“Yeah, I—”
“Leave it to norms not to wonder why there’s this huge, overcrowded city on a tiny island barely two miles long,” he said, shaking his head. “Which also happens to be one of the hardest places to build in the world. I mean, it’s crazy. Manhattan’s traffic is a nightmare ’cause it’s an island, which is bad enough, but then every new subway tunnel has to bore through a slab of solid granite that eats drill bits like candy.”
“Ray. I know all this.”
“Yeah, but I’m getting to stuff maybe you don’t know. Just eat your pie.”
I didn’t think I could hold the pie. I pulled it over anyway. Mmm, flaky.
“But norms are attracted to ley lines,” he continued, “even though they don’t know it, and so cities tend to grow up where you got a lot of ’em. But unlike most places with this many lines, Manhattan doesn’t have a damned vortex. The lines cross, sure, but they don’t puddle up in one big snarl. That kind of thing’s useless ’cause it puts out too much power. Every time you try to open a portal around one of those, you get kerblammy—”
“Kerblammy?”
“—and that’s not good for business. But around here, the lines are more like…like this.” He held his hands up, interlacing the fingers. “They cross, but not all at one place. So you get lots of lines, lots of ley line sinks to power portals, and lots of background energy, making finding them a nightmare for the so-called good guys.”
“So-called?”
He shot me a look. “Come on. You like your wine, don’t you? Who you think brings that in?”
“We’re not after the portals because of the wine,” I reminded him.
“Not now, maybe, not with the war on. And not because of the Senate; they don’t care about stuff like that. But the Corps?” He scowled. “They’re a huge pain in my ass.”
“They also have a point. A lot of bad stuff comes through those things—”
“And so does a lot of good stuff. And so does a lot of stuff that can be bad or good, depending on how it’s used, but that the Circle just outlawed all together, ’cause it’s easier that way.”
I didn’t say anything, because I kind of agreed with him there. The Silver Circle was the light magic organization that governed the mages like the Senate did the vamps. The Corps were their police unit, and overall, they did a pretty good job of countering the Black Circle’s shysters, crooks and hoodlums. But they did tend to be a little…anal…about some things.
Including most things that came through illegal portals.
“I mean, it’s complete bullshit,” Ray bitched. “When the fey got mad way back when and yanked all the portals, nobody thought about the little guy, did they? Nobody thought about all the people on both sides that had friends and businesses and lives that depended on being able to come and go. Some of their leaders get in a snit for some reason, and all of a sudden—nothing. And they don’t get over being butt hurt after a while, like normal people. It’s been thousands of years and the pathways are still blocked and trade’s still in the shitter and nobody seems to give a damn!”
“Except for the heroic smugglers.”
“Sure, be that way. But when you want something—when the damned mages want something—that ain’t supposed to be available outside Faerie, who do you come to see?”
“So you’re the good guys?”
“Yeah,” Ray said defiantly. And then he shifted in his seat. “Sort of. Anyway, my point is, Manhattan is the shit. If you’re a smuggler, this is where you want to be.”
I thought about that while I gummed pie. “So you’re telling me you can just cut a new portal here, and nobody will notice?” I was pretty sure that hadn’t been in the briefing I’d had.
He shook his head. “Not if you’re trying to slice all the way through to Faerie, no. Takes too much power. But smaller stuff, yeah, you can get away with that. It sort of melds into the background noise. Like Olga’s portal—that didn’t raise any eyebrows, right?”
“Because it goes all of two blocks. And that wouldn’t do you any good.”
“See, that’s what most people would think,” he said, leaning forward. “But I been in the business a long time. And one day, the portal we were using got discovered by the damned Corps and shut down—right before a big shipment was due to come through.”
“That’s rough,” I said, wondering if there was more pie.
“You ain’t just kidding that’s rough. The boss don’t care about my problems. The boss just wants his stuff. He’s promised it to some pretty big-time people and he’s gonna look bad if he can’t deliver. So I get to thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, as it turned out. But at the time, I don’t think ‘uh-oh.’ At the time, I think, hey, I gotta figure a way out of this problem. So I start to wonder, what would happen if I cut a portal, but not to Faerie? What would happen if I cut it—get this—into another portal?”
