CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SAM KEPT LOOKING in the rearview mirror while driving, so I craned about and saw what he did: a NYPD vehicle tailing us and not being the least bit sneaky about it.

“It’s okay, Sam, they’re just keeping an eye on us, not you. One of the guys is from my hometown. He’s trying to look out for me.”

Sam’s shoulders relaxed a bit and he stopped looking in the mirror every three seconds. Carter’s deciding he should follow us would definitely cramp our style. Not that we really had one; we hadn’t been a team long enough to plot our moves. Morty and Steptoe would be the muscle and I guessed I could be the coaxer, but we couldn’t really pull off the good cop/bad cop routine. I slumped down in the back seat and pulled out my phone. Evelyn had texted me a couple of times already during lunch, which reminded my stomach that there hadn’t been a lunch break, to my sorrow. I knew we’d forgotten something!

Evelyn sent snaps of a few dresses and asked for reviews, so I lost myself in auction fantasies for a few long minutes while we wove through New York traffic. I let her know what I thought was trending and what color would be the one for her and if she should show any leg or not—Evelyn had great legs, although I couldn’t say if she inherited them from her mother or her father. Her father worked as a prominent local businessman and was just starting to get into Richmond politics, so I didn’t have any memories of him wearing shorts around in the summer; he always seemed to be in business casual. Her mother swore in her quaint southern way about fair skin that burned at the slightest hint of sun, prone to freckles and wrinkles as well, so I didn’t even know if she actually had legs, since hers were always covered.

Evelyn prodded at me to go dress hunting with her and it hit me that, with the things that had been happening lately, I wasn’t at all sure what today would bring, let alone tomorrow. I made a vague appointment for two nights from now and hoped I could meet it. I shook my melancholy off. As Carter had pointed out, I seemed to be in over my head, and it was time to start treading water. Morty, Steptoe, and even Brian could take care of themselves. I needed to take care of me. As everyone tells you, this is the age of information, digital or not, and no one seemed inclined to tell me anything, so I decided to be proactive. I did a few searches for background on a good tobacco shop, found some interesting ideas as to what the professor might have been up to there, and then closed my browser.

I dropped the phone to my lap. And what was that all about, Carter being in the Society? It’s not like I could Google them to find any information. Had he sought them out after encountering the weirdness he described in the Middle East, or had they come and found him after he returned home? Just how would that work? How would they know that he’d been exposed, for lack of better words, to magic? That he had been influenced and had an inkling of ability or whatever one needed to stay in the magic business? I bet that an invite hadn’t come delivered by owl to a cupboard under the staircase, but it had come from someplace, and I felt an itch of envy with absolutely no idea how to scratch it. Until it occurred to me that, if magic carried a discernible trace, the Society might well come hunting me, not that Remy and Carter weren’t already on my heels. I wondered if there was something there I could use to my advantage. I had no intention of letting it disadvantage me anymore.

Sam muttered something under his breath, and then repeated it, louder. “We’re almost there.”

I shoved my phone back into my backpack. Traffic moved along at a slow crawl, not much faster than I could walk. Chain stores stretched alongside small boutiques when a sign caught my attention: Fine Tobacco. Window art advertised cigarettes, pipes, cigars, leaf tobacco, and a big sign read: NO VAPING.

I pointed. “That’s probably it.”

“One of them, yes, yes. I can pull over, you all jump out and I will try to find parking around the corner. There are two more in the next block, but this is the oldest establishment.”

Morty roused himself to say a few words. “Finding a garage?”

“Maybe,” Sam answered evasively. “I have my secrets,” he added, as if a little ashamed of himself for sounding short with us.

“You’re fine,” I soothed him. Imagine me, keeping the peace. “Okay, everyone get ready for a tuck and roll.” I unsnapped my seat belt and prepared to run to the curb, snugging my backpack over my shoulder, determined not to leave it behind in the shuttle this time. There were things in it that I needed, especially if I got arrested.

He slid to a halt, narrowly missing a car pulling in at the same time, as if the two intended an epic battle for the one, undersized parking spot, and our doors flew open as we ejected ourselves.

“I’ll call,” I told Sam, and we regrouped on the sidewalk near the shop’s front door.

New York runs at its own pace, generally quick and determined, and few things irritate a New Yorker more than unnecessarily blocking the sidewalk. I pulled Steptoe to the shop wall with me and left Morty on his own, knowing that anyone running into him would think they’d hit the building itself. Two or three pedestrians staggered away in just that illusion while I perused the front of the store, trying to decide what Brian had wanted with the place (maybe the professor did want a celebratory cigar) or if it was part of the treasure hunt. If it was, how would anyone hide anything in there?

