She’d never said anything about it to anyone, but Laura was still bitter about schooling.
Part of her blamed Morgan and Cheryl. Being a nearly fulltime babysitter on limited funds did nothing to help her studying or obtaining supplies; her best friend in middle school always brought extra pencils and extra notebooks, and took notes religiously on the days Laura couldn’t go to class. She remembered many mornings standing grumpily by the door with Cheryl in her arms, uniform on but schoolbag abandoned while Morgan rushed out the door, apologizing for another last-minute job. None of the neighbors then would even speak to such a disreputable woman, let alone take care of an “angelina’s” child for the day. It might’ve been different if the job paid better—“day care” was a mythic place out of reach—but to earn higher pay one needed a higher education. Few women had one, leaving them to the whims of their bosses if they wished to climb the pay chain or even keep their jobs. It took Morgan eight years of clawing her way up the ladder to get steady hours and decent paycheck.
This, like many things her poor aunt went through, showed Laura very well that she had no interest in the “traditional woman” box.
At the time the existence of Sweepers seemed just as dubious as the prospect of day care, so she had to find her own way to break out. University seemed like the best choice. She liked school, liked learning new things and piecing them together, so additional years in a classroom didn’t bother her. University streamlined someone for the grander parts of the workforce, and even if a graduate didn’t go into their studied field, the simple fact that they had a degree ensured good pay and reasonable hours. She just needed to study hard, place into the right graduating class in high school, and get a scholarship.
Simple.
Except it failed.
She still had all the old university pamphlets and flyers tucked away in her closet under her Coronae Sweeper book and the Sinclair journal. Back then she’d told herself she could apply properly once she’d amassed some funds. After the recent events, she knew it would never happen.
“Good-bye, Royal Academy of Sciences,” she said dully, picking up the pamphlet from the uneven pile on the table. With a swish and clunk, it landed in the trash bin with a pack of similar papers.
“Good-bye, Arbor Branch.”
Swish, clunk.
“Good-bye, Prima College.”
Swish, clunk.
“Good-bye, Amicae Grand University.”
She paused at this one. The Grand University’s magnificent façade looked back at her from a state-of-the-art brochure. This had been her favorite prospect. With its sprawling museum and top-notch faculty, it was the destination for many history majors, alongside multiple other distinguished courses. History had been her favorite subject; after all, it was only a step removed from fairy tales and myth, and learning the exploits of Terulian queens and their current impact on Orien was so much more interesting than adding up numbers. She sighed, fingering the dog-eared corners.
The front door rattled open, making her jump. Cheryl charged into the kitchen, a single mitten stuck in her mouth. As she attacked the bread box, Morgan hurried after her, waving the other mitten.
“I’m serious! It’s cold outside, you have to take your scarf! And what’s wrong with your old coat?”
“It’s got too many holes,” Cheryl replied, in the brief moment of swapping mitten for food.
“I just mended them!”
“Well, it ripped again.”
Morgan slumped over the table. It took a moment for her to take in the stack of paper, but when she did she brightened.
“Rutherford University? Isn’t that Charlie’s school?”
“No.” Laura slapped the Grand University’s brochure back over it.
“Yes, it is! Were you considering a job there?” Morgan shone like the sun. Charlie had been making every effort to get into Morgan’s good graces. Laura had called him out on his behavior not long ago, so this might’ve been an attempt to prove her wrong. It made Laura’s blood boil, but redoubled Morgan’s matchmaking schemes. “I’ve heard there are secretary positions open, and even a school switchboard! It should be easy for you to get into, and then you’d get to see Charlie every day!”
“No. Not happening.”
Laura scooped up the whole pile and dumped it in the bin. Morgan plucked the offending item back out and flipped to the next page.
“Look, see? They have plenty of opportunities for the enterprising young woman! Oh, but this one’s a few years old. Twelve twenty-nine? Have you been thinking of it that long?”
“I haven’t been thinking about any of it,” Laura snapped. “That’s why they’re going in the trash, where they belong.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Morgan hummed, eyes still fixed on the pamphlet as she trailed back to her room. Laura groaned and buried her head in her hands.
“Of all people, why’d she have to get hung up on Charlie?”
“Because he’s going to be rich,” said Cheryl. “Plus he’s nice to her.”
