“Lucia,” I said to her voice mail, “I have an important augury to discuss with you. Call me.” I ended the call and shoved my phone into my pocket. Most of the time, I didn’t mind that Lucia screened her calls and answered them according to her own ideas of what was important. Today that habit made me want to scream. I’d studied the auguries last night, what was left of last night after some extremely satisfying sex, and I felt increasingly confident that the oracle wanted the sports to play some role in fighting the Mercy, or the invaders, or both. Whether that meant taking part in Lucia’s upcoming attack, I didn’t know. But I was sure Lucia would. If she ever called me back.
The store brightened as the sun temporarily came out from behind the clouds. The day was overcast, but in a patchy way that made the light dim and brighten as the clouds shifted. It felt like the sky was taunting me. It was one of those days where I craved sunlight. I propped my chin on my hands and watched the shadows on the street outside. At least it wasn’t raining.
Judy emerged from the stacks. “Lunchtime,” she said. “Unless you’re not done with the mail-in auguries.”
“No, they’re finished.” I nodded at the stack of books on the counter next to me. “We can pack them up after we eat.”
I hopped off the stool, making it wobble—I hadn’t been kidding about the need to replace the rest of Abernathy’s furniture—and followed Judy to the break room. I put my container of leftover beef stew in the microwave and watched it slowly revolve. The rich, meaty smell reminded me of my conversation with Malcolm the night before. “I wonder how things would change if the Long War was over,” I said.
“You mean, what would all those fighters do, or what would we do?” Judy replied. “In a way, I hope—no, that’s wrong. I want the war to be over and all the invaders gone. But the Long War gives the Wardens purpose, and if that were gone…it’s like how all those men came home from World War II and there weren’t enough jobs or housing. The war’s end would be hugely disruptive.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Mostly I’d thought about what the magi would turn their magic to if it wasn’t fighting invaders.”
“And would they stop creating new magi?”
I hadn’t considered that, either. “No more magi.”
“And if there’s no more magi, is there any need for the nodes? Or the Neutralities?”
I tried to imagine Lucia out of a job, entering the private sector, so to speak, and my mind came up blank. At that moment, my phone rang. As if my thinking of her had conjured her up, it was Lucia. “Thanks for calling me back,” I said.
“I don’t have a lot of time, Davies. What’s this about an augury? Another unasked-for one? You aren’t supposed to read other people’s auguries.”
“This isn’t one for you. It’s an augury the oracle gave me.”
Lucia made a dismissive noise just shy of a snort. “Sounds like Abernathy’s is getting pushy. All right. What does your augury have to do with me?”
“Well…” I’d already discussed the auguries with others, but telling Lucia was different, if only because her irritated impatience was palpable even through the phone. “I…told the oracle—”
“You talk to the oracle?”
She sounded more surprised than disdainful, which heartened me. “Yes, sometimes. It doesn’t always pay attention, but now that I know it’s a living creature, it feels like the polite thing to do. Anyway, I told it I wanted to do something to help—”
“That astounds me in the sense that it’s no surprise. What next?”
“It gave me an augury. Do you know—did Mr. Wallach tell you about me? About the others like me?”
“He might have made a report which is filed with all the other reports on my desk. Why don’t you sum it up?”
Filed on my desk meant in a stack I’m ignoring. I suppressed a sigh—it felt like I’d told this story a hundred times before—and explained quickly how Wallach had confirmed that I was a genetic sport, how that meant I was immune to being drained by an invader, and that I’d identified others like me. “The augury says that the sports—me and the others like me—can help fight the invaders. Or are important to defeating them. It’s not clear on the specifics.”
“It does, huh?”
My heart sank, because Lucia’s tone of voice was entirely too familiar: slightly sarcastic, a little dismissive, and one hundred percent ready to end the call and move on. “It does. But you know more about the fight than I do. I was hoping you would understand what the augury means in practical terms.”
“Davies, you know I don’t disregard the oracle. But in this case, I have no idea what use I’d make of a handful of people, most of whom know nothing about the Long War or magic or Wardens, whose sole advantage is an immunity every wood and steel magus has. Or do those magical talents have more usefulness than you suggest?”
“I’m not saying I want us to attack the Mercy stronghold with the front line fighters. I’m saying if the oracle thinks there’s something we can do, I want to figure out what that is.”
Lucia sighed. When she spoke again, she sounded less impatient. “I don’t have time for this. We’ve planned our attack and it’s only two nights from now. Adding an unknown quantity to that attack would push it back several days, and we’re already risking discovery by waiting as long as we are.”
“I thought you’d found all the traitors. There isn’t anyone left to warn the Mercy.”
“Leaks happen. It doesn’t take a traitor to accidentally give something away. If the Mercy is watching us, they could theoretically work out what we’re doing the longer it takes us to act.”
“But the oracle—”
“Like I said, Davies, I don’t want to disregard the oracle. If you’ll sign a confidentiality waiver, I’ll send an interpreter to take those auguries and see what he can make of them. This isn’t the end of the war, and I doubt it will make much difference if your sports aren’t part of this battle.” She hung up without saying goodbye.
