Midnight's Daughter

“Only this time, it ain’t no bargaining tactic. There’s this war happening, you know? My inventory was raided by the Senate—they said to confiscate contraband.” Be

“Come on, Be

“And now I ain’t got nothing nowhere else, neither.” He sighed and patted my hand. “You been a good customer, Dory, and you know me. I’ve always played straight with you, right? But it’s the times we’re living in. Word is, the Senate is vulnerable and its control is slipping. Who knows what’s coming? Nobody, that’s who. So they all want protection, don’t they? A little something extra in case things start to implode. Truth is, my inventory was getting pretty thin even before the raids. And now…” He shook his head. “I got nothing.”

A harassed-looking mother walked by the bar, little girl in tow with a sno-cone clutched tightly in one fist. The girl’s bright blue lips shaped a startled “oh” of astonishment as she caught sight of Be

“Don’t stare, Melissa! And don’t call people names!” I looked at Be

He shrugged, unapologetic. Be

“Well, that’s a shame.” I casually placed my shiny yellow marble on the surface of the bar, next to his collection of colorful paper umbrellas. “You know I’d prefer to deal with you, but I guess I’ll have to go somewhere else.”

His eyes fixed on the small orb and he slowly set his drink back down. “Come to think of it, Dory, I might have a few special items put away.”

A little over half an hour later, we pulled up outside a large warehouse. “A few items?” I asked as we climbed out of the Jag.

Be

A large, echoing space greeted us. Empty pallets were scattered about, along with a lot of crushed cardboard boxes and a rusty forklift. The overhead lights flickered on reluctantly, and I noticed what looked like a small office in back. “This way,” Be

“Why don’t you move your inventory somewhere they can’t find it?”

“If I leave some interesting stuff lying around, I stay up and ru

After disarming a few dozen protection wards, Be

I bent over for a better look, making sure a few of the items were what I thought they were, and barely kept from gri

Ten minutes later, I had four disrupters with the power of about twenty human grenades each, and a top-of-the-line morphing potion. The latter was a yellow glop that performed a glamour even on nonmages like me. Spread it over your face and within minutes you could look like virtually anyone. It tended to break me out, but there were lots worse things than a bad case of acne, and with Drac on my back, I needed all the help I could get.

Be

I grabbed the case from where it had been knocked to the floor by one of Be

Have I mentioned that, sometimes, I really hate magic? The problem was that I didn’t have a full warehouse offering plenty of cover—the sad state of Be

And again I smelled it, a faint flicker of ozone, like the first lick of an approaching storm. I told myself I was imagining things. It had rained lately, after all. But, slicked with sweat, I froze in the darkness, muscles locked and singing with strain as icy panic gnawed at my spine.

Another smash of crates, which was close enough to send splinters into my boots, brought up my other small problem: I might not be able to move, but I also couldn’t stay where I was. My usual choice when backed into a corner is to attack everything in sight, but since there was nothing in sight, I decided I might have to try something else. The trashing of Be

I kept near to the wall as the area closer to the door was systematically wrecked. One nice thing about all the noise, I didn’t have to bother being quiet. I finally made it to the metal monster and climbed aboard. I was not, of course, going to try to drive it. Forklifts weren’t likely to be able to outrun even a fit human, and if it was mages with magically enhanced speed, weres or vamps after me, I’d really be toast. It would, however, provide a nice distraction if I could get it to work. I put a couple of Be