I gave a chin nod to an enterprising youth with a duffle bag full of spray paint cans who was doing a brisk business—mostly to Mundanes with Untainted Party shared values, if the slogans freshly graffitied on nearby walls were any indication. Capitalism at its finest.
For reasons I couldn't fathom, Levi was sitting on that information about Jackson. The bill loomed large in news reports, and the daily coverage of Mundanes angry and Nefesh worried about its potential impact stoked public anxiety. Why did Levi put everyone through this emotional rollercoaster when he could just end it?
A cop on horseback trotted past me and blew his whistle at some people rocking a car. The industrious group whooped at the young man who stood on the hood stomping out the windshield.
As the days grew longer and warmer, tensions between the two communities had grown, until a simple altercation between a Nefesh and a Mundane sports fan over Stanley Cup tickets earlier today had blown up into a city-wide riot that was now ten hours strong with no sign of abating.
I chuckled and stepped out of the path of a wildly veering pick-up truck with actual lightning crackling above it. Hockey tickets. How Canadian.
The young woman powering the electricity screamed, “Die, Mundanes!” as the truck careened past me.
Mrs. Hudson and I made it to my car, Moriarty, without incident. Even though my gray Toyota was the lone vehicle on this level of the parking garage, and as such should have been easy pickings, it was untouched.
At least this particular nemesis was never going to leave my life.
Once Mrs. Hudson had settled herself in the back, I eased the Toyota out onto Water Street. Between the packs of people roaming the city, police street closures, and general debris, making my way out of downtown was slow going.
The radio played messages from both the mayor and Levi calling for calm and for people to stay home. Levi was especially insistent that violence would not be tolerated. The chaos and hatred had to be killing him.
With the bridges out of commission and the streets a disaster, I was forced to zigzag my way through downtown until I cleared the on-ramp for the Cambie Street Bridge, and veered west once more.
In comparison to downtown, the rest of Vancouver was far too quiet. It was barely 1AM in early June and there should have been traffic from people heading to bars and spilling out of restaurants, but Moriarty was the only car on the road. We passed block after block of dim storefronts and boarded-up doors.
An empty bus passed by like a skeleton ship in the night, its neon destination sign eerily proclaiming “No Service” in urgent capitals. The billboard on its side depicted happy people partaking in an upcoming tournament to benefit Vancouver General Hospital. Golf. Ugh. The only reason to look that cheerful holding a five iron was because you’d just gotten away with murder.
My city’s desolate atmosphere would have been disquieting had I not been gripped by the sense of predatory anticipation that always took hold when I headed down these roads to one particular destination.
I pulled up to the curb down the block from Isaac’s mansion in Dunbar and cut the engine, staring into the darkness that enveloped his stately home. Wind whispered in the press of trees to my back at the edge of Pacific Spirit Regional Park, a vast forest with hiking trails that was larger than Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
I drummed my fingers on the wheel, scanning for any movement through Isaac’s windows.
He was the only one of the Chariot Ten whose identity we’d unearthed, but tailing him had yielded nothing. All his meetings were legitimately connected to his security company and his socializing included his wife, who hated her husband and certainly wasn’t part of that group. That meant that anything Chariot-related was conducted via calls or texts.
If possible, we would have bugged every device he had in hopes of catching a break, but the man specialized in cybersecurity and data encryption. He knew how to hide his digital profile, including encrypting his internet history through a VPN, a virtual private network, and not syncing his phone to his car.
He seemed untouchable.
A familiar Tesla pulled up at the end of the block and my heart twisted. Sleep had eluded me most nights since I’d discovered Isaac’s ties to Chariot back in April. I’d started these night-time hauntings figuring that I might as well put my insomnia to good use and case the Montefiore property. Their alarm system protected the front and back doors and all the ground floor windows, though there were no cameras. As someone very publicly anti-magic, Isaac didn’t use wards.
Once in a while, the Tesla showed up. It was the Chocolate Factory of electric vehicles: no one got in or out. It was always parked too far to away see into and I never approached it.
I didn’t need to; Levi’s features were burned into my brain. It was too easy to picture him, his long elegant fingers draped over the steering wheel. After the insanity of today, he’d have loosened his tie and unbuttoned his top button, allowing himself a modicum of unwinding, but he’d be on alert, attuned to the slightest thing out of place. Had he raked his hands through his midnight-black strands, tufting them up into cowlicks, the skin underneath his eyes the faintest purple with exhaustion?
He would never have left riot control central if he wasn’t assured that police and firefighters had things in hand and his presence constituted a distraction. Even then, I’d bet my meagre savings that Miles had been instructed to call him if there was the slightest change in the situation.
He must be exhausted, but why come here? Did he know I was here? Had he realized what I was doing?
I white-knuckled the steering wheel.
During the day Levi and I took great pains to ignore each other. As House Head, he was still my boss, though I stayed away from HQ as much as possible, and on the rare occasion that our paths crossed, we kept up our pretense of being enemies.
Was it a pretense anymore? I no longer knew.
Mrs. Hudson’s tail thumped against the seat, her sandy-colored paws resting on the dashboard. She’d only ridden in Levi’s Tesla a few times, but somehow she always recognized her beloved’s car.
I took a swig of the heavily sweetened coffee that I’d bought at a drive-through, but no amount of sugar could clear the bitter taste from my mouth.
“No, girl. We don’t—” For fifteen years, Levi and I had waged a war of taunts and one-upmanship that was almost as fun as our verbal sparring as friends. We’d shared our scars, he’d fed me biscotti, and then he’d gifted me with a perfect brief happiness. “Levi isn’t for us anymore.”
Usually the pug ignored me to continue straining at the window, but tonight, she gave up. She huffed a little doggie sigh and sank onto the passenger seat, her head on her paws in a gesture of defeat.
Blood pounded in my ears, a tightness surging up through my ribcage. He’d broken my puppy. And that was just too much; I put my hand on the car door and pushed it open. Maybe this was stupid or too rash. I didn’t care.
I eased out of the car, tucked my dark wavy hair up under a black knit cap, and slid thin gloves on my hands. I left my familiar leather jacket in the car, shivering slightly against the cool breeze. Resolutely ignoring the Tesla and what its occupant might be thinking, I made my way into Isaac’s backyard.
A couple weeks ago, I’d mapped out a route onto the garage roof and along a decorative ledge that ran right under a bathroom window. In my experience, the majority of people didn’t lock bathroom windows on the upper floors. If Isaac did? No harm, no foul.