Page 35
The street turned slightly, bringing us into view of wide-open chain-link gates. Just in front of them a man in faded jeans and a leather vest worn over his bare chest sat on an overturned oil drum. An unlit cigarette drooped from his lips. To the left of him sat an old military truck, its back end pointing toward the gate. Despite rust stains and dents, the truck’s tires and canvas top looked to be in good condition.
The canvas probably hid some heavy-duty hardware, a Gatling gun or a small siege engine.
On the other side of the man sat a huge rectangular tank. Soft emerald-green algae stained the glass walls, obscuring the murky water within. A long section of metal pipe stretched from the tank and disappeared beneath the twisted remains of a trailer.
The man on the drum leveled a crossbow at me. The crossbow looked a lot like a good old-fashioned, flat-sided Flemish arbalest. The prong gleamed with the bluish-gray shade particular to steel, not the brighter, pale aluminum of cheaper bows, meaning the bow’s draw weight probably ranged to two hundred pounds. He could put a bolt into me from seventy-five yards away and he wanted me to know that.
Whoom. Whoom.
An arbalest was a decent weapon, but slow on reload.
The man eyed me. “You want something?” The cigarette remained stuck to his lower lip, moving as he spoke.
“I’m an agent of the Order investigating the disappearance of witches belonging to the Sisters of the Crow coven. I was told the head witch lived in the Honeycomb.”
“And who is that?” He pointed to Julie behind me.
“Daughter of a witch in Esmeralda’s coven. Her mom’s missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“No. You got an ID on you?”
I reached for the leather wallet I carried on a cord around my neck and took out my Order ID. He motioned me closer. I approached and passed it to him. He turned it over. The small rectangle of silver in the lower right corner of the card gleamed, catching a stray ray of the sun.
“Is that real silver?” he asked. The cigarette drew an elaborate pattern in the air.
“Yes.” Silver took enchantment better than most metals.
The man gave me a quick glance and rubbed at the silver through the clear plastic coating. “How much is it worth?”
Here we go. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You should be asking if your life is worth a square inch of enchanted silver.”
He gave the card another cursory glance. “You talk big.”