“Hello, Dory.”
I put the car in park and sat back against the seat. “Hi, James.”
I still had the top down on my old jalopy, so of course he’d recognized me. James was one of the guys whose retirement account I contributed to from time to time, because he made really good protection wards. Not having the ability to make any magic for myself, I had to buy it, and if you’re gonna buy, it may as well be from the best.
Of course, dealing with a member of the Silver Circle has its downsides, too.
James leaned on the driver-side door, and flashed some too-white teeth at me. Or maybe they just looked extra white next to his nice, chocolate mocha skin. And his suspicious brown eyes.
“Out for a ride?”
I smiled back. “Okay.”
He shook his head. He had a man bun of braids that nobody ever said anything about, like they didn’t question the full beard he wore, which I got the impression wasn’t regulation. Because when you’re as powerful as he is, people bend the rules for you.
But not for me, it seemed.
“Not tonight,” he confirmed.
“Why not tonight?”
“I think you know.” He gestured back at the old building. “We got a problem.”
“That’s too bad.”
He just looked at me.
I sighed. “Word is, some slavers got dead. I’d think that was the opposite of a problem.”
“It’s a problem when we don’t know who’s behind it, or where they’re going to strike next. This time, it was slavers. Next time—”
“It’ll be more slavers, if it’s anyone at all.” I thought of the strength of the spell that had hit Big Blue. “And it may not be anyone.”
The friendly guy I knew suddenly wasn’t. “All right, I’m gonna need you to come in.”
“Why? I don’t know any more than you do.”
“Well, it sounds like you do!”
“I only know what I saw.” I looked at Fin.
Who looked back, the tiny troll eyes disappearing into flaps of skin, his version of narrowing his eyes. Nobody likes talking to cops. But, after a minute, he coughed up an explanation.
It didn’t seem to help.
James glared at him. “You set up a feed of a highly illegal enterprise—”
“I didn’t know it was illegal. There were just these rumors.”
“—so you could take bets on the outcome?”
Fin bristled. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I run a quality establishment. I pay my taxes. City, state, and federal, and then you guys on top! But the world’s gonna end if I ever try to make a buck—”
Two more of the Circle’s guys were suddenly there. Or, more likely, had already been there, but had decided to drop the kind of charms they use for camouflage. And promptly demonstrated why they’re not called police, or peace-keepers, or even law enforcement.
Oh, no.
They’re called “war mages,” and these two looked like that should have been “war tanks,” because the stupid trench coats they wear to cover up all the weapons they cart around were so distended that they made them look positively fat.