"Drive, drive, let's get out of here!" Kayla said, glancing back to see whether the elf was following her. She couldn't see him, but . . .
"It wasn't that bad, was it?" Elizabet asked, turning the key in the ignition and slowly backing the VW out of the parking spot.
"Yes, it was! It was awful!" She stopped, realizing that they were talking about different things. "I mean, school was fine, great, but . . . but . . . what were you doing around lunchtime, like a few minutes after noon?"
"Sleeping," Elizabet said, the VW slowing to a stop at the next streetlight. "I work night shift, remember?"
"Oh yeah, that's right," Kayla said. "Well, it's kinda like this. . . . "
"You got yourself into trouble," Elizabet said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "On your first day at your new high school, you got yourself into trouble."
"Well, not exactly school trouble," Kayla said, wondering exactly how she was going to explain this. "Not like getting sent to detention or anything like that. I got into, well . . . another kind of trouble."
"What do you mean by that?" Elizabet asked, glancing at her and raising one eyebrow.
Kayla glanced out the car window, wanting to look at anything but Elizabet's face. She didn't want to see Elizabet's annoyance with her, or the disappointment that she knew was there, that her ward couldn't even get through one day at school without getting into trouble. . . .
The light changed to green, and the VW started forward. Kayla saw a green BMW that looked like it was going to run the intersection. . . .
A green BMW, with the pointy-eared businessmen in the front seat.
"Oh no, it's them!" Kayla shouted, pointing through the windshield. "The killer elves!"
"Kayla, that's a remarkably childish way to try and change the subject," Elizabet said. "You're really—" Her words were cut off by a squeal of tires as the green BMW skidded through the intersection just behind them, missing the little VW by a few inches. Elizabet swerved their car sharply, barely missing an old Volvo that was trying to make a lane change.
Kayla glanced back to see the BMW scream through a tight U-turn, accelerating after them. "Elizabet, get us out of here," Kayla yelled, hanging on to the dashboard.
For an answer, Elizabet gunned the engine, the VW seeming to leap forward past the other cars on the road. Kayla looked back again to see the BMW deftly dodging two cars in a near collision to stay close behind them.
"Hold on, child," Elizabet said calmly. Without warning, Elizabet yanked the steering wheel hard, bringing the VW to a sharp stop and spinning the tail end of the car around in a perfect circle to face in the other direction. She floored the gas again. Kayla saw, through the BMW's windshield, the wide-eyed faces of two elves in business suits as the BMW went past them in the other direction. She turned to see what they did, but the BMW was lost in traffic within a few seconds, apparently unable to make an emergency turn to follow them.
Elizabet drove in silence, making several more turns through small residential streets, before taking them back to the 101 Freeway.
Kayla was still trying to catch her breath. "Elizabet, that was . . . that was scary," she said at last.
"My younger brother used to race stock cars in the seventies," the older woman said. "I learned a few things from him. And now," she said in a voice with a lot more edge to it, "I would like you to tell me exactly what happened to you at school today. Everything."
"Okay," Kayla said, a little meekly. At least we're away from the killer elves—now all I have to deal with is Elizabet.
Enrique Ramirez glanced around the empty hallway outside the high school gym, before fishing in his jeans pockets for some coins. He dialed the pay phone quickly.
"Hey, Carlos, mi amigo . . . yeah, yeah, I'm fine . . . listen, got some news for you . . . that little white girl, the bruja. Well, she was here at the high school today. A kid was hit by a car, everyone's still talking about it, and listen, you'll never guess what I saw her do. . . . "
* * *
"Those idiots," Shari said, slamming down the phone receiver into its cradle. "They're useless, totally useless."
"Then you shouldn't use them, my dear," Perenor said from across the room, his feet propped up on the end of the couch. He looked the picture of an indolent elflord, sipping from a glass of wine, his suit tie undone and lying on the couch next to him.
"What are you suggesting, my lord?" Shari asked tartly. He's ceasing to be amusing, she thought. He's as cold in bed as he is outside of it. And it's because he's toying with me; I know he is. He wants something more from me, and he's only playing games until he gets it. . . .
"Just that this could be done much more easily by you and me than by some of those rejects of the Unseelie Court."
Shari stiffened at that remark, and Perenor smiled.
"Does that bother you, my dear?" he asked silkily. "I would have thought not. That you would care as little about your exile from the Unseelie Court as I do about mine from the Seelie Court."
He gestured at the view of the ocean through the pane glass windows. "Isn't this much better than living in the Unseelie Court, in that dark, desolate place? I've been to the Unseelie lands, so lifeless and lacking in magic. Do you really want to go back there?"
"I will return home," Shari said, a touch of steel in her voice. "My lord Nataniel will see to that."
"Ah, Nataniel," Perenor said. "An interesting fellow . . . ambitious, intelligent. I just wonder what he'll be able to accomplish with it."
"I am loyal to—" Shari began, but Perenor cut off her words with a gesture.
"I know you are, Sharanya. That is one of the things I admire the most about you. I just wonder whether that loyalty might be misplaced." He rose from the couch, walking to the wet bar to pour himself another glass of dark red wine.
