Carrie Vaughn - Dreams of the Golden Age

Right. Not only did they not look like they belonged here, when they sat together they looked like a couple of hapless emo Goth types getting ready to mug children.

This wasn’t going to work.

“This isn’t going to work,” Teddy said.

“We can still call it off.”

He didn’t say anything, which she guessed meant he didn’t want to call it off. She ordered coffee and brought it back to the table so they could both sit there looking sullen and conspiratorial. Nothing suspicious about that at all. Maybe people would think they were in a band.

She drew a packet of computer-printed pages from her backpack. Her voice was hushed. “We can’t win in a straight-up fight, not like the others can, so I figure we have to go at this backward. We can’t be fighters, but we can be spies, right?” Teddy didn’t seem happy. Well, it wasn’t her fault they’d been born with stupid defensive powers and couldn’t blast lasers like Sam. She pressed on. “We can find out things that no one else can. Then we can call in the cavalry. Anonymous tip to the cops. The goal is to stop bad guys, that’s how we do it.”

Teddy snorted. “So we just wander the city looking for … for what, random secrets to jump out at us?”

“No.” She spread out the pages she’d gathered. News articles for the most part, some police blotter reports. She’d zeroed in on one set of stories in particular. Jonathan Scarzen was head of a nascent drug cartel putting down roots in Commerce City, but the DA didn’t have enough proof to bring charges, and the police couldn’t make an arrest. As far as public records went, Scarzen was an upstanding businessman working in imports. But the drugs were coming in somehow. The police were looking for a witness or for evidence linking Scarzen’s import business with the new influx of heroin.

“We can do it,” Anna insisted. “We can get the evidence.”

Teddy nodded thoughtfully. “I sneak into the warehouse or whatever, search the place, bring a camera to record, and bingo. Is that what you’re thinking?”

This was why she liked Teddy, he always knew what she was talking about. “Exactly.”

“But we don’t know where his warehouse is. The cops don’t know, that’s the whole point,” Teddy said.

“I can find it,” she said. “I’ve been looking for it, and I think I know where to find it.”

“Anna—” Teddy’s tone was more than a little skeptical. “You don’t actually know this guy, do you? Don’t you have to know someone to be able to find them?”

“I’ve been practicing. Just because you guys can’t see it when I do—”

“I’ve never doubted your powers, Anna.”

Yeah, but she did. She had to prove she could know someone just by reading enough websites about him. If she was going to be anything more than a walking GPS locator for her family and friends, she had to stretch. She had to be able to do more.

Scarzen was thirty-two years old, of Cuban and Italian ancestry. He’d been arrested four times, spent a few years in prison for auto theft in his early twenties, and since then had managed to evade authorities while building influence among the criminal element in Commerce City. According to his mug shots, he had a snake tattoo on his neck, and descriptions said he had more tattoos on his arms. Not just gang signs but also personal imagery. She needed to know as many details about him as she could. Any listed addresses were probably not accurate, but he had a few places where he had been seen. Police usually knew where to find him. The trouble with Scarzen was the cops didn’t have any solid evidence to use against him in court, thereby justifying an arrest. He seemed like an ideal candidate for their first mission. Assuming she could find him, and the evidence.

Like some kind of fortune teller, she pressed her hands to the articles, the printed mug shots, the police commentary, and focused. She thought about where he might be, imagined the spots on the map where he’d been seen before, and concentrated on that needle in her mind, waiting for it to press against her awareness. People she’d known her whole life were easy to find. But what about someone she knew only by reputation?

Teddy waited patiently, quietly.

She didn’t think she had her eyes closed, but she no longer saw the coffee shop. Instead, she saw a brick building with a fire escape climbing up the side like an exoskeleton. The building was low compared to others in the neighborhood, and older. Some of the windows were boarded up. In Hell’s Alley, of course. Not the best part of town. She was pretty sure she knew where it was. To the needlelike instinct in the back of her mind, it glowed.

“I think I’ve got it,” she said, breathless.

If they were going to keep doing this, this taking the bus thing had to stop. Sam was the one with the car—the others didn’t have this problem. Anna was going to have to talk her parents into letting her learn how to drive. And they’d ask “Why?” and she’d have to come up with an excuse. Maybe she could say she was volunteering somewhere.

And her father would know she was lying. After tonight, she might not be able to stand in the same room with him ever again.

She’d worry about that later.

The bus driver raised an eyebrow at them when they got off at their chosen stop—a few blocks from their target but still in a crappy part of town. Two kids, dressed in black, in Hell’s Alley. No, nothing suspicious here. Anna’s heart was racing, and her face flushed. She tried to ignore it. Had to concentrate on the task at hand. She put her hand on the mug shot photo of Scarzen, folded up and stuffed in her pocket. Turned that image and the information over and over again in her mind.

The bus’s diesel engine growled as it pulled away, and off they went. She led Teddy around a corner. Once off the main street, she retrieved her mask from her bag; Teddy had his shoved in a pocket. They suited up.

That made Anna’s heart race even faster, but with something other than trepidation this time. Suddenly, they looked like they were on a mission.

Not many streetlights worked in this part of town. No people around, either, and the few storefronts that weren’t boarded up were locked with grates and dark. How could a place be scarier when it was utterly deserted?

“This is so cool,” Teddy whispered. The invisible boy—Ghost, she reminded herself—walked decisively. In fact, he wore a thin smile under his mask, like he was enjoying this. Even after getting beat up last time, he was happy to be out again.

He actually looked like a superhuman vigilante—chin up, alert, confident. She wasn’t sure what she looked like. The scruffy sidekick? She should be so lucky. Anna was a little freaked out, truth be told. But they’d be fine. They’d watch each other’s backs. She had her cell phone with her.

When they crossed the next street and turned onto another block, she stopped, startled, because the building they approached made her feel a stabbing moment of familiarity, like she’d been here before, even though she never had. That needle in the back of her mind was singing. He was here, right now, in that building. It was the right shape, had the skeletal fire escape, and seemed to nestle among the buildings around it.

She grabbed Teddy and pulled him into a nearby alley. “That’s it, that’s the one.”

“Okay,” Teddy said, with a world’s worth of confidence. Like he was absolutely sure he knew what he was doing. Maybe that was the trick of it, you had to act like you knew what you were doing. “Let’s go over it again. I get in, stay invisible, and take pictures of the drugs or weapons, right?”

Anna said, “And a picture of Scarzen, if you can. It’s best if you can get them all in the same shot.” They had decided that Anna would stay outside, rather than have Teddy unlock a door to let her inside. If Teddy were discovered, he could turn invisible and phase out of the building before anyone caught him. Anna would be stuck. As much as she hated staying out of the real work, she had to defer to logic. She’d stay hidden and wait for Teddy to get back.