Cameron Haley - Mob rules

"But now it's coming back."

"Yes. It isn't the first time this has happened. Magic is rather like global temperature. It follows a cycle, it waxes and wanes. Humans can influence the cycle, even catastrophically, but there isn't any ultimate cause of it. It's just the way it is."

"So magic is on the rise again and that's why we have more juice than we can ever use."

Rashan shook his head. "That's why we have more juice than we can use today. You asked what this is all about. Simply put, it's preparation for what's coming."

"A war," I said.

"Yes. And other instabilities, before it comes to that."

"What kind of instabilities?"

"The kind you get when six billion human beings wake up to a world of magic, the unreal made real, things they can't possibly understand."

I had a sudden vision of the Four Horsemen riding through the streets of L.A. It would be like riot weather in Inglewood, but on an apocalyptic scale.

"And then war," I said. "Who is the enemy?"

"Monsters, of course. Things that can't exist in this world without magic, things human beings haven't had to face in hundreds or thousands of years. Things they don't even remember."

"So we're the good guys?"

Rashan laughed softly and shook his head. "Our interests coincide with those of the rest of humanity, at least insofar as this is concerned. We're all threatened by what is to come. But we share their interests only by virtue of knowledge they do not possess, and there is an inescapable arrogance and elitism in that. We certainly can't expect them to thank us for it. They will see us as secretive criminals with powers that are forever beyond their reach, criminals who play by their own rules. That is how they have always viewed sorcerers. To them, we will be no different from the monsters."

"But we aren't monsters. We're human, too."

"Are we? In the biological sense, certainly. But we aren't part of their community. We exist at the margins of their society, and they're right-we don't play by their rules. The truth is, Dominica, whether we are or not we don't think of ourselves as merely human and we certainly don't act like it."

"Speak for yourself," I said angrily. "I'm not six thousand years old. I'm still human."

"Really? Tell me something, Dominica, when was the last time you considered the effects of your magic on other people?"

"What do you mean? I never use sorcery to hurt innocent people." There it was again-the gangster's code.

"Not intentionally, I'm sure, and not with violence. Unfortunately it goes much deeper than that. When you confronted the vampire at the nightclub, did you consider the owners of the businesses you destroyed? I suspect it never even occurred to you. When you use your traffic spell to make better time on the freeway, do you think about the effect it has on others? What if your tampering with probability slows down an ambulance just the few seconds it would take to safely deliver a critical patient to the hospital? Even the most trivial magic you use for simple convenience can have life-and-death consequences."

I didn't have anything to say. I kept my mouth shut and worked at flattening my teeth.

"You don't think about such things, because it would make your life impossible. You'd find yourself unable to cast even the simplest spell for fear of the unforeseen consequences for innocent people. You'd have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning."

"Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe the juice does make us monsters."

Rashan shrugged. "That's something you'll have to decide for yourself, Dominica. You wouldn't be the first to turn her back on her gift. But if you decide that you are a sorcerer, you will have to accept that you can never be fully human. You'll have to realize that you do not-you cannot-play by the same rules as those who do not share your abilities."

"That's a pretty good description of a sociopath."

"Yes, it is. And that's all we'd be if this thing of ours, this thing that sets us apart, were just in our minds."

Neither one of us spoke for a long time. Everything Rashan had said was true. I didn't go out of my way to hurt people-I just didn't think about them at all. I shared space with them, but I wasn't really part of their world and they weren't part of mine. I lived in a secret world, a world of magic, and most of the time I forgot the mundane world was even there.

"I don't know what to do with this," I said finally. "I don't want to be a monster, and I don't want to take the coward's way out and pretend to be just like everybody else."

Rashan started to say something, but I waved him off. "No, don't. This is something I have to figure out for myself, boss, if I get the chance. But first I have to finish what I started."

"I understand," Rashan said.

"Tell me about these things that are coming, and I'll tell you what I have to do."

As Rashan started telling me about my future, my mind kept wandering to my past. I thought about the things I had done, the things that had made me what I was. I remembered driving back to Santa Monica from the junkyard, and the way Moonie had looked at me. I'm a fucking monster, I'd said.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Twelve I drew my forty-five as I walked into the kitchen. I set it on the counter and poured a glass of tequila. I drained it and poured another one. I tore loose the threads binding Honey's gate to the sports bottle and let the magic escape out the open window like a bad smell. I turned to look at the nest. There was no sign of Honey, but I knew she was in there, hiding in her cave.

"I trusted you," I said. "I thought we were friends."

Honey walked out through the waterfall, parting it like a curtain. The water didn't seem to touch her skin. Her wings drooped and blue and violet pixie dust fell from her like tears. She sat down on a rock by the lagoon and put her head in her hands.

"We are friends, Domino. You're my only friend in Arcadia."

"You betrayed me." I turned and picked up the gun from the counter. "I know, Honey."

The piskie nodded. "They made me, Domino. I was ordered. I had no choice. If I hadn't asked you to make the gate, they would have punished me." She looked up at me, and her cheeks were wet. "My family, Domino."

"The gate and what else, Honey? How far does it go? You were supposed to play along, right? Keep me focused on the vampire? Make sure I was buying the Evil Spirit act? And what about Mr. Clean? Did you both set me up?"

"No!" Honey shouted. "I didn't know any of it, Domino! The jinn didn't, either. I'm not saying he wouldn't betray you if he got the chance, but we didn't know."

"How long have you known?"

"When you went to get the gun from the Burning Man, I went to see my family. They were waiting for me, in my home."

"Who was waiting for you, Honey?"

She didn't answer for a long time. I guess some choices are hard to make. Finally she looked at me, and I saw resignation in her eyes.

"My king. In Arcadia, he is called Oberon."

I'd known the answer before I asked the question. I'd probably known before I went to see Rashan. In the cop movies, the moment when the detective solves the mystery is always a decisive one. It hadn't been that way for me. It started as a question I couldn't answer and gradually became a suspicion. But despite everything that Rashan had told me, I probably couldn't have really owned it until I heard Honey say it.

I couldn't pretend there hadn't been plenty of clues-enough to get me close, if not all the way there. Even if there hadn't been, Honey should have been enough. The first thing she'd asked of me-the only thing she'd ever asked of me-was to help her cross over to my world, to Arcadia. She told me the fairies were born of a different world, a world in the Beyond. She told me they longed for this world and its magic. They needed that magic, that juice, to survive here.