“Maybe to her face,” Laura grumbled. She still hadn’t forgiven Charlie for the nasty way he’d spoken about Morgan, as if their near decade of acquaintance and all the times she’d helped him meant nothing. What kind of ass called their most helpful neighbor a worthless whore?
“She should give up. It’s obvious you don’t like him,” said Cheryl.
“Exactly! How long do you think it’ll take her to realize?”
Cheryl’s face scrunched, and Laura took that to mean never.
“I’m leaving before she comes up with another grand matchmaking scheme,” said Laura, standing and grabbing her bag. “If you get the chance, ditch that pamphlet for me.”
Maybe Laura would use her funds to rent a new apartment after all. Gain some distance from Charlie and Morgan’s ridiculous plots, and keep the Sinclairs there for safekeeping. She’d have to check the newspaper listings when she got to the shop.
“You’re going already?” Morgan ducked back into the kitchen and followed her toward the door. “I hope you’ll be working hard and, of course, thinking hard.”
Laura turned, giving her a flat look as she buttoned up her coat. Morgan completely ignored it and fluffed up Laura’s scarf, the smile still glued to her face.
“Make a good impression with your new boss, okay? If you end up moving jobs they could give you a good recommendation.”
As if any new employer could see the name “Laura Kramer” and think anything positive.
“Cheryl’s going to be late for school if you take much longer.”
“Of course! Cheryl, honey, I’m serious about the scarf. If your coat’s got holes, that’s all the more reason—”
Morgan hurried away, prompting a loud, annoyed noise from Cheryl. Laura rolled her eyes and pushed the door open. Chill morning air blew against her face, but she barely felt it. She was too focused on the woman standing directly in front of her. Laura didn’t recognize her, but the woman certainly knew her. She pushed herself up from her previous recline against the banister and smiled.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” said Laura. “Sorry, are you here for Morgan? I can get her, it’d be just a moment—”
“I’m here for you, Miss Sinclair.”
The tone rang sweet, but the words felt loaded. God, could this be one of her critics, come to badger her in person since they couldn’t get her on the telephone?
“Miss Sinclair?”
Laura’s trepidation shattered at the new voice. Charlie had stepped out of his apartment—presumably leaving for university—and now looked at them both with a sullen expression.
“I’m a Sinclair Sweeper,” Laura said icily. “If you expect me to remember every boring detail of your life, you could at least try to do the same for me.” She turned on her heel, bared her teeth at the woman. “Why don’t we talk as we walk? I’ll buy you coffee.”
She’d rather deal with someone screaming half-truths than an outright backstabber. Luckily the woman followed without further prompting.
“This isn’t about titles and you know it,” said Charlie.
“Why not? Titles are all you care about, you buzzard.”
His face went red in anger and embarrassment, but it kept him quiet long enough for Laura to escape.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Laura fretted, one floor down. “I’m not usually so—” On second thought, that was a lie. She backtracked. “I have a personal problem with him.”
“Enough to call him a buzzard,” the woman laughed. “Oh, that’s such a pity. I came here to hate you and you’ve made yourself personable.”
Laura raised a brow. “I didn’t think that went over as a pleasant appearance.”
“I never said pleasant. You’ve just revealed your humanity is all.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Laura said slowly. “You seem very positive for someone who hates me.”
“I’m a wonderful actress.”
That answered nothing.
“So, why’d you come calling so early? It would’ve been easier to catch me at the Sweeper shop, and probably more appropriate if this is about the job.”
“It’s about Sweeping, but on the other hand it’s not. Follow me?”
Baffled, Laura did so.
Upon leaving the Cynder Block, the woman led her down one of the nearby roads. It was a route Laura knew well, even if she no longer frequented it. She’d taken this path for three years of high school. She knew where other children came in off the branching streets, knew which stores opened earliest to entice students who’d skipped breakfast, knew which canal-spanning bridges were steepest. School was in session today, so they were soon crowded by high schoolers and book bags. A pair of girls walked in front of them, whispering the same ghost story about the Sylph Canal that Laura had gossiped over in her time on this path. Between this and the discarded brochures, she was in a bittersweet, nostalgic stupor and almost missed it when the woman spoke again.
“Have you been following the Dead Ringer?”
The familiarity of this place no longer comforted her.
“Of course,” said Laura. “It would be stupid to ignore what people are saying about me.”
“And does it please you to see what they write?”