Gleaming counters showed through the window, with the entire back half of the shop a glass-enclosed room, with shelves and drawers full of cigar boxes and other objects. Definitely looked like storage to me. “Is that what I think it is?”

Steptoe sniffed and straightened his coat for about the hundredth time since I’d met him. I decided it must be a nervous quirk, or maybe the invisibility cloak it morphed into had security needs or just fit awkwardly after having been all stretched out. “Humidors,” he offered, seeing what I watched through the store windows. “An’ storage drawers.”

“Cigar containers?”

“Mostly. Looks like he maintains quite a few private collections here. There are cigar boxes, of course, which you can see, but he’s also got custom humidors, quite pricey and unique. The room itself is temperature and humidity controlled. Cigars can dry out or they can even mold, so a true collector is concerned about keeping them prime.”

“In addition to the stink? Ew.”

“Now then, ducks, a good cigar or pipe is a grand thing.”

“I’ll take your word on that one. Thank god they don’t allow vaping in there. I can only take so much patchouli or tutti frutti.”

He shuddered in agreement. “Have you a plan?”

“Private collections? Sounds like we should see if he’s keeping anything stored for the professor. It doesn’t look like the others have been here yet.”

Morty grunted. “They would have to beat it out of him first. We may just be half a step ahead of them, with no time to waste.” He ran a hand through his silvery hair in worry and finished off by pulling on his goatee.

I glanced at Morty. “It’s not a waste to wait and see if we can rescue Brian. But you are right—we want to get to whatever it is, first.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.”

A small shop, a narrow doorway, so we entered single file, and Morty balked. He looked over the area, eyes calculating, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Morty finally fit through it, but not before he turned sideways. Might have had a future as a ballerina, he tiptoed through so delicately.

The shopkeeper wore the turban of an adult Sikh and looked past me to the two gentlemen with a pleasant smile. His attention returned when I spoke up. “My grandfather asked me to get something from his storage while I was in town. I’m pretty sure I have the right shop, he described it as very well kept and professional.”

“And who might the esteemed gentleman be?” The man had a deep, rich voice, accented with ancestry.

“Professor, well, he’s a Doctor, actually, Brandard, of Richmond, Virginia.”

“Ah yes. He’s been with us a number of years. How is he?”

“A little under the weather, which is why he didn’t come into the city with us. The train trip was a bit much for him at the moment.”

The proprietor smiled, his teeth brilliant against the darkness of his skin. His hand slipped under the edge of the counter. “His is on the left, box 122, miss, and the door is unlocked. Please be kind enough to close the door after you. It’s a bit chilly in there but you will be quite all right. Gentlemen, may I assist you with anything else while Miss Brandard is assessing the professor’s collection?”

I didn’t stay to hear. The ingenuity of the place struck me. Secure but nothing under actual lock and key with passwords and such to access. The door opened with a wave of cool air aromatic with a number of different smells, all exotic and familiar at the same time, and I looked around at a myriad of cigar boxes, most of them custom made from wood, some decorated with initials or gilt or even artwork. The canted shelves also held what looked to be funerary urns, but I decided those must be the humidors Steptoe had referred to, as this was no place to keep your family ashes. Bending over, I spotted the tiny and elegant tags that took me quickly to 122.

The wooden box looked plain indeed compared to the others, quiet and unassuming, but the wood gleamed with a handsome grain and color, and the little latch on it looked to be 18-karat gold and exquisite. I thumbed it open, feeling a frisson of energy go over my hand and down the back of my neck, wondering if I’d set off a protection spell or some such. I paused with my hand on the lock, trying to decide whether I should chance opening it or not. “Professor, this is for your own good,” I whispered, and opened the wooden lid slowly.

A piece of vellum greeted me. Yellowed at the edges, crisp with the air temperature and humidity, it held both age and . . . nothingness. Blank. Waiting to be written upon, as pages were meant to be, and nothing there. I looked at it. Then I noticed that, like a box of chocolates, this box had a second layer. Maybe even a third one, like a secret drawer. I lifted out the tray carefully and found a few cigars waiting on the second layer, but they were arrayed in a symbol. Or, at least it looked like a symbol to me. A magical symbol? A word? A warning? Or information we needed to have? I stood there, stumped, and then thought, “D’oh, take a picture,” so I fished my phone out and snapped the shot.

