“Take it easy,” I said. “I’m not looking for any trouble.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said, and flung her hand out again.
Still nothing. She stood there like a statue as the state of affairs dawned on her. She slowly lowered her hand as Lou came out from the bushes and stood on the other side. For a moment I thought she was going to try to bolt, but thought better of it. Her next words were a little calmer.
“So, who are you, then?” she asked.
“Mason.” I waved a hand at Lou. “That’s Lou.”
She nodded. “Huh. I’ve heard of you, actually. Supposedly you’re not so bad. What in God’s name are you doing working for someone like Jessie?”
“A good question. But I’m not exactly working for her, and she at least never tried to kill me. That seems a bit of an overreaction from someone who doesn’t even know who I am.”
“Those fireflies?” Cassandra made a sound of disgust. “They wouldn’t have killed a child, just taught you a lesson; that’s all.”
“Sure.”
“And you’re telling me you don’t work for Jessie?” Her tone was as skeptical as it gets, and I hesitated. “Thought so,” she said.
“She thinks something was stolen from her,” I finally said.
“By Jackie, right? That’s what she told you?”
“Something like that.”
“Did she tell you what it was?”
“No. Just that it was something valuable. Some magical object, I’d imagine.”
“And you agreed to track Jackie down, just on Jessie’s word. Brilliant. Do you have even the slightest clue what Jessie’s like? She’s a black practitioner, you know.”
“Oh, I have some idea,” I said. “Anyway, Jackie’s a dark practitioner, too, isn’t she?”
“That’s different.”
“Yes, I’m sure. But I would like to hear her side of it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“No, really. I would.”
Cassandra seemed a bit more measured now that it looked like I wasn’t going to do anything to her right away.
“Not going to happen,” she said. “Jackie’s not stupid. She won’t let you get anywhere near her.”
“Well, I’ll just have to keep looking for her, I guess.”
She gave me a long look, shrewd and calculating.
“What if I told you what Jackie took? What if it wasn’t some magical object? Would that change your mind?”
“I doubt it. But you could give it a try.”
She stared at me for what seemed like a very long time before she spoke again.
“It’s not a magical object. It’s not anything magical at all, and it’s not worth anything.”
“The perfect crime.”
She ignored me. “Have you ever heard of Sun City Inc.?” I shook my head. “It’s a real estate development group. Very upscale; they buy prime areas of pristine land and sell lots to people with money.”
“For homes or for stuff like shopping malls?”
“Both. Integrated communities, they call them. They get hold of wilderness land and turn it into suburbia.”
“And?”
“Their latest interest is part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. That’s what the meeting you came to was all about.”
“Good luck with that. Never gonna happen.”
“You’d think. But Jessie is connected up with the deal and there’s been a lot of under-the-table negotiation going on. Mostly about money, of course, but she has her talent as well—something no one else is aware of. No one but other practitioners.
“She’s been talking up state representatives, federal government people, even senators, for all I know. A lot of money has exchanged hands, but even more important, there’s been coercion—coercion on a magical level. Those poor saps don’t even know what hit them. They’re agreeing to stuff they would never have dreamed they’d accept. Plus, good old-fashioned blackmail. You can lean hard on people when you know secrets. And it’s hard to keep secrets from a practitioner.”
“What does any of this have to do with Jackie?”
“This all started up in Seattle. Jessie got wind of an opportunity here and started working on it. There are files— e-mail messages, payoff ledgers, notes about what was done and to whom. Jackie copied them all onto a CD, wiped the computer hard drive, and took off. It screwed things up royally—that’s why Jessie came down to San Francisco. She had to see a lot of the players in person after that.
“Not to mention if all that stuff were made public, it would sink the deal, and the deal is worth millions—no, hundreds of millions. Jessie’s desperate to get them back—and shut up Jackie for good.”
“Shut her up how? You mean, like permanently?”
Cassandra looked at me in amazement.
“No, of course not. Don’t be absurd. I mean, we’re talking about
Jackie
.”
“Okay,” I said, as if I knew what she was talking about. “And what exactly is your role in this?”
“I’ve known Jackie since forever. We tried starting an environmental movement among practitioners, to help heal the earth before the ordinaries destroy it. But it never got off the ground—it turns out that practitioners are as greedy and apathetic as anyone else.”
She had that right.
“So then we tried working through normal channels, like the group you met. At first we tried talking to people, to convince them, to show them the damage we’re all doing to the earth. But we’ve been met with indifference at best, or a patronizing tolerance like we were kids who needed to be indulged. So we decided on more aggressive methods.”
“Like theft?”
“Among other things.”
“So how did Jackie end up working for Jessie, anyway?” I asked. “Did she sell out and join magical corporate America?”
“You really don’t know?”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Wow. Maybe you are just a dupe, after all.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Well. Let me show you something,” she said, leaning down toward the duffel bag.
As she bent down, she lunged sideways, catching me off guard. In less than a second she’d torn one of the duct tape strips off the ground and was out of her cage. Two seconds later she was swallowed up by the darkness, and probably by a concealing spell as well. Lou took off after her but I called him back.
“Let it go,” I said.
I’d learned what I wanted from her, and I wasn’t eager to go chasing after her through the dark in any case. She’d already shown she possessed some talent and ability, and although I had no desire to harm her, the reverse wasn’t necessarily true.