I sat holding the dead phone to my ear for a minute. “She said no, huh,” Judy said around a mouthful of stew.
“Sort of. She doesn’t think there’s any urgency.” I set down my phone and took a bite of stew, which was lukewarm. “I guess I should be grateful she didn’t dismiss me out of hand.”
“Lucia’s not stupid. You’ve been right too many times for her to ignore your warnings.”
I stood, pushing my stew aside. Either I was tired of stew, or I’d lost my appetite for other reasons. “But I’m not wrong about this.”
I crossed the hall to the break room and pulled Mind-Call out of my purse, riffling through the pages at random. I closed my eyes and stabbed at the page with my finger. Opening my eyes, I scanned the lines surrounding the spot I’d chosen. “Still the same thing,” I told Judy, who’d followed me into the office. “Urgency. The need to act now. Lucia can’t afford to wait on a professional interpreter.”
“So you’ll have to act on her behalf,” Judy said. “Contact them. Bring them here to meet you and Mangesh.”
“That will piss Lucia off beyond measure.”
“Not if you get results. She’s busy, right? Maybe she’d be grateful to you for taking work off her hands.”
I wasn’t sure that would be Lucia’s reaction, but Judy’s logic was still compelling. “All right. But I don’t know how. I mean, how to phrase it. This book—” I tapped the pages—“makes it clear that deception is what the bad guy does. So I can’t just, I don’t know, tell them they have a surprise inheritance. But how are they going to react if I come right out and say ‘I know you have magic powers’?”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Helena. The oracle’s guidance covers all sorts of contingencies. If it’s guiding you to contact these people, it’s saying this is the best way to do it.” Judy leaned back in her chair and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “They know they have magic. Telling them you know it too will probably intrigue them.”
“Good point.” I closed the book and pushed it aside. “Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy having virtually unlimited resources? It’s nice to be able to do things without worrying about the cost. Or to be able to support causes I care about. Or—” I opened my email program and started a new message. “To be able to pay for airfare and hotel rooms for four people I’ve never met.”
I loved Italian food, and if I couldn’t have my mother’s home cooking, I went to Giuseppe’s. The deep red of the walls and the maroon carpeting made me feel warm after the chill of the evening air. The restaurant was cozy and dimly lit, filled with little round tables each with their own tiny lamp and larger booths lining the walls. Soft classical music filled the air just at the edge of hearing over all the muted conversations. I didn’t think it was Italian, but that didn’t ruin my enjoyment.
The server seated me, Judy, and Viv at one of the booths, handed us menus, and disappeared. “You’d think they’d know you by now,” Viv said to me. “I swear this is the booth we’ve had the last three times we’ve been in here.”
I breathed in the smell of fresh mozzarella and marinara sauce and closed my eyes briefly in pleasure. “I think I’ll have the fettuccini tonight. I can smell it already.”
“It all smells like good Italian food to me,” Judy said.
“But you’ll still just have basic spaghetti and meatballs,” Viv teased.
Judy shrugged. “I know what I like and I stick with it.”
The waiter looked a little surprised when he returned for our drink orders and found us ready to order food as well. Maybe we did go to Giuseppe’s too often. Viv leaned back and stretched her arms, making the joints pop. I shuddered. “I can’t believe that’s not painful.”
“Feels good,” Viv said. “So, I want to know about these people you’re flying in from all over. Do you feel like Professor X?”
“We’re not X-Men, Viv. Genetic sports, remember?”
Viv waved that away. “Still. Magic talents, immune to invaders…who are these people, anyway? Do they know you had them investigated?”
“I didn’t mention it, no. I thought it might come across as creepy.”
“No creepier than telling them you know their deepest secret,” Judy said. She glanced at the server approaching with our drinks, and added, “How else do they think you learned it?”
I took a sip of my wine and said, once the server was out of earshot, “I implied I had magic that told me. Which is true, just not the way they think.”
“So, did it work?” Viv asked.
I nodded. “Three of them responded this afternoon. The fourth may not have seen the message yet. She’s an executive with a big company in Vancouver, and I didn’t want to send the message to her work email.”
“Smart,” Judy said. “That was the woman with the Chinese name, right?”
“Her name is Jun Li. Second-generation Canadian, after her Chinese grandparents settled in Vancouver. She’s some kind of vice president of Heritek, which is a medical research firm. Forty-six years old, unmarried, has a substantial fortune but lives very austerely. She’s a champion fencer and has two cats.”
“That means she’s a caring, empathetic person,” Viv said.
“Why, because she likes cats?” Judy said.
“She’s a high-powered executive who probably doesn’t spend much time at home. Two cats means she cares enough about her pets’ well-being to give them a playmate.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me,” I said. “Huh. I had the impression she was kind of standoffish because of her talent.” I leaned forward, prompting Viv and Judy to lean in as well, though I knew no one nearby could hear us. “She generates this…it’s like a personal force field. People can’t get too close to her without feeling seriously uncomfortable, she never gets bitten by bugs—”
“You have to be kidding,” Viv said. “This is a talent?”
“It is, I swear. She seems to use it to enhance her already intimidating presence. The report I got says she rose in the ranks faster than any other Heritek executive, because people are attracted to her. Not in a sexual way, in an admiring way.”
