John Levitt - Unleashed

“Well, this one was. Or I think it was. There are dreams and dreams, you know, and this was the other sort. Scared me half to death to be honest.”

“So tell me.”

“You were walking along a street, somewhere in the city, I think. Two people were with you-a large black man, middle-aged. And another man, smaller and very intense, or at least that’s what I got.” So far, so good. Me, Victor, and Eli. “But your dog? Louie? He wasn’t around.” That didn’t sound good. “And here’s the weird thing-the reason I almost didn’t call. There was a sense of danger, worse than the vision I had last time, way worse. But there was nothing else there. Or if there was, it was invisible.”

“Was it a specific danger, or just something general?” I asked.

“Both. Very specific, but nothing I could put my finger on. Have you ever had one of those dreams where everything is perfectly ordinary, but for some reason you’re terrified? Like in the dream, you know if you go into a house, something dreadful will happen?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, this was like that. I have no idea what is waiting there-it might not even be something physical-visions rely on metaphor, you know. But whatever it is, it’s bad, really bad. How ridiculous is that?”

“Not ridiculous at all,” I said. “I know who you’re describing. Those two others are friends of mine, and if we were out together, it’s a good bet something nasty was waiting around the corner.”

“But why couldn’t I see it?”

“A good question,” I said. “Don’t worry. Between the three of us, there’s not much we can’t handle. But thanks. It’s always good to be on guard.”

After she hung up, I considered what it might mean. Despite my assurances that we could handle anything, I was disturbed. If her vision showed some awful thing awaiting us, where was Lou? He wouldn’t let me go off alone like that. And why couldn’t Morgan see what was threatening us? Bad enough to be searching for a monster, but an invisible monster just wasn’t fair.

But what was it? An invisible beast was possible, I supposed-anything was. But that seemed unlikely.

I pulled out my guitar and ran through some tunes, standards that I know so well I don’t have to think about them. It’s a form of meditation for me-it requires a conscious attention to detail, but at the same time, part of my mind is able to wander and free associate. Sometimes it works; I’ve gotten some brilliant ideas that way. Well, some useful ones, anyway.

But this time, nothing came. Lou sat in the corner, listening. That’s the way I like to imagine it-I doubt very much if he has any ear for music other than the occasional drawn-out howls from his canine brethren. But he usually sits there attentively, so who knows? Who knows anything about Ifrits, anyway? But after a while with no success, I gave it up and went to sleep.

When I woke up next morning, though, an idea did come to me as I was pouring my morning coffee. Nothing brilliant, something rather obvious, but an idea is an idea. The only real clues, the logical place to start, was with the murdered victims. So if I could find out more about exactly how those hikers had been killed, it might reveal something about what had killed them, or at least point us in a direction.

The cops weren’t releasing a lot of details to the papers, just using phrases like “mutilated” and “torn up.” And if those were the phrases they were using to prevent panic, the reality must be far worse. Specific information wouldn’t be easy to come by-you can’t just call up the cops and ask what the real scoop is. Only, sometimes, you can.

A few years ago there had been a rash of burglaries over in Cow Hollow. There were never any signs of a break-in; apparently the victims had simply neglected to lock their doors when they left their apartments. But after a while, that theory started to look unlikely. The residents there became so paranoid that many installed additional locks, and a few even changed their locks out completely. Still, the thefts continued.

The cops were baffled. For a while they focused on a locksmith who ran a small key-and-lock store on Chestnut Street, but that didn’t pan out. Somehow Victor got wind of this and we did some investigation of our own. It turned out that the person responsible was a teenage kid with a flash of talent. Usually we find out about these kids early, before they get into any real trouble, and mentor them. Sherwood in particular was good at this. She spent a lot of time working with these kids, and almost without exception they loved her. And were scared of her. Sherwood has enough talent to be scary indeed to a novice, and none of them wanted to cross her.

But once in a while, one slips through the cracks. Jenna, the teenage girl we’d taken off the streets over a year ago, was one of those, although that hadn’t worked out well for anyone, especially her.

These untrained talents can’t control their abilities most of the time. They accidentally find something they can do, and it never occurs to them they might be capable of more. The parlor trick they’ve learned is all they know and all they do. But interestingly, sometimes they stumble onto something that even an experienced practitioner can’t manage.

All metals are difficult to work with, and especially iron. Trying to affect an iron lock, for example, using magical talent is almost impossible, even for the strongest practitioner. But this kid could unlock any door, defeat any lock, with only minimal effort. He was a one-trick pony-like an idiot savant who can instantly tell you the day of the week for any date in history, but that’s all the math he can do. Even so, that’s a feat outside the realm of the possible for even the most brilliant of ordinary mathematicians.

So this kid would wait until he saw the resident leave, defeat the lock with a snap of his fingers, unlock the front door, and stroll in to take whatever he wanted.

That was how we first met Macklin. He was in charge of the makeshift task force the cops threw together to solve the rash of burglaries-this was Cow Hollow, after all, not Bayview, and thus worthy of police notice. And although we obviously weren’t about to turn the kid over to the cops, we did take him off the streets and the burglaries stopped. Also, we were able to help Macklin out by doing some magical forensic work on an unrelated burglary, one where a cool half million in jewelry was taken. It helped to solve the case, and although he couldn’t figure out how we’d come up with the information, he was glad to have it just the same. So he was well-disposed toward us, as they say. But he was never entirely sure about who we were.

He was a sharp guy, and he knew there was something not quite right about Victor and me. I think he decided Victor was some sort of government black op. I have no idea what he thought I was about, but we got along.

It also turned out he was a jazz buff, and we ended up keeping in touch afterward. Not exactly friends, but more than casual acquaintances. He liked hanging with musicians, and for my part, well, having a cop as a friend is never a bad idea. Besides, he was a good guy.

I hadn’t bothered to call him before, because for one, Victor didn’t like the idea of having a sharp cop becoming interested in us and our doings. Besides, I’d thought I already knew what was killing those hikers-the fake Ifrit. But I’d been wrong. And civilians were dying-so getting some useful information was worth the risk of making him curious about us.

When I called his extension he picked up on the first ring.

“Burglary.”

“I want to report a crooked cop.”

“Which one? We got hundreds to choose from.”

“Some guy named Macklin. A real thug, if ever there was one.”