"What do you mean, my lord?" Shari asked.
Perenor turned, the glass of wine in his hand. "Just this. Imagine for a moment you, Nataniel, my daughter Ria, and I are to meet and discuss various business ventures tonight. We have dinner reservations for five o'clock, as I recall."
"Yes. What of it?"
"Let's say that you and I were to leave now, to go to that high school where your inept associates completely failed to capture the young human mage. There will be records of where this little mage lives somewhere in their files. We search through the records, or use the administrators to find the information. . . . "
"Easily done," she said. "They are only humans, after all."
"Agreed. Some simple magic to force them to tell us what we need to know. Then, at dinner tonight, we convince Nataniel that we should go pick up this mage immediately. After all, that's a pet project of his, isn't it? And then, somehow, during the course of capturing it . . . something unfortunate happens to Nataniel." He raised his glass to her in a toast. "And then you, my dear, would be free to return to the Unseelie lands with your elven host, with the human mage at your side to defeat the Unseelie Queen for you."
"But I wouldn't . . . "
"Think about it," Perenor said, smiling. "Nataniel cares too much about this human world. That's why he's built an empire here. Do you really believe him when he says that he wants to go home?"
"I don't know," Shari admitted. "Sometimes I believe him, but . . . " She glanced up at him, eyes narrowed. "And what do you get out of this, my lord Perenor?"
He shrugged. "I could say I do it simply out of my regard for you, that I care about you and I want to see you happy. But you would assume that was a lie, of course. Let's say this, instead: I help you gain the Unseelie throne, and then you'll grant me your aid to use against the Seelie Court. I have no great desire to return there, but I do owe them something for exiling me."
"Now that is a motivation I understand," Shari said. She moved past him, pouring wine into another glass. "You could lie to me, though," she said, "Just a little. Pretend that you're doing this because you care for me. That you'd love me infinitely, the way the humans do."
"Should I?" Perenor said, an amused tilt to his lips. "Do you want me to lie to you, Shari? Should I tell you about the beauty of your eyes, the way that your hair falls in such lovely flowing waves to your waist?" He moved closer to her, smiling that wicked smile, stray rays of sunlight from the window glinting off his silvery hair. "What other lies would you have me tell you?"
"All of those and more," she said, taking a sip from her wineglass, close enough that she could have leaned forward to touch him.
"Let's drink to the one thing we both know is true," Perenor said, raising his glass. "To partnership."
"To partnership," she echoed, and drank slowly, her eyes never leaving him for an instant.
To partnership, she thought, and all the pleasures of it . . . until the moment when I don't need you anymore, my lord Perenor.
Razz sat back in the back seat of the white Mercedes, his fingers drumming an idle pattern on the leather upholstery. Something was wrong and he knew it, but he couldn't put a finger on it. Maybe everything looked like it was fine, but he knew something was wrong. Here he was, in the back seat of his favorite car, good blow drawn out on the mirror in thin little lines on the seat next to him, and his best girl promising to meet him later tonight. But something was wrong.
His mother had said it when he was just a little kid, that he had something special. The eyes, she'd called it, talking about how her mother had had it. A way to know when something bad was going down. And that was what he felt right now, with the hair prickling on the back of his neck and the tight feeling in his belly.
The car phone rang. Flyboy, Razz's driver, picked it up, listened for a moment, and then handed it back to Razz. "It's Hotshot, bro," he said. Razz took the phone from his outstretched hand.
Hotshot's voice was thin and faint across the crackling phone line. "We've been following Shari's people like you asked," Hotshot said. "Just like you thought, they led us straight to that white chick, the one that did the number on Marcus. I saw the kid take off like a bat out of hell in a VW with some black mama, heading toward L.A."
"You got license plates on her, bro?" Razz asked.
Hotshot laughed a little. "More than that, Razz, I know the sister. It's the lady that works with the cops downtown. Winters, her name is. I met her last time they booked me. She's a good sister, Razz," he added. "She helped one of my cousins get a job, sent a friend of mine's little brother to the gangbanger camp in Malibu, kept him out of county jail."
"Yeah, well, we won't do shit to her, but I want that little white bitch," Razz said. "I don't know what she did to Marcus, but it was some serious shit, you hear me? You find out where this mama lives; we'll go drop by and pay our respects later tonight."
"You got it, bro," Hotshot said. Razz heard the click of him disconnecting.
He held the cellular phone in his hand for a moment longer, thinking about things. That feeling of something being wrong still wouldn't go away.
He leaned forward to speak to his driver. "Stop by the house," he ordered, "I want to pick up some heavy shit, some of the Uzis and automatics. I have a feeling about tonight. I think we'll need it."
The sun was setting at the far end of the San Fernando Valley, a disc of dark orange light disappearing behind the hills, turning the sky to shades of pink and pale blue. It was an effect that Perenor knew was caused by the smog, but it was beautiful in spite of that. He heard Shari's breath catch as she looked at the gorgeous sunset.
