Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

“It’s a plan,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The night air outside the car was warm and humid, hot enough to have been an Oregon summer, even though the sun had been down for almost an hour. We walked across the parking lot to the Public Relations building, where the door, as always, was unlocked.

That was where the bad luck caught up with us. We stepped inside just as one of the conference room doors opened, and Emily emerged, followed by Sophie Vargas-Jackson. My old cheer captain. The woman who had believed, for all the time she’d known me, that I was a victim.

Emily froze, eyes going wide in surprise and shock. Sophie did no such thing. She took us all in with a single flick of her eyes, identifying Fern and Megan as Lowry employees and clearly filing Cylia under the same category—no one could know everyone who worked for the Park, not and have room in their heads for anything else—before stalking toward us.

“You bastard,” she hissed, and slapped Sam, hard, across his human-seeming cheek.

He took a step backward, more out of surprise than in response to the blow, and raised a hand to touch the spot where he’d been struck. “What the hell, lady?” he asked.

“You bring her here to make her resign?” she demanded, eyes fixed on Sam. “You think if you get her away from us, you make her yours again?” Her next sentence was in Spanish, venom dripping from every word, enough to make the language barrier almost inconsequential.

Sam blinked. “Uh. I think you have me confused for somebody else.”

“Does she have you confused for someone who is not an employee of Lowry Entertainment, Inc., and thus has no business in this office?” Emily unfroze, taking a brisk step forward. “Miss West, what is the meaning of this intrusion?”

Her tone promised retribution. The last twenty-four hours of my life meant I didn’t care. People who were trying to wreak retribution were almost always people I was allowed to punch, and I was really looking forward to that right about now.

“I need to see Colin,” I said, and turned to Sophie. I wanted to take her hands. I wanted to thank her for everything she’d done for me, for trusting me, for giving me a place to lick my wounds and heal before the world remembered I existed and compelled me to start moving again. I couldn’t do any of those things. She would never have been willing to leave if she’d understood what was happening, and I didn’t dare touch her, not when I didn’t know whether her luck was intact. With my luck, she’d secretly been a therianthrope this whole time, and touching her skin would strip her protections away and leave her vulnerable in ways I didn’t even like to think about.

Instead, I said the thing I knew would make her feel better, without actually being a lie. “Sophie, this is Sam,” I said. “I met him about six months ago, and I love him, and he would kill any man who hurt me. He’s not the reason I had to run. If anything, he’s the reason running broke my heart.”

“Uh, hi,” said Sam, looking a little dazed. “Nice to meet you.”

“Melody loves you?” Sophie looked him up and down, cheeks reddening slightly. “Sorry I slapped you, then. But if you hurt her—”

“Ma’am, I am not intending to hurt her, and if I did, I promise you, I’d regret it.” Sam managed a small smile. “Melody is the best thing that’s happened to me in a very long time.”

“I think I may be sick,” said Emily. She pushed Sophie out of the way—literally pushed her, sending the other woman stumbling to the side—and moved so that she was standing directly in front of me, our noses only an inch or so apart. “Mr. Brightman is not currently available. As your employment is in question following this little . . . stunt . . . he may not be available in the future. Leave. Now. It might save your job.”

“Ah, but will it save my soul?” I shrugged expansively. “Sorry, Emily, but I’m not here to save my job. I’m here to save Lowryland.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Sophie.

I managed, barely, to suppress my wince. Sophie was a civilian, a human civilian—I was almost certain, like, ninety-five percent certain—and she didn’t need to be here for what was about to happen.

Luckily, I wasn’t the only one on the scene. “I can explain,” said Megan, stepping forward and reaching for her glasses.

I closed my eyes, opening them only when I heard the soft sound of Sophie hitting the floor. She looked a bit like something discarded, lying there with her limbs akimbo and her face slack, artificially at peace.

Emily wasn’t at peace. Emily was staring at Megan, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, hands raised in a complicated warding gesture.

“A gorgon,” she breathed. “You brought a gorgon to the Public Relations department. Are you insane, or just stupid?”

Megan pushed her glasses back up her nose, getting them seated firmly in place before she said primly, “My parents taught me not to sling around words like ‘insane’ as if they were insults, so fuck you very much, lady. And fuck your little ward, too. If I’d looked at you, you’d be on the floor.”

“Sam?” I said tightly.

“On it,” he replied, and scooped Sophie into his arms, carrying her to one of the plastic chairs in the corner. They were designed more for show than for any semblance of comfort, but at least she wasn’t going to wake up on the ground. She’d probably have a raging headache, and no idea what had actually happened to her. Those were small things, when compared to the potential consequences of keeping her conscious.

“I need to see Colin, Emily,” I said again, with as much dignity and patience as I could scrape from the bottom of my heart. There wasn’t nearly as much as a good Lowry girl would have found. Being used did that to me. “I know he’s here.”

“How?”

“Because you’re here, and you’re too much of a company girl to waste resources on yourself alone.” I took a step toward her, my flameless hands balled into fists at my sides, like that would somehow call the fire back. It wouldn’t—I knew that—but it would sure make it easier to deck her. “You’re a routewitch. Ask the road what you should do.”

Emily’s eyes widened fractionally, her gaze snapping to my companions, reading and assessing them as she tried to figure out how much trouble she was in. To her credit, she didn’t accuse me of telling lies. She already knew Megan was a gorgon, and since none of us were passed out, having looked away or closed our eyes as necessary, it was clear that all of us knew, too. Whatever my companions were, they knew enough to know that routewitches were real.

“The road is not a toy, little girl,” she said, in a patiently withering tone. “You’re interfering with matters so far beyond you that you might as well be an insect crawling on the pavement, struggling to understand things that have never been yours to know.”

“Insect imagery,” I said. “Nice.” I unclenched my fists, slowly flexing my fingers to limber them up. “Do you read a lot of cold war spy novels, or does that sort of thing come naturally once you become an evil mastermind? Oh, wait. You’re not the evil mastermind here. You’re just the routewitch. Does the road even talk to you anymore? Or have you used up so much of what you should have been that this is all you get? Just the paths of Lowryland, and the charms you put on innocent guests to rip their luck away. . . .”

This time, Emma’s flinch was visible. There was no way it wouldn’t have been. “How do you know that?” she demanded.