Flex (25 page)

A
liyah drifted
off in his arms. He let her. He didn’t know how many days he had left with her. Eventually, SMASH would find him, or he’d overload from his own ’mancy, or maybe he’d find the courage to leave.

So he savored the scent of his daughter’s skin – still acrid from the trauma, but her baby-powder scent was creeping back like flowers after a forest fire. The half words she always muttered as she slept, a secret language she either forgot upon waking or refused to tell.

She’d been scared by his ’mancy. Who wouldn’t be? But here, as she dreamed, Aliyah clung to him.

He needed no other proof of love.

Eventually, she awoke, blearily looking him over as if to confirm:
That really happened
. She clambered down but did not run. Aliyah had always been an oddly practical little girl; he could see her struggling to try to make sense of these new facts.

He stayed silent. Valentine had toyed with Aliyah’s emotions enough. Let her formulate her own questions.

He gave her her prescriptions, Xeroform and ciprofloxacin and methadone – a little bureaucromancy could get prescriptions for anything – and she made faces as she washed it down with orange juice. Then he set up an IV in her arm. The nursing tutorials hadn’t prepared him for how small Aliyah’s veins were. But she didn’t cry out.

All the while, Valentine sat out on the balcony, playing the Nintendo DS. Her whole body was hunched over the tiny screen.

Aliyah touched his hand. “I gotta go,” she whispered, not quite seeking permission; seeking approval.

The relationship Valentine and Aliyah had, he realized, moved to a different rhythm from what he and his daughter shared. He had no advice; here, he was clueless as Valentine and instead relied on his daughter’s instincts.

So he nodded. And Aliyah let go.

Aliyah approached Valentine carefully, as though sneaking up on a cat who’d scratched her. If Valentine noticed, she gave no sign; she tilted the DS back and forth, playing hard. Aliyah slipped up behind her, holding her breath. Valentine concentrated on the screen for a minute…

Then wordlessly, Valentine handed the Nintendo DS to Aliyah.

Aliyah flung herself into Valentine’s arms. Valentine grabbed Aliyah, sobbing her own tears, both whispering apologies to each other.

Paul withdrew, giving them their own time. Aliyah was growing up. This, at least, was a lesson he was glad for her to learn.

W
hile Valentine taught
Aliyah how to beat Mario’s cloud level, Paul set up shop.

He set up the card tables Oscar’s assistants had brought in, rearranging the Flex equipment in the fashion he was beginning to think of as “his” method: the hematite trays, the copper tubes to distill it, the bingo machine.

And, of course, there were the supplies Oscar didn’t know Paul needed, available in any office: fresh pens. Clean paper. Paul found some W-4 tax forms underneath a desk.

He tried to remember he was legendarily good at this. Last time he’d brewed, he’d unleashed havoc. Now he was exploring further uncharted territory… and if it worked, then Anathema would come for him again.

He did not show Aliyah his fear.

“Aliyah,” he said. “I want you to go in the bathroom and lock the door.”

Aliyah confirmed this with Valentine, who frowned but nodded.

“This is dangerous, sweetie,” Valentine explained. “We’re – we’re good at this. But someone could still get hurt.”

“No.”

Aliyah gave no screams, no anger, just a quiet dissent that reminded Paul all too well of Aliyah’s mother.

“Sweetie,” Valentine said, turning Aliyah to face her, “this is ’mancy. It’s serious.”

“My Daddy does it. He does it for…” Her brow furrowed with concentration, forming the words at the same time she formed the idea. “He does ’mancy for good.”

“So?”

“If that’s what Daddy is, that’s what I watch.”

Paul took her by the shoulders. “Are you sure?”

Aliyah nodded.

“All right,” Paul said, rising. “Let’s brew.”

S
he was scared
. Very scared. But Aliyah watched Paul’s pen scratch across the paper, his ’mancy wavering whenever he checked in on his daughter. Aliyah stood staunchly near the table, hands balled into fists, straddling the ground wide so she wouldn’t be tempted to run.

He was so afraid of hurting her.

The forms shifted underneath his fingers, mutating into hospital discharge papers, federal aid requests, invoices for skin grafts. He wrenched them back to contracts. This batch required agreements literally baked into it. He refocused to think in terms of clauses, restrictions, contingencies, distilling vague notions into hard paragraphs.

Eventually, the ’mancy flowed. It was his comfort, his retreat: the idea the world was predictable. Aliyah seemed to understand this magic was an extension of her father, crawling underneath the slow crumple of expanding paper, wrapping the forms around her shoulders.

Then came the worst part: strangling his love to distill it into drugs. And as Paul squeezed the forms into the alembics, leaving dry husks, he heard Aliyah stifling a cry.

Tears glistened on her scarred cheeks. Oh, yes. She understood the loss.

He allowed a moment of perfect mourning to form between them, sharing this understanding of the beauty and its cost.

Then he squeezed harder, and glowing crystals tumbled from his fingers.

T
hree days later
, Oscar arrived on schedule.

