luck and luck comes to me. Both. Together. What you say...opportunity.”

And then I realized that we were on the same page.