I made my way back to the van, thinking hard. I’d assumed the problems between the two of them were of the magical variety; that only made sense. But money is the motivating factor in more disputes than anything else. That and sex, and the sex angle didn’t apply here. Or perhaps it did; anything was possible. Or it could even be exactly as Cassandra had made it out to be. Sherwood had pegged Jackie as a woman of principle, passionate about her beliefs. Maybe she truly was a caped crusader for the environment. But somehow I didn’t think it was that simple.
EIGHT
JESSIE WAS MAD AS HELL WHEN I STOPPED BY her office the next morning. Naja was nowhere in sight, which didn’t make either me or Lou any more comfortable. I could have defused Jessie’s anger in a second by explaining about Jackie, the singularity, and the time glitch, but until I knew more about what was going on I wasn’t explaining anything to anyone. Especially since Jessie had been screwing around with the energy pool.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was out of town.”
“Really. Where?”
“Not relevant,” I said, which was a lie. “I ran into some trouble.” That much at least was true.
“I’m paying you a lot of money,” she said. “I expect you to be looking for Jackie, not dealing with your own stuff on my time.”
“Sometimes it can’t be helped.” I changed the subject. “I did run into a practitioner who seems to know you, though. Cassandra?”
I watched for some reaction, and I got one. It wasn’t very helpful, though. Jessie just looked thoughtful.
“Cassandra. Surprising. I didn’t know she was in San Francisco, too.”
“She seems to hold you in high esteem,” I said.
Jessie laughed. “Yes, I’ll bet. She’s a good friend of Jackie’s, and she’s trouble. She’s one of those eco freaks—earthers.”
“Earthers?” I said, like I had no clue what she was talking about.
“Earthers. It started out as a small movement, a save-the-earth movement among practitioners. Nothing wrong with that, mind you—I’m rather fond of the planet myself, and humans are certainly messing it up. That’s one reason I think practitioners should have a voice in running things.
“But the earthers, and Cassandra in particular, are extremists. They’re the magical equivalent of tree spikers, and nothing is beyond them. They’re just getting started, and God knows what’s next.”
“And she’s a friend of Jackie’s.”
“Yes, and she’s filled her head with the earther crap. Jackie used to be levelheaded and reliable, but Cassandra’s really had an influence on her, and not a positive one. I’d guess she knows exactly where Jackie is.”
“Quite possibly. She left before I could ask her. But here’s the thing: Jackie isn’t just hiding from you; she knows you’ve moved to San Francisco and she could have left at any time if she simply wanted to avoid you. And she apparently knows who I am, knows very well. So if she stole something from you, and now you’re in San Francisco, too, why hasn’t she simply left town?”
“That’s complicated,” Jessie said, using one of my own favorite phrases.
“Okay. Does it have anything to do with Sun City?”
“No. And where did you hear about that?”
“According to Cassandra, Jackie stole a bunch of files that implicate your company with some crooked business practices—influence peddling, bribery, stuff like that.”
Jessie smiled. “Perfect,” she said. “And you believed her?”
“I haven’t decided. Care to enlighten me?”
Jessie got up from behind her desk and walked toward the window overlooking the city streets. Naja materialized from out of somewhere and glided over to her, and Lou moved a little closer to me. Jessie looked out the window for a minute before she turned back to me.
“Cassandra’s a clever woman,” she said. “She told you part of the truth. That’s the best way to sell a lie, you know. Yes, Jackie took some files, but that’s just an annoyance. It was the other thing that’s important.”
“Which was?”
“Have you ever heard of Wilhelm Richter?”
“Of course.”
Richter was a black practitioner from the nineteenth century. He’s venerated by black practitioners, much like Alistair Crowley is among ordinary black practitioner wannabes. Except while Crowley was a philosopher who got almost everything wrong, Richter was a practitioner, and a practical man who got a lot of things right.
“Well, Richter kept a lot of secrets to himself, but he also left a great many notes and descriptions of what he called ‘experiments.’ In fact, he wrote a book. A lot of it we can’t use anymore—that was a rough time, and modern practitioners, even black ones, frown on some of the methods used back then. It was thought to be lost, but it wasn’t. I found it.”
“Ah,” I said. “A grimoire. Secret spells of the master.”
“Don’t mock, Mason. It’s not an attractive quality, especially from an employee. No, it’s not spells, not exactly. But it is an operating manual of sorts, with specific instructions on how to achieve desired results. And Jackie stole it from me.”
“Why? To gain power for herself?”
“More to accomplish her aims, I suspect.”
“Sorry to seem skeptical,” I said. “But talent is dependent on personal ability and power, not a bunch of secret stuff written down in some arcane book.”
“So you’ve never studied and refined your skills?”
“Well, of course. But I’ve had people who could guide and mentor me.”
“Oh. Sort of like having an instruction manual, then?” I saw her point. “One needs talent, certainly,” she said. “Without a certain level of intrinsic ability, no one becomes anything more than a journeyman practitioner, no matter how hard they work. But the reverse is also true—I’m sure you know some immensely talented practitioners who fritter away their gift and slide by on natural aptitude. But they never fulfill their potential, do they?”
I had an uncomfortable feeling she was talking about me, which meant she knew more about me than I did about her.
“What about Jackie?” I said. “Talent, I assume?”
“Oh yes. And that’s the problem. That book describes how to implement many things, and with the talent she has, she’ll manage quite well. But she’s young, and reckless. There’s stuff in there I wouldn’t want to try, and I’ve been around awhile.”