Daniel Abraham - Unclean Spirits

Here were the problems.

First, Coin knew we were out here, and that we wanted to kill him. The enemy was already on high alert. That was a bummer.

Second, the wards around the house were starting to fail. Chogyi Jake was doing his best, but even without his saying so, I could feel the air pressing in against the walls. Twice I’d half heard the sound of Coin’s monstrous wings. And Chogyi was only wearing thinner. The longer we waited, the less hope we had.

Third, Coin had a lot of people-many of them with freaky supernatural powers-around to protect him. We’d managed to get around that last time by making our attack when everyone was tied up with the big nasty ritual. That part had worked, but the rest of the plan failed spectacularly.

Which brought me to the last issue: Coin had a bunch of freaky supernatural powers himself, and could probably only be killed with the two magic bullets that he’d already shrugged off once.

That last one looked like the worst, so I put off thinking about it and started at the beginning, looking for ways to misdirect the Invisible College. My first thoughts didn’t go over all that well.

“Run away?” Midian said. “You’re serious?”

“We can’t do anything if he’s got the whole city locked down,” I said.

“You’re remembering that the last time, it took maybe twenty minutes between when you broke the wards and the assassination squad showed up,” Midian said.

“I’ve been out twice,” I said. “The gun and the lawyer, remember? So far, nothing.”

“Your protections don’t apply to us,” Chogyi Jake said.

“Ex went out.”

“Ex has resources that may help him,” Chogyi Jake said. “And…even then, we can’t assume he’s survived.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we don’t run.”

“We don’t run,” Chogyi Jake said. “You still can.”

“So let’s look at the second thing,” I said. “Coin’s minions.”

“It would be a good idea to get rid of them,” Midian agreed. “Either get Coin away from them or else spread ’em out thin enough that getting to the guy isn’t like wading across the beach at Normandy.”

“So how do we do that?” I asked.

Chogyi Jake’s sudden laughter was rueful and warm.

“We run,” he said. “When you’re ready with whatever else there is to do, Midian and I draw off the Invisible College by stepping out of the house and heading directly away from wherever the real drama is taking place.”

“Yeah, that’s a good plan,” Midian said, making it clear with his expression that he both agreed and thought we were doomed if that was our best strategy.

“But,” I started, then let it trail away.

But I need you. But you’ll get hurt. But I can’t face him alone. There wasn’t a way to finish that sentence that didn’t seem weak. Yes, taking out Coin was up to me. No, it wasn’t anyone else’s job to make it easy. I’d tried the strategy where I relied on other people, and it had brought me here.

This was my job. I’d do it.

“Okay,” I said. “So that’s the start of a plan, right? You guys will draw off the Invisible College so I can get to Coin.”

“Great,” Midian said. “And then you can punch yourself in the face a few times to confuse him. Maybe break an arm. I mean, don’t get me wrong, kid. I’ll do what I have to do, but now you’re down to a shitload of money, whatever cantrips we can teach you, and a couple of bullets. I’m not sure what that’s going to get you. Odds-on bet is you still get your ass kicked.”

“Let me think about it,” I said.

I thought for two days and by Thursday came up with nothing. Every hour, the house pressed on me. We were hiding under our rock, and if I was in a little less trouble than Midian and Chogyi Jake, it was only a little. I didn’t turn my laptop back on, not even to check e-mail or play solitaire.

I made one furtive trip to the grocery store, scuttling through the soup aisle with my qi pulled up to my eyes, looking for tattoos and danger so intently I had a hard time shopping. When I was home, I meditated with Chogyi Jake. I practiced some simple cantrips with Midian. Here was how to project your qi to intimidate people who didn’t have any protection and why not to try it on people who did. Here was how to wrap yourself in qi as a protection. It felt more like a motivational speaker’s affirmations than magic, but Chogyi and Midian assured me that there would be more advanced work that grew out of it. And even that wasn’t enough to keep the close, hot summer air from bearing down on me.

At night, I lay in the darkness wondering where Ex was, whether he’d found someplace safe or gotten killed. I thought about Aubrey and my family and my former friends back at ASU.

I had to take Coin out. Ex couldn’t help me. Eric couldn’t help me. Midian and Chogyi Jake could only draw off as many of the Invisible College’s wizards as would fall for their distraction. I could sneak into his mansion, except that I was pretty sure I couldn’t. I could stand on the street and call him out, except he’d beat me. I could lure him into an ambush, except that as long as he had a few minions left to send in his place, he wouldn’t come for the free cheese in any trap I could think of. The sheets knotted themselves around me as I shifted. The pillows grew hot and uncomfortable, each new configuration bringing only a few minutes’ relief.

I crawled out of bed Friday morning to a blasting dawn. Light pressed in at the blinds like water spilling into a submarine. I sat on the edge of the mattress feeling sticky with old sweat, bored, frightened, and bored with being frightened. My stitches itched, but the wound in my side was mostly closed up, deep pink flesh fusing back into some semblance of normalcy. My knee was a mottled green and yellow, my body struggling to clean out the old blood, but it didn’t hurt to move it anymore. I pulled on a bathrobe, put my hair back in a bun held in place by a couple pencils, and went out to the main room. Midian stood before the back window, looking out at the slowly browning grass of the yard.

“I can’t do it,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, not looking back. “If the two of us weren’t fucked six ways to Sunday, there’d be a chance. Taking someone out like this is at least a three-man job. Probably more.”

“Maybe we could find some way to hide you guys? A ritual cleansing or something?”

“Then you’ve got no way to draw off the minions, and we’re still screwed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Where’s Chow Yun Fat when you need him.”

“Who?”

“Chow Yun Fat. You know. Hong Kong action film star. He was in The Replacement Killers and The Corruptor. And Hard-Boiled. That’s the one where he had the gunfight while holding a baby. It was thoroughly over the top, but it was great.”

“I thought you led a sheltered life. How’d you get into gun opera?”

“College,” I said. “I had a boyfriend. Cary. He was into it, so I was too.”

“Huh. Fair enough. So how does the baby figure in?”

“There’s this cop and he’s…”

Something in the back of my head fell in place with a click I could almost feel.

“And?” Midian said.

“Hang on a minute.”

I went back to my room for the cell phone, my head suddenly feeling like champagne. I felt too nervous to go at it straight so I started by calling the hospital to check up on Aubrey. There was no change, and I was both relieved that he was all right and worried that he was still incapacitated. Then I called my lawyer and left a message with her receptionist, asking for any updated information about Coin’s schedule in the next week or two. It was only after that that I went back through the list of incoming calls and found the number that Midian had reminded me of.