“Not really. I never agreed to any sort of mob alliance, so if they come knocking for favors, they’ll be disappointed.” The woman hummed, thoughtful. Laura sucked in a breath, gathered her courage, and continued, “That being said, I don’t think anything they’ve printed is wrong. Petulant maybe, but still. The Council is making weird decisions for Sweepers, and citizens are focusing on the wrong things. I don’t care whose authority steers the Sinclairs, if it’s me or Juliana or even someone else, but I do care about it all functioning well and being sure we can protect against infestations. As far as I can see, the Dead Ringer and Mad Dogs have the same priorities.”
She’d meant to make a critic think deeper. She clearly made the wrong decision. The woman’s expression plunged into something entirely chilling.
“So you do ally with them.”
She said nothing more but kept walking. It wasn’t enough of a dismissal for Laura to feel comfortable leaving, so she kept walking too. Before them loomed the Naia Canal bridge. The canal and accompanying Naia Street were an industrial thoroughfare. Small boats chugged up and down the waterway, and the bridge rose high to accommodate them; its height gave a good view over the cars of Naia, and it was this that made Laura pause. Students complained and circled past her on the bridge, but she didn’t pay attention. One of the buildings on Naia was a tall, unassuming office complex, but she’d seen its façade printed in a newspaper: the Dead Ringer’s headquarters. Police surrounded it, but they weren’t raiding it. Their backs faced the building and they looked out into the crowds as if searching for something.
The woman stopped. The chill hadn’t left her, but a smile returned to her face. “Is something wrong, Miss Sinclair?”
“Are you a mobster?” said Laura. “Because if you’re a Mad Dog, I just said—”
“A Mad Dog? Don’t insult me.” The woman turned entirely and stepped back toward her. It was a slow movement, deliberate and slinky and very much predatory. “But you’re decently fast on the uptake. No, I’m not a Mad Dog, and neither are you. We’d like it to stay that way.”
We. Laura’s eyes jumped about, trying to pick out any kind of mobster tag, and alighted on a metallic gray hair clip. It could easily be nothing, easily be coincidence, but—
“Silver Kings?”
“Good guess,” said the woman. “Now, you’re familiar with the MARU? Of course you are.”
Anyone who’d lived in Amicae knew about the Mob Action Resolution Unit. The roughest members of the police force, they’d been turned loose on the lower Quarters with the sole mission of breaking up the mobs. They’d attacked anyone remotely connected, and used any tactic—coercion, torture, outright murder—to take someone off the scene. They ruled with an iron fist until the Silver Kings rallied all the mobs under their banner. The MARU could fight scattered mobsters, but the united front overwhelmed them. Mobsters made the MARU’s actions look like child’s play. They hunted down every last member, picked them off one by one with increasingly gruesome tactics, and everywhere they went they left circles. A circle like a target. A circle like a noose. They drew it on victims splashed by acid, slapped it on cars and along the MARU’s frequent routes, hung it over baby cradles and gifted wreaths to unwitting wives. For months Amicae had been tormented by circles on every street, and the MARU broke under it. Most died by the mobs’ hands; some took their own lives; the few who survived were either too injured or too afraid to return to the force. The mobs dispersed quickly afterward, but the point was made. Amicae knew who held true power.
For a long time the Council had spread the rumor that Sweepers were the current incarnation of the MARU, but as far as Laura knew, the mobs knew better. She and Clae had never been drawn into their fights, and circles never appeared at their door.
“We’re not the MARU,” Laura said anyway. “We’re not involved with your politics.”
“So you say, but the Mad Dogs have you in their pocket,” said the woman. “I don’t know what kind of agenda the Mad Dogs are pushing, but there’s a delicate balance to this city. We’ve lost too much protecting that balance to let it be broken now.”
“I’m not allied with them!” Laura snapped.
“But you will be, and that can’t be allowed.”
Fire and glass burst from the upper floor of the Dead Ringer office, with force enough that the very air trembled. Students screamed and ducked.
Back, whispered something far away in her mind.
Back, she thought in reply.
The amulet on her belt activated. She was thrown back so fast she felt as if she’d been shoved. Her rear hit the low railing, and her head reeled to keep up. She’d dodged something. A knife. The woman pivoted, slashed her little blade upward now. Laura canted sharply back. The knife missed her chin by an inch. She tried to catch the rail and heave herself back up, but it was too smooth. Her hands slipped. With nothing else to catch her, she fell over the side. Partway through the tumble she snapped her arms to her sides and cried, “Straighten!”
