Marci looked more confused than ever. “Terrible at what?”
Being a dragon, he wanted to tell her. Being a scheming lizard who didn’t need to be reminded to murder witnesses and understood cryptic messages from crazy seers. And right then, he wished Marci actually was his human girlfriend, because he could really use a hug.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, leaning over to type the address Lark had given him into the car’s autonav. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Marci didn’t look convinced, but to Julius’s relief, she didn’t ask any more questions. She just let the car pull them into the dark, canyon-like streets between the factories, back toward the city.
When his retrieval team failed to check in, Bixby ordered the rest of his employees to cancel their evening plans. They were going to Detroit.
“All of us?” cried the mage he’d hired to replace the one the Novalli girl had blown up. “To the DFZ? But—”
Bixby’s second, Oslo, cut the man off with a wave of his huge hand, saving his life. Not that that was why Oslo had done it, of course, but the mage was too new to recognize when Bixby was in killing mood. If his ignorance got him shot, Oslo was the one who’d have to find them another replacement mage on short notice, and if there was anything Oslo hated, it was doing more work than was absolutely necessary.
“I want this taken care of fast and right,” Bixby went on, leaning forward on his desk as he swept his eyes menacingly over the hired muscle crowding his normally spacious office. “I don’t care what you spend, I don’t care who you piss off, and I don’t care what you break. I just want that overhyped golden grapefruit back in Vegas in time for the drop-off tomorrow night, and I want that little thief delivered to my office trussed up like a pig.”
Oslo sighed and removed his hat to wipe a white handkerchief across his smooth shaved, and completely dry, head. It was his favorite stalling technique when he wanted to say something he knew his boss wouldn’t like, so Bixby wasn’t at all surprised when his second finally said, “I know you’re pissed, sir, but if you don’t mind me asking, what’s all this with the girl? Aldo was the one who stole the thing from you in the first place, and he’s been coyote food for days now. It don’t matter how much money you throw at this, it’s gonna take a miracle for us to get your stolen property out of the DFZ and back here before the deadline. If we have to worry about the girl, too, I don’t think we can—”
“Oslo,” Bixby said, drumming his fingers on the arm of his leather chair. “There are times when you’re paid to think and times when you’re paid to do what I tell you. Guess which one this is?”
Oslo put his hat back on with a sigh. “Sure thing, boss. Thief trussed up like a pig. Got it.”
“And no killing,” Bixby said, jabbing his finger at his men. “Rough her up, scare her, cut off her arms, I don’t care, but she keeps breathing or you all don’t. Got me?”
When Oslo nodded, Bixby waved his hand. “Good. Now get out of here. I’m expecting a phone call.”
Actually, his phone call had been scheduled for two hours ago, but this client never called on time. If it had been anyone else, Mr. Bixby wouldn’t have tolerated such behavior for love or money, but this client was his seer as well as his buyer, and real seers were a lot harder to replace than mages.
Now that the marching orders had been given, Oslo jerked his head, and the room cleared out. When his men were gone, Bixby messaged his numbers guy to start moving money into the operational budget. Out-of-town work was always more expensive than one expected, and Bixby didn’t want Oslo to have any excuses if this fell through. He also sent notes around to his Detroit contacts to make sure no one up there took offense when Oslo’s war party rolled into their territory. He’d covered nearly half the DFZ before his private phone finally began to buzz in his pocket.
Bixby set the sleek black device on his desk. The no expense spared enchanted glass picked up the phone’s AR at once, throwing the incoming message up like a marquee in the air in front of him.
Having trouble, are we?
Bixby grit his teeth. This was another of his seer’s obnoxious peculiarities. The bastard set the call times, but never actually phoned. He only messaged, and none of Bixby’s hackers had ever been able to crack the number behind the Unknown Caller ID.
If the man’s predictions weren’t air tight every time, Bixby would have cut this nonsense off at the throat ages ago. Instead, he tapped his hand on the desk’s glass surface, bringing up the glowing virtual keyboard to type his reply. Since he was alone, he spoke the words out loud as he typed them, just to make himself feel like he was still in charge of this conversation. “It’s being taken care of. We’ll have everything in time for the pick-up tomorrow.”
That’s not what I heard.
Bixby almost put his fist through the glass. He checked his temper at the last second, closing his eyes instead with a deep breath. When he opened them again, several more messages were hanging in the AR.
Poor little Bixby, time’s running out. Of all the predictions I’ve made for you, every single one has come to pass, except the last. You’re courting your own death with this incompetence.
“Screw you!” Bixby yelled at the floating letters, but his fingers were shaking as he began to type his reply, because the seer was right. From the moment the first mysterious message had come into his life last year, everything the seer had predicted had come true exactly as promised, and Bixby had become very, very rich. But this latest prediction was the only one that really mattered, because the last thing the seer had told him was the story of Bixby’s death, and the role Aldo Novalli’s daughter would play in it if he couldn’t get her contained.
“I’ll find her,” he growled as he typed. “You think I don’t know how to catch runners? Even if my men don’t get her in time, I’ve been in this business for thirty years. I’ve had real assassins die just trying to get into my building. There’s no way I’m going down to some little mage girl no one’s ever heard of.”
Save your bluster, the seer replied. You think you can rattle your saber and scare the future into doing your bidding like one of your hirelings? How absurd. Time is a river. It flows on and on with no care or notice for those caught in it. But while you can see nothing but the water around you, I have the ability to look downstream. I can see all the possible paths the future might take, and while even I cannot say for certain which way the water will bounce when the time comes, I can tell you without doubt that there is not one single possible future in which you survive past midnight tomorrow without the Novalli girl in your custody. Not a single one. Do I make myself clear?
Bixby let out a long, angry breath. “I’m working on it.”
The reply came instantly. Work harder. I’ve made you a rich man in many ways, Mr. Bixby, and I can make you richer still. I’ve even told you how to save your pathetic life, but you have to pay the price. I want my Kosmolabe. If you do not have my merchandise at sundown tomorrow as promised, the Novalli girl will be the least of your worries. I will contact you again tomorrow at six. See that the news is good.
Bixby slammed his hands on the desk, cutting off the AR with a curse. There was no point in replying after that. Once the seer posted the time of their next conversation, the current one was over, and any other messages he sent would be ignored. Being hung up on like this made him crazy, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The fortune teller was the only person in the world he couldn’t squeeze. He didn’t know where the seer lived, he didn’t even know the jack off’s name. The best he could do was put the whole thing out of his mind and get back to work, and he was attempting to do just that when his phone buzzed again.