Tricks for Free

  Only here, there was no “letting” about what Robin was doing. She was pulling out her best moves, and had no idea why I was evading them with such ease. There were tears in her eyes when she made her third swing, again missing me by a country mile. That seemed to be the last straw: she stopped attacking and stood there, glaring daggers at me.

  “What are you?” she demanded.

  “A former cheerleader,” I replied. “We learn to dodge.”

  Robin shook her head in disgust. “You’re never going to be a Lowry girl. Never. You’ll always be an outsider, and we’re never going to let you in.”

  “I don’t need you to,” I said. “I’ve got friends, and I’ve got plans, and right now, I’ve got places to be. Leave me alone, all right? That’s all I’ve ever wanted you to do.”

  Robin sniffed, and for a moment, I thought she was going to do something else—apologize, maybe, or attack me again. It could have gone either way, and either way had the potential to be interesting, because either way had the potential to change things.

  Instead, she sneered, “I have a shift,” and walked on down the tunnel, heading for Chapter and Verse. I waited until her footsteps had faded before glancing up.

  Sam wasn’t there.

  Panic had time to grip my chest, acid-bright and electric, before he stuck his head out of one of the electrical vents on the ceiling and said, in a loud whisper, “You could fit a whole squad of boy scouts in this thing.”

  “Sam, what . . . ?”

  “If you put her on the floor, I didn’t want her to look up and think she was hallucinating the giant monkey.” He pulled himself out of the vent, dangling by his arms for a moment before he got feet and tail wrapped back around their respective grips and had recovered his previous flat position. “Besides, it let me rest my arms for a second. Are all your coworkers that sweet?”

  “She’s the sweetest,” I said. I started walking again. Above me, Sam matched my stride, moving with an inhumanly fluid ease. “I keep to myself, and I don’t play social games. For some people, that makes me weird, and possibly a threat. As long as they don’t start putting poison in my bag lunches, I don’t care.”

  “You don’t like people much.”

  “Neither do you.”

  Sam laughed darkly. “I guess that’s why we like each other.”

  I smiled, keeping my head down, and kept walking.

  We reached the narrow, near-abandoned tunnel that Fern had shown me after the accident. After we had turned the first corner, out of view of the main passageway and well clear of anyone else looking to get to work, I glanced up.

  “You can come down now,” I said. “It should be safe.”

  “Thank God.” Sam dropped to floor level, landing in a crouch before straightening up and beginning to massage his hands. “I thought I was going to get a cramp.”

  “On the plus side, your position on this season of American Ninja Gladiator is pretty much secure.”

  “You don’t think they’ll call the tail cheating?”

  “They may want you to tie a weight to it or something.”

  “Fun for the whole family.” He looked at me sidelong, and smiled, almost shyly. “Thanks again for helping me out of here.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.” I could feel my cheeks getting red. People being consistently glad to see me was a weird enough experience these days to be a little weird and embarrassing. I was going to have to get used to it if Sam was going to stick around—and I wanted Sam to stick around. I wanted it more than I would ever have been able to admit to myself two days ago.

  “Not just that,” he said, wrapping his tail loosely around my left wrist while he kept rubbing his hands. I flashed him a smile. We walked on.

  At the end of the tunnel, I gently unwound his tail from around my wrist and turned to face him. “Okay, this is what happens next,” I said. “I’m going to go out and see if my friend Cylia brought you that hoodie. If she’s there, and if she did, we’re in the clear. If either of those things is missing, we’ll figure it out. Either way, we’re not on Lowry property anymore, so things should get a little easier.”

  “Who’s Cylia?” Sam asked warily.

  Crap. That was the step I’d forgotten. “She’s someone I skate with back at home,” I said. “She’s trustworthy, I promise.”

  He relaxed. “So she’s not human, but you don’t want to say she’s not human because that’s her business, not mine,” he said. “Cool. I mean, you kind of have to tell her right now, me being furry and everything, but you don’t gotta tell me until she’s comfortable with it.”

  “Exactly.” I kissed his cheek—quick and light—and opened the door, letting the summer sunlight come slanting in. It was brighter than I expected, almost blinding after the dimness of the tunnels. I squinted.

  There was an avocado-colored muscle car parked at the curb.

  Silently thanking every deity I could come up with for Cylia’s lack of a local social life, I trotted over the dusty ground between me and the street. The window was already down when I reached the car. I leaned inside. Cylia gave me a look split evenly between worry and curiosity.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Did you bring the hoodie?” I asked.

  She nodded before leaning into the back seat and pulling out a cloak. An actual cloak, the sort of thing Alex used to wear when he was going off to war with his SCA buddies. (Because pretending to go to war on the weekend was absolutely a fun thing when there was always the chance of the Covenant of St. George bringing the war home to us. Yes. Fun, and not weird and a little questionable. Really.)

  “We have some pre-game shtick involving Merlin and the tree and it’s a long story, but will this work?” She thrust the cloak at me. I took it.

  It was easily six feet long, and while the fabric was heavy enough to cause heat stroke if worn for long in this climate, Sam wasn’t going to be wearing it for long. “It’s perfect,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I turned then, running back across the ground to the tunnel opening. The door was cracked slightly, and I could see Sam peeping out. When I was close enough, I grabbed it, hauled it open, and thrust the cloak at him.