The amulets in her shoes answered this time, catching gravity so she hit the water in a pencil dive. The canal closed over her head, muffling the shouts and the crackling of the bombed building. She didn’t have time to do more than thrash before something caught her under the arm and towed her upward. She broke the surface, coughing and spitting out canal water. She’d been caught with a curved metal pole, something used to hook fallen cargo from the little boats. The man wielding it didn’t look used to reeling in fallen humans, but reached out a hand and called, “Here, missy!”
He hauled her onto the deck. She stood fast and looked back up at the bridge; would the woman have a gun, too?
The woman stood at the rail, knife still in one hand. The students fled, tripping in their haste to get away from her, but she remained totally calm.
“You should work on your escapes. That lacked any sort of grace,” she called.
“You’re the one who just tried to stab me!” Laura retorted. “What kind of grace is that?”
“The best kind.” She put the knife away and rummaged in her purse. “Remember what I said about balance. A single floundering Sweeper I can let go, but if it gets more than that, you won’t be the only one suffering. Remember the MARU.”
She pulled an object out of her purse and threw it. It spun and fell with a clunk at Laura’s feet. It was a wreath of flowers woven tight against a painted backing, like the ones used at graduation ceremonies or funerals. As pretty as the flowers were, Laura could only see the circle now. She glowered at the woman, snatched up the wreath, and snapped it in half. The woman threw back her head and laughed. Another bomb went off on the Dead Ringer’s second floor. Laura flinched on instinct. When she opened her eyes again, the woman was gone.
“Miss Kramer!” A policeman teetered at the canal’s edge. “My god, it is you! Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
She’d recognize that man anywhere. “I’m fine, Officer Baxter!” she replied.
“Can you get back up here?” said Baxter. “Really, this is no place for you, miss!”
The boatman steered her to the canal’s side, where she caught the metal rungs and pulled herself back up to street level. This done, she gave a salute and the boat happily chugged away from this mess.
“Please tell me this isn’t a Sweeper job,” she said, grimacing at the burning building.
“What? Oh, no,” said Baxter, ushering her away. “This is regular mob warfare, no infestations. They tipped their hand, too, so no one was actually in the building, but—” A third blast shook the area, and the building groaned. Baxter hurried her faster. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t show up to retaliate! Let’s get out of here!”
The other officers had moved out, herding the remaining students away from the danger zone and waving in reinforcements. Baxter stopped alongside a parked automobile and groaned. Another circle had been painted over the door, obscuring AMICAE POLICE DEPT with crimson.
“Should you use that, or is it a trap?” said Laura.
Obviously they had no time to waste on worrying; Baxter climbed in without hesitation, explaining simply, “They’re painting it on everything these days.”
Laura took a seat, tossing the ruined wreath in the back, and he started the engine. They peeled away from the curb just as another vehicle sped past, siren blaring.
“Are you sure you should be leaving?” said Laura, craning her neck to see the billowing smoke. The sight made her feel sick.
“Ensuring your safety is more important,” said Baxter. “They clearly targeted you on the bridge, and led you here to begin with. If they want you around, the chief wants you as far away as possible. If something happened to you, the only Sweepers in the city would be mob-employed. It would be disastrous.”
Laura sucked in a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. “How long have the Silver Kings and Mad Dogs been at each others’ throats?”
“We don’t know for sure. It came out into the open the same time the truth came out about the wall.”
Maybe the wall policy had been part of the Silver Kings’ balance. That was a hell of a change for their regime, and the Mad Dogs had pushed for its collapse the whole time. No wonder they were angry enough to bomb each other.
No one died, though, and they could’ve tried much harder to be rid of Laura. This wasn’t a real attack. It had to be a warning.
They stayed quiet all the way up until trundling to a stop on Acis.
“Well, here we are. I apologize for all of this. It’s a frightful business.”
Laura frowned, eyes closed. She still felt off, like something was about to spring at her. “It’s fine,” she said distantly.
The sound of a wind chime made her look up. Okane leaned out of the shop door, squinting at them. Once he realized who it was he came out.
“Laura? What’s going on?”
