Another couple was shown to the table next to us, and we swiftly moved on to other topics. “So, you’re Calgary-born, then?” I asked.
“Yeah, that side of the family was here long before there was a city. I was raised and went to school here.”
“University?” I asked.
“I have a two-year accounting diploma,” she answered with a laugh, cheering up slightly from my ham-handed reminder of her mother. “I keep the books for Tarvers. My brother, of course, is a doctor, which gets him a lot of respect from the...family. What about you?”
By family, of course, she meant the Clan. It made sense. Someone with the physical prowess and dexterity of an inhuman and full medical training would be an amazing doctor and highly valued, even by a group whose members regenerated almost any wound.
“I got about three quarters of a mechanical engineering degree, back before things changed.” I couldn’t say more than that with the couple sitting next to us. I didn’t need to, either; she nodded understanding.
We kept the conversation to small things like that as we finished our beers and nachos. Eventually, convinced that the continually drunker and louder couple next to us weren’t planning on leaving, Mary paid the bill and we wandered out into the night.
It had got colder. I kept thinking the city couldn’t get any colder, and then it would prove me wrong.
“We’re on the same bus,” Mary told me as we left the pub. “We can grab it just over here.”
I followed my redheaded native guide through the frozen downtown, watching for patches of ice.
“Did Tarvers learn any more about the cabal?” I asked her, finally getting to my second, not nearly as fun, reason for meeting up with her.
“Nothing I’m aware of,” she admitted, shivering a bit as she checked the time for the next bus on her phone. “Damn, the next bus isn’t for twenty minutes.”
“I’ve heard some hints they may be in something...bigger,” I explained as I moved closer to her, trying to share some body heat. She unhesitatingly leaned against me. There were enough layers involved to make it horrendously unintimate, but the gesture still set my heart racing.
“Why so curious?” she asked.
“My Court asked me to investigate, since I’m so junior no one will notice me asking questions,” I answered semi-honestly, sliding an arm around her. She snuggled in as we leaned against the bus shelter and each other.
“I’m in much the same place,” Mary told me. “I’ll keep my ears open if it means I get a second date,” she added with a wink.
Even through the utterly frigid night air, I felt my cheeks flush. “I think that’s a deal,” I told her. “Though you would probably have gotten the date without it,” I admitted, with what I suspected was an even deeper blush.
“I’m feeling around as best as I can, and I’m new enough people will write awkward questions off to that,” I explained quietly. “That wasn’t why I called you, but it is high in my mind—I’m way too junior to want to fail the Court.”
“I’ll ask some folks quietly,” she said. “But I can’t be sure of much.”
“That’s more than I hoped for; thank you.”
She snuggled in against me and turned her face up toward mine. I started to involuntarily lean towards her...
And then the bus screeched to a halt next to us, plowing slushy wet snow all over our feet.
8
I HAD BARELY MADE it into the dispatch office the next morning when Trysta waved me over to her desk.
“Jake’s wife just called in,” she told me quickly, her voice strained. “He slipped on some ice and fell leaving the house this morning—the paramedics have rushed him to hospital. He’s definitely broken a leg and they think he may have smashed a hip.”
“Shit.” Jake was the oldest of the drivers, and he’d done his best to help mentor me even after he’d finished training me.
“Yeah, Bill is on his way to the hospital right now, and that takes our two bonded drivers off the roster for today,” she told me. “Bluntly, you’re the only driver I’ve got left without a possession charge on their record. That, of course, doesn’t matter for much of anything—except the airport delivery. Fill out this form,” Trysta ordered, passing me a sheet of paper.
“What’s this for?” I asked cautiously.
“Bonding, basically insurance that covers us if you break airport security or something dumb,” she explained. “They won’t let courier drivers in who aren’t bonded. I’m getting it rushed through.”
Nodding in acceptance, I quickly finished the form and handed it back to her.
“What do I do?”
“For now, I’ve got a light load for you to run out, and by the time you’re back, everything should be good to go for you to head up to the airport,” she said, handing me the standard signing form for a load of packages. I signed for it and went out back to grab a pallet jack.
The GPS led me efficiently around my route, and I had just delivered my last package when my smartphone went off, advising me I had a text.
It ordered me to meet the sender—an “Enforcer Michael”—at a given Starbucks location, and was closed with his name and a symbol I didn’t think most cellphones could produce—the stylized K of the Magus Kenneth MacDonald.
I checked in the GPS. The Starbucks was right on the way back to the office. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. They’d made it very clear on my first night that anyone using that sigil was to be obeyed and had access to at least some of the abilities of the Wizard himself.
I sighed and went to the Starbucks. A fair-haired and tanned man in a black business suit, looking like he’d been cast in the same molding machine as every other Enforcer of MacDonald’s I’d met, stood by the front door. He spotted me and offered his hand.
“What’s going on, Michael?” I asked the man, taking his hand. It was better to be polite with these guys. While what I’d been told led me to expect that I could probably take the tattooed human apart with ease, he was backed by a Wizard.
“Let me buy you a coffee,” he said instead of answering the question. “I know you can’t spare much time, but it’s the least I can do.”
“Fine,” I responded. “Venti white chocolate mocha, whipped cream.” That monstrosity of sugar and caffeine wasn’t even something I drank, but I’d heard Trysta order it for herself, and it sounded like she was going to need it today.
While we were waiting for our coffees, the Enforcer turned to look at me and carefully flashed a ring he wore on his left index finger—the same stylized K as in the text message.
“The Wizard has need of your services,” he told me.
“I presumed as much,” I said dryly. “What do you want?”
“Your employer has rushed a bonding for you and advised airport security you will be making a courier delivery to the airport today.” Michael picked up his plain black coffee and sipped carefully.
“I have two packages that will go in with your shipment,” he continued. “One you will deliver to a man in the loading dock; the other you will place with the rest of your packages for shipment out.” He raised a hand to block me arguing. “There will be no cost or risk to your employer; we just want to avoid this package showing up on any official manifests.”
“Why all the secrecy?” I asked, exaggerating my slow drawl to buy myself time to think.
“That’s not really your business, Mr. Kilkenny,” the Enforcer replied. “The Magus MacDonald requires this of you. Consider it partial payment for your identity papers and other assistance you have been provided.”
I picked up my mocha to cover my concern, and Michael quietly rapped that ring on the counter. I didn’t really have a lot of choice. The Wizard could end me with a thought, and refusing his people’s requests was likely a quick way to get him angry at me.