“Wow.” Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “What’s the rest of this last-minute plan?”
“Well, here’s what I’m thinking. The guy’s house is at the far corner back there.” Rhynehart nodded at the northeast end of Q4 closest to the tree line and the edge of the cliffs. “We head over there. You help me find the aforementioned boobytraps, so we don’t get our arms melted off, then I tell the guy to come with me so we can take him back to 38-Q1 and book him.”
Cheyenne blinked and widened her eyes at the FRoE operative. “I have a feeling anybody who’s made everyone else move out of these houses and the sky turn dark isn’t gonna come quietly so you can book him on the reservation where he lives.”
“We share the same feeling, rookie. That’s where you come in.”
She stared at him, then turned her head away from the guy in disbelief. “Were you assuming I have oodles of experience fighting black magic?”
Rhynehart shrugged. “Fighting with it, maybe.”
“What?”
“Come on, Blakely. You’ve seen what comes out of your hands. That’s some scary shit.”
“That’s drow magic.” Cheyenne stepped back. “I don’t make the sky turn dark, and I haven’t ever hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. And I haven’t hurt anyone badly enough to make the FRoE come after me so they can lock me up.”
“Well, not yet.”
“Okay, asshole. Deal’s off.” The drow halfling headed back down the rows of houses toward where she hoped she’d find normal sunshine and air she could breathe. “I’ll walk my way back across this strip of land four more times. Don’t feel like you need to escort me or anything.”
“Blakely. Hey, hold on.” Rhynehart glanced behind him in the direction they’d been heading, then jogged after the halfling storming away from him. “Wait. Please.”
Cheyenne gritted her teeth.
Now he starts using manners.
She stopped and exhaled a massive sigh, but she didn’t turn around. It made her feel slightly better when Rhynehart jogged around her and stopped in front of her again.
“Look, I’m not into…I don’t know.”
“Asking for help? Asking if I’m willing to do this? Not treating me like I’m some idiot who signed up for FRoE academy and can’t contain my excitement that you’d let me come with you on a ‘real mission?’” Cheyenne’s fake eager grin came out as more of a snarl, and she felt heat flare at the base of her spine.
Wouldn’t be such a bad thing to unleash some drow hell on this moron. Black magic, my ass.
Rhynehart glanced at her clenched fists and raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead. We’re gonna need that anyway. Let it out.”
“You don’t get to tell me when I ‘let it out.’ That isn’t part of the deal, and that will never be your call—or anyone else’s.” The halfling turned an image of a green, peaceful forest over and over in her mind. And the deer. The deer work.
“You’re right.” The man raised both gloved hands in surrender and took two steps back. “Your magic, your call. I was trying to be helpful.”
“Well, cut it out. You suck at being helpful.”
They stared at each other, then Rhynehart chuckled with a crooked smile and glanced at his boots. The grass beneath them had taken on a gray pall this close to their intended target. “Look, you’re the only magical we know of right now who’s remotely capable of fighting off the kind of nasty stuff this guy’s been whipping up in his little private lab, okay? He calls himself Q’orr. Ever heard of him?”
“Nope.”
Rhynehart cocked his head. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best. Listen, this guy’s been experimenting with all kinds of dark shit that’s been banned on the other side since before he came through. We don’t screen the magicals coming across the Border. That’s impossible. So we deal with the ones who make it to this side, and we have to clear those who fill out an application to move off the rez and enter the rest of society, blah, blah, blah. Point is, this Q’orr guy didn’t get cleared. After three different applications over the course of…I don’t know, ten years. Twelve, maybe. He’s got too many screws loose, and he’s been getting worse. Last few reports we got, the asshole found a way to smuggle dangerous potions and whatever the hell else he’s brewing off the rez and into town. Mostly Richmond and D.C., right? Some of his stuff has made it all the way to Philly. Don’t ask me how it works, but there’s some kinda magical signature that traces this idiot’s product back to him like a fingerprint. Sometimes easier than that. So, we know it’s him. And he doesn’t plan to stop.”
Cheyenne studied the man’s distress and took another deep breath. “What’s he smuggling out of here?”
“Black-magic potions. Whoever he’s got selling the stuff for him, they’re taking ‘magical scumbags’ to a whole new level. Marketing the crap as ‘power enhancers’ or something. Better skills. Stronger magic. Whatever. You know who they’re targeting with this? Kids, Blakely. Magical kids who’ve probably been on this side of the Border their entire lives and don’t know any better. We got reports of three more in the last week who turned up dead ‘cause they couldn’t help themselves with the tempting lie of becoming as powerful as whoever the hell takes the blue ribbon for the strongest magical in their world. They think this shit will turn them into their heroes, and it’s killing ‘em.”
“Oh, man.” Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair. “We’re cutting it off at the source, then?”
“Yeah. And we need what you can do to get this asshole. ‘Cause nothing else works.”
The half-drow glanced over her shoulder at the darkened gloom in this area of Rez 38’s residential Q4. “You try one of those fell cannons?”
Rhynehart grimaced. “Goes against the Accord, believe it or not. Can’t bring any human-made weapons against magicals onto the rez. Safe place for displaced magicals and all