“I got caught up in something,” she replied. “Don’t ask what. Even I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry, though, we’ll be increasing security on your shop and home,” said Baxter, clambering out.
Okane gave Laura a horrified look, and she sighed. “I’ll tell you inside.”
Laura turned, readying herself to leave the vehicle. On a whim she glanced at the backseat. The wreath’s flowers had withered. A white blossom trembled and fell, revealing something pitch black beneath. The painted backing had split so easily because it contained a hollow.
“Get away from the car!” she screeched, leaping out.
Baffled, Baxter followed, and not a moment too soon. The blackness made a rattling sound and expanded. The vehicle doors shuddered as it slammed against them, and the horn honked as feelers slipped up over the controls.
“An infestation?” said Okane. “But I didn’t sense it at all!”
“It must’ve been hibernating,” said Laura, cursing her own carelessness. “They knew any damage would get it moving.”
“They? Was it planted?”
“Classic mobsters,” Laura spat, pulling an Egg from her bag. She wound up to throw but hesitated. The memory of her single job as head Sweeper sprang back to mind, the seemingly obvious target and the following damage. She couldn’t do that again. “How likely is that vehicle to blow up if I throw an Egg at it?”
Judging by Baxter’s expression, very likely.
She snatched up a rock from the ground instead. It hit the door hard enough to dent. With a blur of motion, the infestation snatched it into its bulk before it could hit the ground. It otherwise seemed unwilling to budge from the seats, content to hide under the roof. They’d have to drive it out another way.
She pulled on her goggles, swapping the Egg for a flash pellet. Okane copied, circling to the other side. Laura crept closer. At first the infestation milled, oblivious, but it came to attention as her steps grew louder. It swelled to fill the entirety of the vehicle, clicking and clattering. The horn blared again, only to cut out as the vehicle wrenched and shuddered. Inky hands slithered out, hissing when they met the weak sunlight. Not a very smart creature, she decided, and threw in the pellet. It ricocheted off an arm and stuck by the door before going off. Baxter yelped and tumbled at the sudden harsh light. Laura leapt back as the infestation flailed, feelers swinging far too close.
“Any idea where we can find a broom?” she called.
“What?” said Okane. He spooked at another swipe of feelers and tossed his own pellet. The infestation squealed in fright and sucked back into the vehicle.
“If we can’t hit it in the car we need to get it out. Drive it into the amulet and maybe we can flip it out!”
“Are - - - crazy? It would eat - - - along with the broom!”
“Not if we get it fast enough.”
She hoped, anyway.
She stepped in close, arm raised to sling another pellet, and stopped short. Nothing was there. The seats were discolored, a few petals scattered on the cushions, but there was no monster and no wreath.
“Down!” Okane shrieked.
She caught a flicker of movement by her feet and retreated fast. More arms stretched from under the car, faster and farther than before. Too fast. She threw her pellet on the road to spook it into slowing and only then escaped to the sidewalk. The infestation squirmed before withdrawing. It bubbled like water around the vehicle’s wheels, and the road beneath it bled black.
The door behind Laura opened. The pawnshop owner peered out, irritation fading quickly to fear before she pulled the door almost shut again.
“What in hell—”
“Stay inside,” Laura ordered. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”
“Try not to break my shop,” the woman snapped, and the door closed.
So other people had heard of her track record. Hardly surprising, since it had been published in Amicae’s largest newspaper, but still. Anger burned hot in her throat. I didn’t sign up to be sneered at. She clenched her teeth and focused on the infestation again.
The bubbling solidified about the tires, and without warning it moved. The wheels spun, sending the whole thing careening forward. Laura swore and ran, but she couldn’t outrun it. She dodged into the thin alley between two derelict houses. The vehicle hit the entrance hard enough for its front wheels and hood to buckle, and the headlights smashed. The infestation slithered out into the shadowed walkway even faster than before. Laura tried another flash pellet, but the infestation had realized they were harmless; it slid up the walls on either side. Laura rolled a Bijou between her fingers but didn’t throw it—she’d taken out the majority of a building with some before, and now was hardly the place for a repeat performance. But what else could she do?