“I don’t get it,” Viv said. “You said she has a force field, so how are people attracted to her?”
“That’s the mystery,” I said. “It’s like her presence and her talent combine to make her both appealing and unapproachable. Darius Wallach really wants to get his hands on her, so to speak.”
The server appeared just then with an enormous tray. I leaned back for him to set my fettuccini in front of me and inhaled deeply. “Oh, I love the smell,” I said.
“I love the taste,” Judy said, digging into her plateful of spaghetti and meatballs. The meatballs were huge, almost the size of a baby’s fist, and drenched in a rich tomato sauce. “Tell Viv about the others,” she added around her mouthful.
“Geez, could you eat less like a truck driver?” Viv said.
Judy swallowed. “That’s insulting to truck drivers.” But her next bite was daintier.
“Anyway,” I said, rolling fettuccini around my fork, “I hope she contacts me. The others were all willing to come to Portland, though Victor Crowson sounded skeptical. But he’s only eighteen and I don’t think he’s ever been out of Atlantic City in his life.”
“You mentioned him before. The gambler. He’s the one you investigated first,” Viv said.
“Yes. He passes for mid-twenties, which is how he’s gotten away with his scam for so long. Well, maybe it’s not a scam. I don’t know what to call it. He can see a short distance into the future and he uses that skill to win at roulette and craps, but he’s clever enough not to win so consistently they suspect him of cheating.”
“Fortunate for him,” Judy said. “What about the other precognitive?”
“Ines Varnado,” I said. “She lives in Phoenix. Sixty years old, emigrated from El Salvador when she was in her thirties. Recently widowed—her husband died last year. She earns a very good living telling fortunes, which surprised me until I found out she has a thriving online business as well as the in-person fortune telling. I guess, if you really can see the future, people keep coming back.” I took another bite of fettuccini.
“So how is what they do different from the oracle?” Viv asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think the oracle’s scope is broader than theirs. Auguries are certainly more complex than what numbers are going to come up on a pair of dice in the next minute. It’s something I’m hoping to learn when we meet.”
Viv nodded. “Personal force field, two precognitives, and…who’s the last one?”
“Nyla Priest,” I said. “Twenty-eight, lives with her mother in west Texas. Her mom is homebound and Nyla left school to care for her. I had to arrange for temporary care for the mother to get Nyla to agree to come. She’s telekinetic.”
“Seriously? That doesn’t seem like a minor talent,” Viv said.
“I don’t know how powerful she is,” I said. “I don’t think she’s any stronger than the average magus—not nearly as strong as a stone magus, definitely. That’s another thing I’m hoping to learn about when they arrive.”
“If they’re cooperative,” Judy said. “They agreed to come, but who knows what they’ll think when they find out about the magical world?”
“Hey, you were all for this before,” I said.
“I still am. But it’s a lot to take in. They might not be thrilled at the idea of suddenly being part of a secret organization.” Judy forked a quarter of a meatball up and stuffed it into her mouth.
“That’s something I’ll have to deal with,” I said. “I choose to have faith that it will all work out.”
Viv began ticking things off on her fingers. “Two precognitives,” she said, “one telekinetic, one personal force field. Two people who can see through illusions. And someone who can detect lies. I still can’t believe Detective Acosta turned out to have magic. He’s the least likely person I would ever have imagined.”
“Me too,” Judy said. “Is he coming to your little meet-up, Helena?”
“I asked him,” I said. “He said he’d think about it, but I think he’ll come. He was trying to act like it didn’t matter, but I think the idea intrigues him.”
My phone beeped at me, signaling an incoming email. I whipped it out of my purse. “This could be her. Jun Li.”
The message was short, almost abrupt, but I didn’t mind. “She says there’s a flight leaving at five o’clock tomorrow evening,” I summarized aloud. “And that I’d better not be wasting her time.”
“She didn’t actually say that,” Judy said.
“No, but there’s all sorts of subtext.” I held my phone so Viv and Judy could read the message. Judy snorted with amusement.
“I like her,” she said. “She’s ballsy.”
“I don’t care what she’s like so long as she’s willing to listen,” I said. I swiftly replied to Jun and equally swiftly arranged for a plane ticket. “I don’t know what people did before smartphones.”
“They had to use payphones and were always late for things,” Viv said.
“Tomorrow night,” Judy said. “You think that’s urgent enough to satisfy the oracle?”
“I don’t know if the oracle cares about what I do with its auguries,” I said, “but I prefer to think of it as being decisive.”
“Then I’m glad we went out tonight,” Viv said. “Jeremiah’s on the hunt and he’ll probably be out later than me.”
“And tomorrow I’m—” Judy’s mouth snapped shut, and she reddened.
“Seeing Mike?” Viv prompted. “Are you going to have a talk with him?”
Judy shrugged. “Maybe. If the timing’s right.”
“You have to be honest with him or you’ll just be miserable.”
“I know.” Judy dragged her jacket on. “Let’s get pedicures.”
“I thought that was Viv’s line,” I said, scooting out of the booth.
“The student has become the master,” Viv said.