That drawer looked to be removable as well, so I lifted it out extremely carefully, trying not to rattle or displace its contents in any way. Underneath lay the velvety lining, nothing remarkable, except . . . hard to explain but the corners didn’t tuck in quite right. Both my mom and Aunt April had a thing about tucking corners in tightly. Mom used to laugh and say she was taught to make a bed with sheets so prim and correct a quarter could be bounced off it, like a military requirement. The bottom lining for this box wouldn’t even come close. I leaned forward to run my index fingernail about the corner, it being the longest, sharpest object I had at hand, and the velvet peeled away as I did. My nail encountered a corner of leather and I peered underneath the royal blue material.

A whisker-thin leather book met my eyes. Now this looked intriguing. I edged it out. It smelled of the cigars faintly, and the cover had been worn by much usage. I could see it held a number of delicate pages but decided I didn’t have the time to stop and read it. It seemed best to keep it close, so I placed the blank parchment into it and tucked both into my waistband, at the small of my back, not wanting to entrust it to my backpack. I looked up to see Steptoe giving me a signal behind Morty’s back. Time to go!

I put the box back into order and came out of the room, clicking the door behind me loud enough that it interrupted whatever discussion the three of them had been carrying on.

“Ah,” smiled Steptoe. “All done then?”

“Yes. Grandfather always said a good cigar kept him young.”

The Sikh bowed slightly to me. “We hold him in high regard. Send him our wishes, please, young miss.”

“I will!”

We left, trying not to look in a hurry, and I said, “Where’s the next shop?”

“Did you get what we needed?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to lead anybody here in case I didn’t. Besides, he was nice. It wouldn’t be fair to dump a load of trouble in his lap.” I pointed down to the next block. “There’s another smoke shop, and it has vaping.” I grinned. “I think it only right that the harpies get a nose full of tutti frutti, don’t you?”

We arrived at the same time as a gaggle of guys just out of high school for the day. They looked fine if terribly young, but my mind’s eye seemed full of Carter Phillips, so I barely noticed the three as they came in just after us and lounged about at the counter and drink machine. One of them puffed like a steam engine, great wet clouds billowing up. He didn’t smell like fruit, but something a little different that I didn’t like any better. Butterscotch and vanilla, I think. I prefer to eat my candy, not smoke it. They made a little noise and jostled among themselves, trying to get my attention, but I ignored them as Steptoe and Morty inquired about cigar box storage and other business. He had a tiny corner of boxes, but nothing as elaborate as the first shop we’d found. I don’t think he cared that much, but he stopped talking to us twice to yell at the boys before finishing with, “Get out of here, already, if you’re not going to buy something!”

“We already bought something!” A freckled lad with tattoo sleeves on both arms sneered at him, and the other two laughed at him and passed the vape holder around. An incredibly overscented and nauseating mist filled the shop. They howled at their wit and wrote words that were most definitely not PG rated in big looping letters with the vape mist.

The shop keep muttered to himself, and I wondered how much longer we should stall when the doors flew open in sound and fury, as the saying goes, and the harpies swooped in. The three bystanders let out yelps and fled as quickly as their feet could carry them. I mentioned sound and fury, but there would be no way I could forget their smell either. Wet chicken and dog, maybe? They stalled in midair, surprised as they saw us. I grabbed Morty by the arm. “Quick, before they get it!”

Thick as his body was, Morty’s mind wasn’t, and he nodded, powering himself toward the back of the shop, as determined as if the famed Holy Grail stood in the corner storage. The shop proprietor hit the floor behind his counter and rolled as far under it as he could get. Steptoe put his back to the front corner wall after pulling me into position with him, saying quietly, “Their wingspan keeps them from getting too close unless they land.” Then, with a quirk of a smile, he added, “And you’ve a pocketful of help when they do put boots on the ground, as it were.”

I’d forgotten about my flash-bangs and swore at my stupid self, although they wouldn’t have helped when they picked up Brian, as the attackers had stayed mainly in the air for that one. I might have helped in the muddle when one or two touched ground, but they’d already been pulled out of the fray by then—and I saw no need to be hurting anyone more than I had to, especially if they might be related to Morty’s wife. I hadn’t met her either, but making enemies for the sake of it seemed like overkill. I still held no clear idea who was on whose side, and until the dust cleared, it seemed wise to not do any permanent damage. Neither Morty nor Steptoe seemed to hold the same compunction, but maybe they had a better idea of how things stood in their world of weirdness.