The infestation knit together overhead. Something winked behind it, a moment before a blast shook the ground. The infestation reeled away, studded with glass and debris from the smashed car; kin glinted bright alongside shards of metal and glass, sucked fast into the black body. The infestation swirled back toward the street, trilling angrily as it sought the more dangerous threat. She saw it lash out once, twice, and a furious cracking sound made it flinch back each time. Okane slung another Egg at the infestation, but it batted this aside to smash somewhere in the vicinity of Brecht’s bookshop. It was properly angry now. It smoked again in the sun, clawing out of the alley. Blackness wrenched at tires and the vehicle jerked back. It changed targets.
Laura ran out again as the ruined automobile leapt back into the street. Okane backed away fast on its other side, switching out for flash pellets again. The infestation didn’t so much as flinch. It whipped two more long arms at him. He ducked the first just barely, so it hurtled through a shop window. Screams came from inside but he didn’t have time to look before the other arm smashed into the road beside him. He scrambled on hands and knees now as the first arm swung down in his way, barring his escape. His magic crackled. The nearest arm flinched, but the entire black surface of the main mass bubbled. The arms dug deeper, hauling the vehicle straight at him. His face paled. He sprang at the arm blocking him, accompanied by a particularly loud snap of magic, but stopped short. His magic wasn’t enough to drive it out of the way. When the interior of Amicae had been covered in infestations, it had worked. When Laura had been caught by an infestation, he’d defied five hundred years of fact and driven it off with his magic. And now, on an infestation not even a fraction of the last foe’s size or strength, it wasn’t working?
Laura gritted her teeth, clacked an Egg against her amulet, and threw as hard as she could. It sailed straight into the backseat, its flashing eclipsed briefly before it exploded. The roof blasted off and sparks danced over cobblestone. The infestation shrieked. Its arms liquefied and Okane leapt over them, stumbling over the curb just in time. The vehicle slammed into the shop. Laura met him near the door.
“You okay?”
“In one piece,” he said.
“Good. Fall back for now, okay?”
He didn’t need telling twice. She wrenched the shop door open. Five people were inside, one with his legs crushed under debris, three others pulling him out; the last one had been caught by the infestation’s charge.
“Hurry and get out of here!” she called. “It won’t be long before the infestation recovers!”
Sure enough, the black ooze on the floor was drawing back together. It pooled over the counter, slipped over the last person, and dragged the silent body into its bulk. The other four hurried outside and toward Baxter. Laura ducked back outside and threw another Egg.
The infestation reeled. The vehicle lurched back again, scraped to face her now, and sped forward, spitting infestation covering its every surface. Laura stood her ground.
“Okane! Bijou!” she shouted, rapping another Egg against her belt.
This one hit and burst on the hood, spewing gold and clearing the windshield. An inactive Bijou flew past and bounced just off the side, but it was close enough. The heat of the Egg blast set it off, and the Bijou veered back into the vehicle with a scream. The infestation seeped inward to protect itself, but sparks ripped through it. The whole mess wove past Laura, and she tossed in two more Bijou. This done, she tore off after the others.
“Three?” said Okane, shaking. “But how many did it take to—”
“Not important. We’re getting rid of this before it can grab anyone else,” she retorted. Louder, “You up ahead, don’t look back!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The two other Bijou caught. Within seconds they were all howling, spitting light, and burning enough that thick, roiling clouds billowed off the creature’s body. The infestation lashed, tossing this way and that so the car veered erratically. One swing of feelers sent a Bijou flying back out, but it curved in midair; once it hit the ground it raced along the cobblestone and under the vehicle. The glow dimmed for a moment. Next came a thundering bang. The vehicle burst into flame. Fire licked high, vivid but smudged at the edges. The wreckage rattled as the infestation thrashed. It seemed smaller now, less solid. Laura didn’t arm her Egg this time, simply lobbed it in. Its break wasn’t audible but the fire stained vividly yellow. The infestation curled up so it was completely invisible. The familiar black cloud issued, snuffing the fire and shadowing the entire street. Laura pressed her bandana close against her face. Some smell still got through, and her eyes watered.
“It’s dead. Is everyone okay?”
The shop victims crowded further down the street, but Baxter hovered over them like a fretful hen.
“Rattled but whole,” he reported. “And you? You weren’t harmed?”
“It’ll take more than that to take me out,” said Laura.
“Glad to hear, Miss Kramer.”
Okane all but collapsed onto the sidewalk. Laura knelt beside him.
“What’s wrong? It didn’t touch you, did it?”
