“It doesn’t look like it’s solving itself to me!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it? Fights mean casualties. Sure, you try to make things look bloodier than they are, and save your best people, but accidents happen. And even when nobody dies, they get injured and have to sit out for weeks or months. So you need a constant supply of new blood to stay operational, but with both us and the Senate on it lately, portals are getting shut down everywhere, and fights are getting harder to staff. Can’t get people to come out for that.” He nodded at the selkies.
“Rumor is, the slavers have started stealing from each other,” I said, thinking of Olga’s nephew.
“But that just determines who ends up with the dwindling supply of new blood,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t make more portals appear out of nothing. The big-time slavers, like the guy we raided three nights ago, are still in the game, being powerful enough or well connected enough to end up with the lion’s share. But the little guy ends up with damned selkies, or nothing at all. It was putting them out of business.”
“Was?”
“More and more, the slavers are switching over to a new line of work.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
James didn’t answer. He just gave a whistle that caused several of his boys to look up. “Toss me a crate.”
“Which one?”
James’ lips twisted. “Does it matter?”
One of the guys laughed. And then remembered that they had company, and quickly scowled some more. But he put what I guess was a levitation charm on one of the crates by the wall, and pushed it our way.
It glided swiftly across the room and James caught it, pushing it down to the floor, where it bobbed around gently.
It was an old-fashioned wooden thing, with a few tufts of straw sticking out here and there, like it was having a bad hair day. It was also familiar, looking like the crates Dorina had seen stacked along the walls in that underwater room at Curly’s. It was an odd coincidence, and for a moment, I got excited.
And then I opened it.
“What a load of crap.”
That was Fin, peering over my shoulder, but it looked like James agreed. The sad contents weren’t likely to impress a guy whose dad owned a magic shop—one of the real ones. Instead of fake magic wands and marked decks of playing cards, it had an outer room stuffed with dried herbs, a counter stained by a thousand potions, and a back room where people exchanged power for cash.
It was one of the spots around town where people whose bodies made too much magic, like war mages, for example, could go to get a little relief. Because magic had to be used. A mage’s body made a certain amount all the time, like a fleshy talisman, and if you didn’t use it, bad things started to happen. And not just to you.
Rufus, James’ dad, had once told me about a mage who lit his own house on fire, in his sleep. He let too much magic build up, didn’t release enough of it, and it came out as a fire spell that torched his place and almost killed him and his entire family. And he wasn’t the only one.
Stories like that cropped up in newspapers from time to time, and were one reason magically talented kids were pushed toward the Corps—even if they didn’t have the mental aptitude, like Huey and Louie over there. They were standing guard at the side door where we’d come in, in case any nosy norms showed up and needed to be pushed along their way. And they’d be doing that for the rest of their careers, never rising higher than the magical equivalent of beat patrol, because the brains didn’t match the talent.
But at least they wouldn’t be setting themselves on fire.
And they might make a little something on the side, selling their excess magic to Rufus or somebody like him. Or maybe more than a little. Some of the biggest juicers, as they were known, could survive just off selling magic. The amount needed for major spells was high, so there was always a market.
I looked down at the crate.
And then there was this.
Nobody got paid for this.
“Feel free to take what you like,” James told me wryly. And then leaned over conspiratorially. “I’ll cover for you.”
“Very funny.”
I reached into the crate, and pulled out one of the pathetic-looking orbs inside. The real things were perfect balls of shining silver that broke open to release a cloud of white smoke so thick and so dense, it counted as its own patch of fog. The best ones could cover a block or more, allowing you to lose anything in it—including yourself.
They were great for when a fight got too intense or backup arrived unexpectedly, and you needed to peace out. I usually paid five hundred a pop for one of these babies, which is why I never had any damned money. But I wouldn’t be taking James up on his offer.
I did squeeze it, sad misshapen thing that it was, and watched the pale steam it contained filter weakly out the sides.
I waited.
James looked amused.
Fin didn’t look like anything, because he’d wandered off somewhere. I spotted him over by the selkies, frowning some more. Probably at their thinness, because to trolls that’s practically the worst thing in the world. Knowing Fin, he’d be wanting to borrow my car to go get them Long John Silver’s or something.
Which, no; he couldn’t see over the steering wheel.
But I had no trouble seeing him. And the mages and the selkies, and everything else. Because the orb had finally given its all, and its all sucked.
“Are they all like that?” I asked James, who was sneering at the little thing the way a wine connoisseur looks at Two Buck Chuck. Which wasn’t a bad analogy, because that’s what these things were: the magical equivalent of Ripple.
“Pretty much.” He batted some weak-ass fog away. “You’ve got your potion bombs barely stronger than human acid; your shield charms that might deflect a single spell, if you’re lucky; your ward-detection bracelets, which don’t; your vamp-detection bracelets, which also don’t, although they did go nuts over my dog—”
“Secret were?”
He snorted. “I wish. Then I could get the bastard a job. He’s eating me out of house and home.”
“You took these home? I thought you just found them.”
“This batch, yeah. But we ran across another yesterday, in the last place your boy hit, and one a week ago in a warehouse raid. Looks like the guys with no portal access are branching out.”
“Into this?”
He nodded.
“And it’s selling?” I couldn’t imagine anybody spending good money on this crap.
“It’s pretty general knowledge that we might have to fight the fey,” James said. “And people are freaking out. Plus, there’s a crackdown on the legit stuff. The Circle’s trying to keep the other side from cleaning out our dealers, and using our own weapons against us. Any big orders are flagged and held up until we verify the purchaser. It doesn’t affect the guy on the street, just buying a few things to protect his family, but you know how people are. The directive caused a panic and sent prices skyrocketing.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Hope you’re stocked up.”
Shit.
So much for restocking on a budget.
“And with demand outstripping supply, even this stuff is selling like hotcakes,” James continued. “And getting ripped off.”
“Ripped off? People are stealing that?”
He chuckled. “You sound like the old man. He was outraged, too. But, yeah, the batch from last night was traced to a truck robbery in Jersey City. We don’t normally watch this sort of thing—it’s not powerful enough to worry about—and the criminal element knows it. So they’ve started stealing what are basically gag gifts, repackaging them as legit weapons, and selling them at a premium.”
“And nobody’s noticed?”
He shrugged. “It’s a new problem. Plus, most people aren’t likely to use anything they buy. They just want some insurance.”
“So how good it is, is irrelevant.”