I can hear Win swallow from here, but his face stays stone. “Sounds like all’s well that ends well to me,” he says slowly. “Your men got out, you got your score.” Win nods into the darkness. “Now quit screwing around, bring out the rest of the gallons.”
Bobby shifts a bit, then puts his hands in his pockets, stays silent.
“Are you deaf?” Win barks.
“Ten gallons,” Bobby answers. “As a lesson.”
I can practically see anger radiating off Win like steam. “A lesson?”
“If McEvoy provides half-rate services, he’s going to get half payments. Tell your boss not to fuck with us, Matthews. Baltimore’s not afraid of the Shaws. And we make far better friends than enemies.”
Under the moonlight, Win looks monstrous, like an animal ready to pounce. And for a moment, I’m sure as hell glad I’m standing next to him, and not on the other side. “You don’t know what you’re starting. I can’t go back to McEvoy with ten gallons—”
“Then forget the whole thing.” Bobby smiles, a hollow, crooked one.
There isn’t a word, a breath, for a long time. I’m watching, waiting, my heart in my throat. If I could fly away, I would. Christ, I’m tempted to try and disappear.
Just when the tension becomes so loaded that I think the warehouse might combust from the pressure, Bobby jerks for the gun in his pocket. But Win’s too quick and draws his own pistol first.
And then it happens so fast, I don’t process what’s occurred until my head is hitting the ground.
Two Baltimore thugs come at me from behind the storage bins, send me sprawling onto the floor. As Win turns around out of instinct, Bobby crosses over the sliver of moonlit cement and knocks Win’s gun out of his hand. Howie goes to grab it, but one of the Baltimore thugs stops double-teaming me and turns to sock him in the stomach.
“Not too much, just enough to send a message,” Bobby shouts.
Someone sends a fist to my ribs, a jab to my left eye—I double over, while Howie gives a wail in pain. A warning bullet flies and breaks a window in the warehouse. I need to stop this, do something, anything—
On reflex, I grab one of the gallons from the box a few feet away, take it out, and smash it over the Baltimore thug who’s attached himself to my thigh. He goes down hard, like a bag of bricks, and now two of his buddies are coming for me. But I roll to stand, scramble to my feet, say the words “Release and fly.” I reach my hands out—
And like synchronized trapeze artists, the guns fly from the gangsters’ hands, land one in each of mine. Then I set my sights on Bobby.
A rumble emanates from the ground. Four walls, a square of thick stone slabs, erupt out of the floor of the warehouse, clamber up seven feet, and cage Bobby inside. “What the hell?” he screams, but his voice is muffled. “Get me out of here!”
It takes Win a second to process, another to breathe. He steals a quick look at me, realization taking him over, paralyzing him for an instant. But then he rips one of my newly stolen guns out of my hand. He points it at two shell-shocked Baltimore men, while I keep my gun trained on the other pair, and says, “Don’t move.”
The two Baltimore thugs slowly raise their hands in the air, as Howie bends down and wraps his arms around the crate of remedial spells. He lifts it with a huff.
“Not one inch or I swear, I’ll end all you Baltimore trash,” Win says.
“Matthews, you leave me in here and there will be hell to pay!” Bobby bellows from inside his stone cage.
But Win doesn’t answer. Like a charmed snake, he, Howie, and I move slowly back out the door. As soon as we hit the parking lot, we start running for the car.
“What the fuck.” Win peels out of the empty lot and skitters onto the makeshift road through the wood. Rocks and gravel from the parking lot jump up and knock impatiently on the doors.
My heart and my mind are both sputtering, the high of doing well, and the fear, the pride, it’s all shorting inside me like a tangle of live wires—
“Is he going to die in there?” Win looks back at me and demands, and his car swerves a bit into the shoulder. “I need to know the extent of the damage on this.”
I shake my head. “The stone walls will be gone tomorrow. It’s real, but impermanent . . . just like all pure magic.”
Win turns back around. “Christ, does Kerrigan not have his boys under control? Boss McEvoy is going to be livid if he finds out. And where’d you learn that trick, huh? Your old man?” Win looks at me through the rearview mirror. But now there’s something new in his eyes. A fear—raw and unbridled.
I stay silent, just nod so he can see. No one needs to know my father has less magic in him than a brick. No one needs to know I was all the magic of his operation.
We ride the rest of the way in silence, the ominous forest finally giving way to a four-lane highway. I spend the ride running through what I’ve learned, trying to make connections, to weave the threads of information together: Shaw underboss George Kerrigan fell short on McEvoy’s promise of extra manpower to Baltimore, which nearly resulted in a bust up north—