“No, nothing like that.” He knit shaking fingers together and attempted a smile. “I’m just—Back in the interior, after Clae—I could touch infestations and they’d leave me alone. This one wasn’t afraid of me at all. Is it—was I not scared enough? Am I not that strong anymore? Was it stronger than months-old swarms?”
Laura didn’t know, and she didn’t like the idea. “This one could’ve been a lot older,” she suggested. “Mobs plant hibernating infestations all the time.”
His nose wrinkled. “Since when do they hibernate?”
“Since always. It’s a defense mechanism. If an infestation reaches a point when it eats everything alive around it and can’t sense movement, it pulls back into the amulet and goes dormant. It resurfaces to check the surroundings and starts up again if it senses anything. If not, it just keeps sleeping. It can go weeks, or years. Decades, even.” She paused. “That’s the reason we even have the wilds. Infestations eat nonliving things too, so if there was no dormancy they’d eat the trees, the ground. There’d be nothing left.”
Okane shuddered. “Scary.”
“Most dormant infestations are from the wilds, so mobs buy from the idiots who harvest them. God knows how they keep from being eaten themselves.”
“Or maybe it’s not older at all,” said Okane.
“What else could it have been?” said Laura.
Okane’s brow furrowed. “The hive mind learns. Maybe it’s already adapted past my abilities, after seeing us in November.”
A distant wail reached them, coming closer by the second. Another police car tore around the corner, followed close by a white-canvased ambulance. One of the local shopkeepers must have called for help during the ordeal. Baxter waved them down, and soon medics fussed over all of them. While most stuck to the victims, one jogged over to the Sweepers.
“Are you hurt at all?” she asked, looking them up and down.
“Rattled but whole,” Laura echoed.
Okane nodded slowly. “I’ll be okay.”
Once the medical personnel attended to all the victims, the Sweepers quickly retreated into the shop. It felt good to be there, safe, in a place completely saturated with the smell and feel of magic.
“I don’t understand what they were trying to do,” Laura said once they were inside. “I mean, at first that woman was trying to convince me of something, then she threatened me to stay on the right path, and then she doesn’t even give me a chance to follow her advice?” She threw her hands up in frustration. “What was the point? If you’re going to kill me in a flashy way, why not do it with the backdrop of a burning building?”
“Maybe it was just emphasis,” said Okane.
“On what?”
“They can catch - - - off guard.” He peered through the window, up the street at the damage. “They can catch us even in a place we thought was safe. If she was handling infestations so easily, it could also be emphasis on their own Sweepers.”
Every mob had a Sweeper force, rarely seen. In the past, most mob-related incidents were settled quietly or specifically left for the Sinclairs to clean up. With all the talk about one of the Mad Dogs being an ex-Sinclair, Laura had always imagined the Mad Dogs being Sweeper-heavy, but of course the Silver Kings would have their own.
“So what, they’re saying we’re not needed?” she grumbled, joining him at the window.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Okane. “Sullivan never met with Silver Kings. The few Mad Dogs he invited to the mansion didn’t talk much about Sweepers, but then again he never cared about such things.”
They were startled from their thoughts as the door banged open. The wind chime downright clanged, and in came Juliana.
“Are you two all right?” she cried, before she was even over the threshold. “We got a call from the police about some kind of mob hit on the shop, and came as soon as we could. You’re not injured, right? They didn’t actually catch you?”
Laura was too overwhelmed to respond as Juliana caught her by the shoulders and gave her a critical once-over. Finding nothing, Juliana simply stared at her.
“It was an infestation, not a bombing,” Laura said once she finally found her tongue. “We were able to take care of it, but you probably saw the damage outside.”
Juliana nodded solemnly. “Were any people caught up in it?”
“One dead, multiple injured,” said Laura. “We had a policeman already on-site and more arrived fast. They’ll have the official numbers.”
“I’m just glad you two weren’t caught up in it.”
Lester entered far more slowly. “Juliana, the officer out here says it was a mob hit.”
“A what?” Juliana looked aghast.
Laura winced. “I think they were after me. One faction got upset over all the newspaper articles and decided to make a stand. It doesn’t make sense to me, though. I don’t see what they’d gain from it beyond public backlash.”
Juliana’s expression became thunderous. “Of all the ridiculous—If this is how they’ll be, fine. We’ll teach you to defend yourselves more. Lester, let’s move up the training schedule.”