Chapter Two #2
“He owes me,” Leander said. “I came alone, like he told me.” In his safe apartment, Leander thought this might be the only escape, but right now he knew why he’d never tried this avenue.
He might piss his pants. Footsteps came up behind him, but Leander didn’t turn.
Death by knife in the back was preferable to Druwolf’s threats.
Maybe Cadell didn’t think he was a traitor, but now that Druwolf suspected him, Leander’s life expectancy had dropped to months.
If he died in this alley, he wasn’t losing much.
The woman looked at whoever stood behind him, but Leander focused on her. If the asshole behind wanted his attention, he could ask for it.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.
“The person who made medicine for him,” Leander said.
“The plant boy,” the man behind him said with derision.
“That’s right,” Leander said, scorn in his voice, “the plant boy who can spin a simple houseplant into a poison so deadly it can kill with a single drop. The plant boy who can turn a white flower into a drug so powerful you can fly for a week and the plant boy who can weave medicines powerful enough to make modern hospitals obsolete. If you’re stupid enough to dismiss the power of a plant, that’s your ignorance at work.
” Leander still didn’t turn around. He was tired of the brain-dead, mouth-breathing morons with bleach in the gene pool.
“Let him up,” the man said.
The woman stepped to the side, and Leander forced himself forward on trembling knees.
He passed a gutted car surrounded by engine pieces and flashed to the man Druwolf had tortured to death for his beachside property, his organs spread around him.
A light in the distance summoned him, and Leander walked with head high even though he wanted to watch the person following him.
He stepped through to an office with more high-tech computers than a store, and the person behind him pulled down a roller door. Leander finally glanced back to see an enormous man in a motorcycle jacket.
“I didn’t think you would ever call my debt.” A white-haired man who had been under the desk stood and brushed off his jeans before plugging a couple of wires into his computer.
“I didn’t think I needed help.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” Erio said. Leander didn’t object since he might be one of the mouth-breathing morons in the building.
After a second, Erio turned to one of his men.
“Go reset the fifth and sixth breakers.” The guard stared at Erio for a second before crossing to another door and leaving.
Erio sat behind the desk and gestured to a guest chair for Leander.
“I couldn’t come unless I was ready to walk away from Druwolf.”
“You’d better run or you won’t get far.”
Leander knew. “I have an escape route, but I need help.”
“I assumed. No one comes here to have lunch with me.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, what do you need?”
“A way to get to China.” Leander had hated China.
Loathed it. He’d hated feeling as though Druwolf owned him and, more than anything, he’d learned to hate himself in China.
That was where he realized what Druwolf would do with his power.
He’d thought of his powers as harmless, and by the time he’d pulled his head out of his own ass, he’d owed Druwolf too much.
He’d had a lot of hate during those years right after graduation when he’d been in China.
Others attributed it all to Finn’s choice to marry Tecca, but that had been such a small part of the many ways Leander’s life had sucked after high school.
“China?” Erio’s eyebrows rose. “Magical China? Those people hate outsiders.”
“I know one or two names, and I know how to stay quiet.”
“Sure, you’re quiet, but I’m not sure you’re quiet enough to survive their distrust of outsiders. Pick another destination. I’m going to feel bad if I contribute to your suicide.”
Leander narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need a lecture. I need travel papers for myself and a child.”
Erio sat bolt upright, and a dozen computer parts beeped and flashed. “No. I am not a kidnapper, and I won’t help one, no matter what you did for me.”
“I’m not—” Leander stopped. Technically, he would be kidnapping. He took a deep breath and tried to present his argument logically. “Druwolf thinks Tecca was a traitor. I don’t know what happened, but I know he plans to kill her kid.”
Erio narrowed his eyes. “And what? You’re going to save him? You’re a little old to have some fantasies about saving maidens and small children.”
Leander gritted his teeth. “Can you help or not?”
“If I say ‘not’?”
“Then I find another exit,” Leander said with more confidence than he felt.
“Doubt it,” Erio said. He’d always been a ruthless bastard.
Not violent the way Druwolf or his enforcers were, but ruthless anyway.
He’d let whole families get sucked up by the government machinery rather than expose himself, and if he hadn’t needed medical help without official paperwork attached, Leander never would have gotten this close to him.
The man survived by being utterly indifferent to the suffering of others.
“What do you want in return for two exits?”
Erio traced the edge of the old-fashioned desk calendar under his newfangled computer. “I might be interested in obtaining some supplies—something to keep us from having to go to outsiders.”
Leander expected as much. “I have six vials of pain relievers, three of poison neutralizers, three of undetectable poison, two infection inhibitors, two viral cures, and two bacterial cures. I can’t get you anything recreational because Druwolf tracks my supplies too carefully.”
“Not as much as I hoped.”
Leander took a deep breath. “I might send you more once I’m established, but if I’m in a shallow grave after Druwolf guts me, you won’t get anything.”
“True.” Erio looked like he was considering the deal. “Twelve additional vials, any medicine of your choice, every year for the next ten years.”
Technically, Leander could agree, intending to renege on the deal later, but powerful people in the underworld had long reaches, even into a country like China.
And the Chinese would respect Erio’s cautious tending of resources much more than Druwolf’s reckless abandon.
He was far more likely to cause Leander grief.
“I may not have the resources to weave for the first few years.”
“Each year you don’t deliver the twelve vials, the amount you owe doubles.”
Leander winced. The original price was reasonable, but doubling it would be expensive in terms of magical output.
Weaving plants required both an understanding of the plant’s function down to the molecular level and the magical power and control to extract the magic and weave it with his own energy to stabilize or strengthen those properties.
But he didn’t have another choice. Erio could forge documents to withstand even China’s scrutiny, and he didn’t know anyone else with that ability.
Despite his wide information net, Druwolf didn’t know the extent of Erio’s skill. He was the ghost of the alleys, The Fixer. People whispered about him without believing him real. That was another reason Leander had come here—no one would come seeking a man who few believed real.
“Deal,” Leander said.
Erio smiled. “And if you would like to sell more... I will have an agent get in touch with you to plan.”
“Agreed,” Leander said. “I can get you a photograph of the boy—”
“No need,” Erio said. “One of Druwolf’s inner circle going to the police and turning herself in to the mage squads—that was a major move.
Since you were her friend, I thought you might show up on my doorstep and made a point of making sure I knew all the players.
I assume you want to remove Salem Garnica.
Both your names are too distinctive, so you’ll need to choose new ones.
” He pulled a keyboard close and started typing.
“I’ll forge papers good enough to get you into the Imperial Palace.
You were smart enough to invest in me, so I’m investing in you.
I trust we will have decades of successful trading between us. ”
Leander shivered. The last time someone had offered to invest in Leander, it had been Druwolf. Watching Erio work, Leander prayed he was not retrieving his soul from one master only to sell it to another.
“So, where in China are you going?” Erio asked.
Leander focused on the details of here and now.
If Erio turned out worse than Druwolf in the future.
.. well, that was a problem he would have to solve then.
Right now, he had an escape to plot. And after that, he had a child to kidnap.
If he was very lucky, they’d be gone by daylight.
If luck didn’t favor them... Leander chose not to think about that option.