"Such beauty from such filth," she commented, handing her car keys to the valet as she stepped out of the car. Perenor took her arm and walked with her to the entrance of the restaurant where the doorman stood, holding the door open for them. This was his favorite Japanese restaurant in the Valley, an elegant restaurant nestled against the hills. It was, fortunately enough, also close to where the young mage lived. Five minutes away, just off Laurel Canyon, he thought with a satisfied smile.
Inside the restaurant, Perenor glanced past the tables where humans sat talking and eating, looking for his daughter and Nataniel. They were seated in a far corner, talking animatedly. As he and Shari walked toward them, Perenor could hear the edges of their business discussion.
"But you're going to have to amortize, which means that your return on investment will drop over the five-year period down to forty percent!"
"But what if I recapitalize at the end of the fifth year?" Nataniel asked. He glanced up and saw Perenor and Shari as they walked up to the table. "Ah, my friend Perenor! It's good to see you again," he said, standing and clasping Perenor's hand. "Your daughter has amazing insights into this new venture of mine. I'm delighted that you were able to introduce us."
"I guessed that it might be profitable for both of you," Perenor said, holding out a chair for Shari, then seating himself at the end of the table. "Ria is an extraordinarily talented young woman, as we've seen from the success of her Llewellyn Corporation."
He saw that Ria smiled at that, but her eyes were cool and assessing. She's learning, he thought with a touch of regret. She no longer blindly worships me. Which is a pity, really. If she ever becomes a danger to me . . .
"But we should talk of other things," Perenor continued. "Shari has some interesting news for you, Nataniel."
"Oh, indeed," Nataniel said, turning to his liegewoman.
Shari crumpled her napkin into her lap . . . a little nervously, Perenor thought. "It's that young human mage that you were so interested in, my lord. Morendil and Keryn found her this afternoon. And Lord Perenor was kind enough to suggest a visit to the girl's school, where we found the school administrators to be . . . quite helpful in giving us the information we needed to find the girl."
"How interesting," Nataniel said, smiling. "I knew you wouldn't fail me in this, Sharanya."
Shari colored slightly, a faint touch of pink creeping across her face. She does poorly at these games of deception, Perenor thought. Nataniel has some skill at it, but Shari is a child beside him—or me.
"I took the liberty of calling together the Host, my lord," Shari said. "They can meet us at the girl's address after we finish our supper here."
"That sounds like an excellent plan," Nataniel said. "We can have a delightful dinner here in the company of good friends," he smiled at Ria, who glanced away from him, "and then go pick up this useful little human girl."
Nataniel's gaze drifted back to Shari, and his eyes narrowed slightly. He knows, Perenor thought. He knows that something is amiss. Like a wolf near a trap, he can sense it. But will he figure it out before the trap closes in on him?
Nataniel turned back to Ria. "So, Ria, what else can you suggest for increasing return on investment in this venture?"
Kayla tried to concentrate on her geometry homework, but she couldn't stop herself from listening to Elizabet's voice from the other room. "Yes, Nichelle . . . no, I agree unfortunately . . . well, then, it's settled." There was the click of the phone being hung up, and Elizabet walked into the living room a moment later, frowning.
"So, what did you tell her," Kayla asked, "And what did she say?"
"That police patrols around the house weren't good enough. She'll arrange a safe place for you to be while they get the warrants together. They're sending over a patrol right now to take us in."
Elizabet sighed. "We'll probably spend tonight downtown, and tomorrow they'll send us over to a witness shelter. I just hope you can give them enough information that they can find these people."
"I'm sorry, Elizabet," Kayla said in a small voice. "I never meant to be this much trouble for you."
Elizabet smiled and reached over to ruffle Kayla's short pelt of hair. "You certainly know how to make an old woman's life interesting, child," she said.
There was a knock at the front door, a polite rapping.
"Could that be the police already?" Kayla asked, glancing at Elizabet.
"They might have had a patrol car in the area," Elizabet said.
"I'll let them in," Kayla said, bounding up from the couch.
"Then again, I don't think they'd be here so quickly—wait a moment, don't—" Elizabet said, just as Kayla unlocked the front door.
The first thing she saw was the gun. It was a shiny silver revolver, pointed right at her, the large barrel of the gun right in front of her eyes. Then she saw the face of the young black man holding the pistol, his smile half hidden beneath the hood of his bright blue sweatshirt.
Behind him, Kayla could see two more young men wearing blue caps and sweatshirts, and two cars parked in Elizabet's driveway. One was the white Mercedes convertible with the bashed front fender, a car that she'd hoped she'd never see again.
"Elizabet!" Kayla said in a voice that came out as a squeak.
Kayla felt Elizabet's hand upon her shoulder. Elizabet's voice was calm, almost too calm, as she surveyed the three gang members standing in her doorway. "Maybe you boys should come inside?" Elizabet said quietly.
"Thank you, sister," the young man with the revolver said. "Don't mind if we do."
She's inviting them in?
As if hearing her thoughts Elizabet murmured to Kayla, "Don't worry, child. Everything will work out fine."
I don't think so, Kayla thought. I really don't think so. . . .