Paul was concerned about such a public pickup, though he didn’t have much choice – they didn’t dare move to a new location. Every time Valentine crept out to get takeout, she brought back papers, and the
only
front-page story was the evil paleomancer who’d driven Paul Tsabo and his injured daughter into hiding.

Of
course
she’d gone after Paul Tsabo, the op-eds and letters to the editor implied; he was the only person in New York who wasn’t afraid of ’mancers. People were certain Paul was planning revenge from his Batcave.

Problem was, his hiding hole wasn’t a Batcave. It was the first-floor office of a busy downtown building. Thankfully, the wide glass windows had been taped over during construction, but hundreds of commuters still walked by every hour. Hundreds more walked through the lobby, where if a single one pushed their way through the fire doors, they’d find Paul Tsabo and his iconic artificial foot, his very visibly burned daughter, and a shitload of Flex.

Paul wondered how close Kit was to finding him.

He wondered whether Kit would find him before Anathema did.

It had been three days since he’d made the Flex, and Anathema had yet to show. He was hoping she’d attack so he’d never have to come clean on his bargain to Oscar –
Sorry, the rival mage destroyed my supply
– but no. She
should
have attacked. The stockpile of Flex was like a needle shoved in her eye. And Anathema didn’t know that
he
knew she could track him.

So, why hadn’t she come for him?

It didn’t matter. He hid in the back office, cuddling Aliyah, while Valentine – now in full-on Psycho Mantis gas-mask skin – sat with a large sack of Flex on the desk before her. Next to it sat a stack of forms.

Oscar arrived at noon, as instructed, sliding sideways through the door so as not to give onlookers a glimpse. Behind him came three bodyguards, each burlier than the last.

Paul slid his hand over Aliyah’s mouth, holding her against him. What a world, where hiding his daughter from a roomful of gun-toting mobsters was the
safest
course of action.

Paul hoped Valentine would remember what he’d told her, and not deviate from the script.

“Mantis.” Oscar bowed, then tapped his cane on the floor. “Is that my Flex?”

A hiss from behind the gasmask. Had he been that unsettling? “It is.”

Oscar took the sack. “How do I know it is genuine?”

Another hiss. Her claws flexed and unflexed. Valentine seemed disconcertingly at home in that skin. “What would satisfy you as a test?”

“I wish to see ’mancy. Something startling.”

The bodyguards withdrew from Mantis’ cold gaze. “…you must decide what ’mancy you want to see.”

Oscar nodded, as if he’d expected no less. “Very well. I wish to jump off the second floor and land safely, without a sound.”

“Then take the Flex,” Valentine/Mantis said, reaching into the sack. She placed a single crystal on the table between them, gloved fingers moving with insectile grace.

“You can’t sell Flex! That’s bad!” Aliyah cried, loud enough for Oscar to hear. Paul shushed her, but Oscar’s gaze rose up to the second-floor office. He knew someone lurked up there. Doubtless that was why his test involved jumping.

The bodyguards chuckled. Oscar examined the glimmering crystal with a jeweler’s eye loupe. “Do I… eat it?”

“Plug it in any orifice you see fit.”

Oscar gave a thin frown, then tentatively ingested it. And “ingested” was the only way Paul could describe it; Oscar placed it on his tongue without pleasure and swallowed. His bodyguards tensed as Oscar took it down, the pale-eyed glare of tasters watching their king drink wine. When Oscar coughed, they went for their guns.

He waved them off – but didn’t gesture for them to put the guns away. “My brother told me it tingled.”

“Your brother was wrong about too many things.”

Oscar hesitated; he examined Mantis again, sensing some difference, as yet unable to formulate it.

“Is it working?”

“Find out.” A psychic gust of wind swept the dust aside, clearing a path up the second-floor stairs.

That wasn’t the plan!
Paul almost leapt out to yell about terms and conditions. But he didn’t dare reveal his position.

Mantis. Mantis was controlling Valentine.

Goddammit
… he thought, clutching Aliyah to his chest, formulating plans.

Oscar worked his way up the stairs, leaning heavily on his cane; Paul pulled Aliyah back, noting Oscar’s limp was genuine. Had Gunza done that? Oscar crept along the railing, watching his feet, as though he expected to burst apart in a blaze of ’mancy. The concrete floor was twelve feet below, uncarpeted, littered with broken glass.

He paused before the frosted glass of the managerial office, craning his neck to peer into the darkness.

“I believe you wished to jump, not to explore,” Mantis hissed.

“I feel no Flex,” Oscar replied.

“It’s within you,” Mantis said. Mantis was not, in fact, lying. Technically.

From here, Paul could see the interplay of emotions on Oscar’s face: the recognition that perhaps he should have left this to a bodyguard, the despair as he knew he couldn’t leave this to a subordinate, the determination to do something that terrified him, the hatred of knowing that
Mantis
knew how terrified he was.

Then Oscar jumped off, and Paul almost reached out to grab him back.

Paul felt the psychic backwash as Mantis jammed the guards’ guns.

Oscar’s ankle cracked as he thumped into the concrete floor.