Morty found his corner and swung around to bat at two of the winged warriors diving down at him, his shovellike hands at the end of his thick arms coming within a feather of doing serious hurt. “Break your bargain with me, will you!” he crowed at them.

Their screeches seemed to be a main part of their weaponry, as the sound brought blood dribbling out of my ears again while my eyes felt as if they were playing ping-pong in my forehead. I dropped to one knee, sick with it, while Morty roared his defiance at his attackers. Steptoe put himself over me in protection while he grabbed, of all things, a humongous backscratcher from a sales dump display at the counter, the thing half as long as I stood, carved with an apt and fanged cobra head. He wielded it like a cricket bat, teeing off on anyone wheeling close to us, his teeth bared in a fearsome grin.

“’Ere’s another stroke for you, love,” he cried and swung up, underhand, sending his target flying backward out of the shop’s still-open doors.

All the battle came to a halt when two harpies walked in, dragging Brian between them. “Desist!” called a third, tall one who followed at their heels, her stern face topped with steely gray hair, black and white magpie wings, and a ton of attitude. She folded her wings at her back as she came in, and I noted that if she’d flown in, they alone would have taken up half the store. Accordingly, they crowned the back of her head and the tips trailed behind her like a royal robe. I wondered if Morty’s Goldie were half as impressive as this lady. I checked out Brian, who looked limp and barely aware, his cane stuck haphazardly through his belt and the gazing stone dimmed like obsidian rather than its crystal-clear silvery self. Not good.

“Move away, Mortimer Broadstone, or you will rue this day for more than one reason.”

His lip curled. “Oathbreaker.”

She shrugged. “Deals are not always possible to be carried out. Other personages hold an interest in your wife.”

“Then you should have known better than to try to parley with her life!”

The woman stopped only a pace or two in front of him, and he half-lowered his head, brow furrowing, a bull readying to charge. “While I could not stop her from being appropriated,” she said to him, “I did not approve, and I am approachable to working with you to free her from this new imprisonment. She is, after all, my sister as well as your wife.”

“You lie. There are few who would dare to steal a prize from a harpy once taken.”

“True. And equally true the one you might suspect who has done so.”

“No.” Morty’s voice broke on a keening note.

“As I said, I would be amenable to assisting in a rescue from that one. If you could bring yourself to trust me again.”

Steptoe shouted, “Quit fillin’ his ears with poison! Do what you’ve come to do, take your bounty, drop Brian in our laps, and leave!”

Steel-hair looked over her shoulder at us, her expression marked with contempt. “Not so easily done as that. The boy stays with us. He has more secrets to spill.”

Brian’s head hung, with his chin touching his chest, but he managed to take a hoarse breath and look up. “Not meant for you, never, not my wizardry!”

She laughed at his thready protest. “Or you either, it seems, boy.”

He slouched in their hold on either side of him, his slack weight keeping them on the floor with him. Steptoe moved away from me quickly, both distracting his captors and freeing my field. He brandished his cobra-headed scratching stick like a mighty baton.

I filled my hand with flash-bangs and tossed them, one at a time, strategically as I could place them at all the harpies. They exploded with sparks and smoke and an unholy loud noise, scattering everyone. Both Steptoe and Morty charged for Brian. Steptoe wrestled him free and Morty tackled them as they tried to snatch him back. With a shake of his mighty shoulders, he took down two of the women with one swipe and swung about, looking for his main adversary. Feathers flew as did banshee-shrill curses. I swear he gave a coughing growl, like some immense Bengal tiger, and set himself for another charge. He never saw the steel-haired woman pull her sword and plunge it into his back. It laid him low.

Steptoe and I had Brian bundled behind us when it happened. Morty let out a cry and rolled about, his hands digging at the blade buried between his shoulder blades as he did even as she swooped down on him. He pulled it out and stood up with a forward lunge before she even knew he moved on her, burying the sword into her stomach, just below her leather corset, a bared and vulnerable flank before her leather chaps began. They both went to their knees in a bellow of pain, and her hands went to his throat, determined to take him with her to death.

“Come on, come on!” Steptoe urged. “Before they trumpet for reinforcements, like.” He hauled Brian’s limp body across my feet and out the door. I turned, and my eyes caught Morty’s for a flash of a moment as the two of them thrashed in mortal combat.

I’m not sure—I’ll never be sure—if he saw the tears that spilled from my own eyes and down my face, as I left him behind.

Maybe he thought he deserved that. Maybe he intended for us to go on without him, redeeming himself for his betrayal. Or maybe that was just the way it happened.