“Who’s being mean to you?” she asked. “Do you need me to beat them up?”
“I think I can handle that part, but do you have an extra boat anchor if I haul the bodies up here some night?”
“I can probably scrounge one up. What’s going on?”
I told her about the drugs and the gang war, and all the human trafficking I was running into. As I spilled out my tale of woe, I realized that the slave trade was what bothered me the most.
“It just breaks my heart,” I said. “Not just the young ones, but the older women who have become resigned to the abuse. We rescue them, and they don’t believe it. And many of them fall right back into it.”
“Professional victims,” Mom said. She held up her hand to stop my protest. “I’m not saying that they don’t deserve sympathy, and someone should do something for them. Break the cycle. But in our society, the government doesn’t give a damn, the corporations could care less, and the Magi are too self-absorbed to care about anything but their pleasures and their power.”
She leaned forward and refilled my glass again, then her own. “Dani, humans and the Magi want to blame all of society’s problems on the Rifters, but the Rifters didn’t bring drugs, murder, and slavery to earth. That shit was here already. But you watch your ass, girl. A lot of things are going to get worse.”
That was strange for her to say. My mom was a perpetual 0ptimist, or as she liked to put it, a realistic optimist.
“What makes you say that?”
“Your grandmother stopped by the other day. Counting my boss and you, that’s three visitors this month. The entire summer, the only people I saw were you and Kirsten and a few hundred idiot tourists trying to drown themselves.”
My grandmother? “What did Olivia want?”
“Just checking in to make sure I’m doing okay. You know, her once-a-decade drop-in to chat. Wanted to know how you’re doing, and whether my wards could withstand a demon horde or a magikal assault. Whether I had any contingency plans for taking you to Iceland in case of a war. You know, just your normal chit-chat over tea and crumpets.”
I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was joking. “And what did you tell her?”
“That I would appreciate a few days’ warning if I did have to relocate to Iceland. You know, at least long enough to locate you and ask you to come along. She said she’d try.”
“You’re not joking.”
She shook her head. “Without actually saying anything, Olivia warned me that the Ten aren’t on the friendliest of terms with each other right now.”
“Wonderful.”
“Yes, and as you told me about your current problems, I heard mention of Novak and Akiyama, in addition to several Families of the Hundred. So, keep your eyes and ears open, and listen more than you talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When it was time for me to go, she walked me out to my bike.
“Tell Kirsten I have a bushel of crabapples for her, but she needs to come get them before the end of the week.”
Homemade apple jelly. “I can carry them on the back of my bike.”
“But then I wouldn’t get to see Kirsten. Off with you.”
Chapter 24
Novak was waiting for me when I showed up at Janice Iranski’s apartment building at six o’clock in the morning. No sooner had I turned off my bike than Whittaker drove up.
“The car’s over there,” I told him when he got out of his official vehicle.
We walked over to Sarah Benning’s fancy sports car. He took a look at the license plate.
“Yep, that’s hers,” he said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Open it up.”
I put on my own gloves and cast a spell that disabled the security system, then opened the driver’s side door. The magitek security system wouldn’t stop a magitek thief for a minute, but I wasn’t going to tell Justus Benning that. We found Sarah’s clarinet and purse inside.
“It doesn’t look as though she planned to go anywhere,” Novak said, “otherwise she’d have taken her purse.”
Two shots rang out from the front of the building. I raced toward the breezeway between Janice’s building and the one next door. A third shot sounded as I reached the breezeway.
I emerged in the front parking lot in time to see a man with a gun in one hand dragging Janice down the stairs. She wasn’t putting up a struggle, but it didn’t appear as though she was going willingly.
“Stop right there! Let go of the girl,” I shouted, drawing the Raider.
He turned toward me, raising his pistol. I fired, and the bullet took him in the shoulder, blowing his arm off. He let go of Janice, and she staggered away from him.
His blood was the burgundy-wine color of a vampire, which explained why he was still able to stumble toward a car sitting in the middle of the parking lot. Rifters were damned hard to kill. I took off running to catch him.
“Get the girl!” I heard Whittaker shout. I assumed he was talking to Novak, so I didn’t change my direction.
I caught up with the vamp as he reached his car and jumped inside. He tried to start the car, but I used my magik to disable the engine. I pointed my pistol at him through the closed window.
“Freeze! Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off.”
He looked toward me, saw the gun aimed at his head, and froze. I cautiously opened the car door without letting the muzzle waiver at all.
“Slowly get out of the car and lie face down,” I ordered.
He did as I commanded, blood pouring from his wound. A human would have been dead, or close to it. I put my foot on