He heard the shouts as the bodyguards rushed Mantis, who smashed their faces into the floor.

Mantis levitated over the desk, absentmindedly snagging the stack of papers, gesturing behind him to call a pen to his hands. He floated towards Oscar; Paul begged,
Please don’t kill him, please don’t kill him
–

Oscar gritted his teeth, refusing to give Psycho Mantis the satisfaction of a scream. His foot was twisted back to touch his calf in a way that made Paul sick. “You – you will pay – my family will–”

“
Sign here
.” Mantis manipulated the paper and pen so they did a little mocking dance before Oscar.

Oscar breathed out through his nose, a man close to murder. Mantis opened Oscar’s clenched fists finger by finger with psychic force, then pushed the pen in. “Sign.”

“I will not.”

Paul saw himself, chained to radiator: a small, unbowed man refusing to give in.

“That won’t work!” he screamed, running to the railing. “He has to sign it willingly!”

Oscar looked up, not at all surprised to find Paul there. Mantis hesitated – how much of Valentine was left?

“Sign the contract voluntarily and the Flex will work,” Paul explained before Mantis could do more damage. “The contract activates it. Mantis” – he almost said “I,” then choked it back – ”has to approve whatever you want to accomplish with his ’mancy. It has to be written out in advance, with no loopholes. In
detail
.”

Oscar was beet-red with fury, but there was a relief on his face that Paul understood: he was talking to someone sane. “That was not our deal!”

“The deal is you take what we give you,” Mantis purred.

“We don’t want anyone hurt,” Paul said, smoothing the waters. “We won’t interfere with your business. But we don’t want anyone killed. Use the Flex for peaceful ends, we’ll approve it – which should be good for you. Murders bring cops. But you have to write out what you plan to use it for, in advance. In detail. The Flex works only when you’re sticking to the contract.”

“Are you mad?” Oscar yelled. “The things I want to do, I’m not
documenting
them!”

“It doesn’t have to be your name,” Paul urged. “Sign it as ‘Peter Parker’. The contracts will know who you are. You can use pseudonyms for anything – call the people you’re trying to bamboozle the party of the first part, refer to the building you’re breaking into as Sesame Street, it doesn’t matter. The details can be obscured. But you have to tell us what you’re going to use the ’mancy for before we’ll let you have it.”

“You only let him do good things with it?” Aliyah asked, thrilled to see her faith in Daddy rewarded, and holy fuck, this was getting out of control. By the time he’d pushed her back into the office, Mantis had summoned a gun from a bodyguard’s hand to hold it to Oscar’s throat.

“Sign the paper, you useless worm,” it hissed.

“
Dammit, get control, Vuh–
” Valentine was fighting for control inside the Mantis construct – but Paul couldn’t use her name to help guide her back home. Not in front of Oscar, of all people. “
Sign it
, Oscar! Trust me. Just… trust me.”

A stranger couldn’t have gotten away with that. But Paul Tsabo, killer of ’mancers, could – and Paul saw Oscar’s acknowledgement that he was dealing with someone with a lot of experience in this realm. Oscar bit back his loathing and signed.

The request flooded through Paul’s body. He approved it just as Mantis flung a screaming Oscar high into the air, so high, Paul feared Oscar would be smashed against the ceiling.

The Flex kicked in, fulfilling the contract Paul had filled in for him: land safely, without a sound. Oscar landed with a gymnast’s grace, his cane clattering to the floor.

He stared, stunned, at his shoes – the fact that they were planted on the ground perfectly, the fact that the impact had set his broken ankle, not healing the bones but shoving things back into optimal healing positions. Mantis, perhaps more under Valentine’s control, whipped the cane back into his hands, allowing him to rest his weight.

“This Flex.” Oscar’s face was suffused with a junkie’s wonder. Paul shivered; it was the first time Oscar had resembled his brother. “It is amazing.”

“I’m sorry it comes with conditions,” Paul apologized. “But your brother taught Mantis how ’mancy could be used against him. And we won’t be party to murder.”

Someone kicked the door in.
Both
doors. The heavy metal fire doors burst off their hinges, deformed, skidding to a halt at Psycho Mantis’ feet.

Beyond it, outlined in the lobby, stood a hulking man wearing only a bright blue banana hammock. He slammed his foot into the floor, causing a tremor that rocked the building – and then posed in the doorframe, flexing biceps that looked like distended, walnut-colored tumors. His tiny head squatted atop a massive body, wide veins squirming between his striated muscle folds.

As he shifted into another position, presenting his biceps as though he were cradling a baby, Paul retched up his donuts. The man radiated wrongness, a fetid swamp-shit stench that smelled like all of New York had died in a hot summer and been left to putrefy in their apartments. He fought for sanity while Oscar, Mantis, and Aliyah all froze in place, their mouths open with awe.

“
Step aside, mortals
!” said the bodybuilder, speaking with the rich resonance of a cartoon superhero. “
I am here to collect your drugs
.”

Paul wondered if this day could get any weirder.