It took a moment for that to sink in, because he’d said it so casually. And because my mind was mostly occupied by important things, like pie. And because it was stupid.
Really, really stupid.
I’d always thought of ley lines the way most people view nuclear energy. They could be useful—ley line sinks powered all kinds of things, and the currents inside the lines were strong enough to make for quick transport virtually anywhere. But that convenience came with a steep price tag for anybody who didn’t show it the proper respect.
Not that there were too many of those. The dangers involved intimidated even war mages, who had a reputation for badassery that bordered on lunacy. But they hazarded the lines only with the heaviest of shields, and any portals they cut into them were done extremely gingerly.
Vampires—the sane kind, anyway—avoided them almost entirely. If something went wrong, their flammability ensured that they wouldn’t even have the few seconds the mages would to find a way out. Human transport was slower, but it came without the possibility of your own personal Chernobyl if something went wrong.
But my jaw ached every time I tried to talk, so I settled for summing up the obvious. “You can’t do that.”
Ray grinned. “Wanna bet?”
“No, I mean, you can’t—”
I broke off, because one of the fey was coming up the steps. He wasn’t glowing, having dimmed the light shadows their kind shed in our world down for our guests. But he managed to look fairly otherworldly anyway, the long white-blond hair holding a shimmer of moonlight; the bone structure subtly different from a human’s; the almond-shaped eyes hinting of other shores, except for their startling, almost vivid blueness.
He was holding a small, grubby creature that was kicking and flailing and giving every appearance of trying to murder the two long fingers gripping it by the scruff of the neck. “Have you perhaps misplaced something?” he asked, arching an elegant brow.
“Damn it,” Ray said, sitting up. “I thought I—shit.”
I assumed he was referring to the plastic cup, which was still weighed down by the piece of garden edging he’d placed on top. But which now had a mousehole-sized piece cut out of the side. Presumably by the tiny sword the escape artist was waving around menacingly.
“It appears to be defective,” the fey said drily. “Would you like a new enchantment?”
“A new enchantment?” Ray looked up from examining the cup. “What’s that do?”
“It replaces the old.”
“Replaces how?”
The fey looked at me. “Obliterates. Is that the right word?”
Damned if I knew. Claire had been helping them with their English, but she knew enough of their language to be able to figure out what they were trying to say. “It’s a word,” I agreed.
“You mean kill it?” Ray looked horrified.
“It isn’t alive, therefore it cannot die,” the fey reasoned. “But it would have a new…personality, if you like.”
“I don’t like,” Ray said, grabbing it. “It’s fine.” The fey’s eyes danced in the light from the house, obviously amused. Particularly when the wild man suddenly stabbed Ray in the palm. “Damn it!”
The fey shook his head and started to go. But then he paused on the stairs and looked back at me. “Oh, and you may tell the Lady Claire that her…gifts…while thoughtful, will not be needed.”
“Gifts?”
“The condoms,” Ray said, sucking his palm.
“You managed to get those?” I asked, incredulously.
“Hey, it’s what we went for. I don’t know if I grabbed the right sizes, though.”
We both looked at the fey, whose grin widened. But he only said: “There are enchantments for that. And in any case, the ladies appear to have…come prepared.”
“Well, have fun,” I told him.
His smile was blinding. “I shall.”
He left and Ray dragged his two-inch captive over to the chessboard. “They creep me out,” he told me in a low voice, after a moment.
“Who?”
“The fey. Always did. ‘New personality’ my ass.”
“They’re okay,” I said, because it was true, and because I wouldn’t put it past those ears to still be able to hear us. “What are you doing?” I asked, watching him struggle to stuff his prisoner into the felt-lined indentation.
“Putting him back!” he said, as the wild man popped up again, mad as hell. Ray had confiscated the sword, but his prisoner was resourceful. And bit the end of his thumb.
“Son of a—”
“That won’t work,” I told him, as Ray pushed the squirming thing down again and fitted the plastic cover on top. It was clear and molded to the shape of the pieces, which left the little guy effectively trapped. Until he wormed a knife out of his boot and started sawing away at it.
