I supposed the Corps had had to come up with something, since many of the mages assigned here lived beneath the surface for long periods. But right now, it felt too exposed to me, especially with all the new recruits hanging around. Who had nothing to do in between bouts of their training but people watch.
Me and the cat, whose name I still didn’t know, because I was not touching that collar again, were more comfortable on a side street. I could still see the hub from here, but it was surprising how few people had made it this far, and most of them looked like salty dogs who were refugeeing from the crazy, too. They didn’t pay me much attention.
I got a coffee and checked out the other offerings. The cafe didn’t have liver, but Tom—the cat’s name for now—deigned to accept a saucer of milk and a tuna sandwich. Albacore, because fuck it, that’s why. I drank my coffee and tried not to shake too obviously, and waited for the fit to pass.
It had been a long time since I’d had one that severe, and never from an animal’s perspective. I hadn’t even known that was possible, and maybe it wasn’t entirely. I was pretty sure that my brain had filled in some gaps, and anthropomorphized some thoughts—but not all of them. The gist had felt authentic, not to mention horrible. Tom had been traumatized and so had I.
I needed a vacation.
I also needed to remember not to touch items that had been near tragic events. Touch clairvoyance was a bitch, and while I didn’t have it nearly as bad as some, it could catch you like that sometimes. The imprinted memories playing back like a horror record, forcing you to relieve somebody else’s worst nightmare.
Tom had savaged that sandwich, and was licking the remaining tuna juices off a piece of bread. I got up and got him another, and me a refill. Along with a couple of the local fruit buns, like hot cross buns without the cross, because they were basically the best thing the British had ever invented.
Tom inhaled the second almost as fast as the first, making me wonder how many scraps, exactly, they’d been feeding him. I drank coffee and ate buns, while wondering what a group of guys in olive jumpsuits were doing to a wall. It was opposite the café and down a little, where the buildings populating the hub erupted out of the surrounding rock. It had been plain brick a minute ago, except where people had stuck up fliers for services or help wanted. But they were being scrubbed off and something else put in their place, only I couldn’t tell what.
“You want to go see?” I asked Tom, who gave me the uninterested look of the seriously stuffed.
That was too bad, since we were going anyway. But that presented a problem, since I didn’t want to carry his maybe twenty pounds of fluff around. I solved the problem by unzipping my overnight bag, which was the kind on wheels, and plopping a very full, and very sleepy Tom inside. I left the top open, so he could stare out at the world if he wanted, but he appeared to prefer to sleep in my silky blouse.
I frowned. How do cats always find the one item that is hardest to clean hair off of? It’s honestly a talent. But the damage was done, so I left him there and started off, rolling over the nicely cobblestoned streets, because this area was paved.
Only to stop abruptly when a bunch of giant heads exploded out of the wall, right beside me.
I shuffled back a few steps, because I’d ended up inside someone’s face, then head, then face, because the wall’s new decorations were rotating. They were big enough that I had to actually cross the street to get a good look at them, and then I wished I hadn’t. Like, really wished.
Because the formerly blank wall was now covered by the rotating, 3-D heads of criminals.
According to a scroll at the top of the wall, what I and the rest of the street were now looking at was the Circle’s current most wanted list. I had a vague impression of maybe half men, a quarter of women, and another quarter of creatures whose gender wasn’t immediately apparent because many weren’t in human form. But it was only vague, because there was one image that I couldn’t seem to look away from.
The hair was pale blond, the face thin and nondescript, the eye color a gray so light that it was practically colorless. It all added up to an entirely ordinary looking individual who would probably never have gotten a second glance by most people. Except that his left eye was now a ruined mess.
His name was Jonathan, or at least that was the alias he was currently using. No one knew what his real name was, despite him long being one of the Circle’s biggest threats. In fact, recently he might recently have zoomed to the top of the list, having masterminded at least a dozen very creative attacks in the war. And that included an attack on Hong Kong that had almost destroyed the whole city.
I watched the head rotate back around again and felt sick, although not for the offenses listed underneath. But because I’d just seen him melt an old woman’s face off with acid. It was hard to imagine a city full of people, I discovered. It was easier to envision a woman named Emma, who’d liked pink paisley and had a bomb ass cat.
“I wished you’d taken both eyes,” I told Tom, and shifted.
Chapter Six
I hadn’t bothered to tell Pritkin that I was going home, because as far as he was concerned, I wasn’t. It had been a tough month, with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of the kind that tended to freak out my bodyguards, not to mention my boyfriend. I’d therefore gotten into the habit of shifting backward in time, an old Pythian trick, to return shortly after I left on any unscheduled trips.
So that, as far as everyone else was concerned, I hadn’t gone anywhere at all.
It made for some very long days, but honestly, I didn’t know how else I was supposed to keep up my training—which was taking place in a different era, mind you—fulfill all of my court responsibilities, attend meetings about the war, spend time with my little initiates, and also have a life. There literally weren’t enough hours in a day.
So, I made some more.
Last night was typical. I’d shifted to Mircea’s house as soon as I went to bed, trekked around old Romania like a crazy person for most of the night, then met Pritkin at four a.m. my time for “lunch”, which was noon in Stratford. After which I shifted back to Vegas shortly after I left, buying myself seven additional hours, which I now intended to use to get some sleep.
I set my alarm for 3:30, to make it to Pritkin’s place before I was missed, changed into some shorty PJs, and liberated my new cat. Who looked in disbelief at my bed, which was round and so oversized that they needed a new designation for it. Orgy-sized maybe, because it could have fit ten, maybe twelve in a pinch.
“I know,” I told Tom. “But I didn’t design this place. It isn’t my fault.”
He still didn’t look impressed. And promptly crawled back into my suitcase, backing in so far that all I could see were two bright blue eyes, gleaming at me in the dark. He’d chosen his bed, and since my shirt was pretty much ruined already, I left him be.
I turned off
the light, doubled checked my alarm, and went to sleep.