  “Put this on,” I commanded.

  “What the—whoa. You have friends with wizard cloaks in their closets? Just like, lying around?” He looked at it for a moment, bewildered, before swinging it around himself and fastening the clasp. “I am super nerd,” he breathed, with actual reverence. Then he pulled the hood up.

  It couldn’t conceal the fact that his features weren’t quite human, but it blunted the effect enough that if we didn’t stop for burgers, we’d be fine. “You are super nerd,” I agreed warmly, and pushed the door open. “There’s the car.”

  “Got it,” he said, and took off running.

  Sam’s speed wasn’t as much of a factor on flat ground—he was a leaper, not a sprinter—but it was still impressive to watch him running full-tilt toward Cylia’s waiting car. I followed, pausing only long enough to be sure that the door was latched and wasn’t going to swing open again as soon as we were gone. The last thing I wanted to add to today’s pile of troubles was a reprimand for leaving one of the exits open. Then I turned, and I ran.

  Sam reached the car at least fifteen feet ahead of me, grabbing the back door and throwing himself bodily inside. I put on a little extra speed, slowing only when I reached the car. I slammed the back door before opening the front and sliding myself into the seat next to Cylia. Sam was a fabric-swaddled lump in the back, the hood pulled down until it covered his face completely. Cylia was looking at him with curiosity, and not asking. The sound of her not asking was almost loud enough to fill the car.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re clear. Sam, this is Cylia, the friend I told you about. Cylia, this is Sam, my boyfriend.”

  “You finally got a boy
friend? Damn.” Cylia’s tone was light, but her face remained worried. “Elmira’s going to owe me so much money when we get home.”

  “Miracles happen. Sam? It’s okay to pull the hood back a little. I promise Cylia won’t freak, and I don’t want you to suffocate.”

  “I got the air-conditioning fixed yesterday, on a hunch, but this is still Florida,” said Cylia.

  “Okay . . .” said Sam warily, and pulled the hood back, enough to show Cylia the shape of his features, the furry streaks along his cheekbones.

  Cylia gasped.

  Sam had time to look hurt—and I had time to question the wisdom of being in this car—before she shook her head, putting her hands up, palms outward, one toward me and one toward him.

  “So you’re a fūri, that’s fine, good for you, and Annie, good for you, too, you found a boyfriend with bones that are really hard to break, I’m babbling, sorry, I just . . . what happened to you?”

  “Not sure what you’re talking about, not sure I want to sit here while you explain it to me,” said Sam darkly.

  “It’s not the fūri thing, I swear!” protested Cylia. “It’s your luck.”

  “What about his luck?” I asked.

  Something in my voice must have told Cylia that she was treading on thin ice. She looked at me and shook her head.

  “It’s gone,” she said. “His luck is gone.”

  Seventeen

  “The thing to remember about allies is that they want you to be an ally right back. If you’re not a friend to your friends, you’re going to be an enemy eventually.”

  –Alice Healy

  Lakeland, Florida, at the warehouse home of the Lakeland Ladies

  WE ARRIVED AT THE warehouse to find the Lakeland Ladies in the middle of practice, circling the track with a familiar rattle of wheels and exchange of breathless, amiable insults. Walking into that wall of sound was like a short, sharp slap. For a moment—only a moment—I was back in Portland, watching my own team get ready for a bout, and all I needed to do was strap on my skates and the world would start making sense again.

  The moment passed. The skaters were strangers. The team banners on the wall were unfamiliar, local logos and local colors and nothing that belonged to me. Most importantly of all, Sam was holding my hand, fingers so tight that my own fingers throbbed a little from the lack of circulation. I didn’t pull away or ask him to lighten up. He was scared, confused, and in the company of a woman he didn’t know—Cylia, who was leading us across the warehouse, toward the stairs. If he needed to squeeze my hand a little too tight to get through this, I was going to let him.

  A few of the skaters noticed us, and waved. Cylia waved back. “Just passing through!” she called. “Need to deal with some personal shit!”

  “Did you bring us fresh meat?” asked one of the derby girls. She was looking at me assessingly, studying me with an expression that bordered on avarice. “She ever skate before?”

  “Yes, she skates, and no, she’s not here to try out,” said Cylia. She didn’t slow down, and so Sam and I didn’t either. We needed to get out of this open, human-filled space before his lack of luck caused his cloak to snag on something and get pulled aside. “She’s an old friend, and we gotta go.”

  “Aw,” chorused a couple of the derby girls.

  “Come back soon, fresh meat,” called another.

  “Why do they keep calling you that?” whispered Sam. He sounded half freaked-out and half annoyed, which was sort of endearing. It had been a long time since anyone had wanted to defend my honor.

  “That’s what new derby girls are always called,” I said. “I haven’t been fresh meat for years. I’m old and tough and sort of spoiled now.”

  “Best description of you I’ve ever heard,” said Cylia.

  We climbed the stairs to her small apartment, which was standing unlocked. I gave her a curious look. She shrugged.

  “I leave it open during practice. I know none of the girls would steal anything—I don’t have anything worth stealing except for my laptop, and if that went missing, the team captains would move Heaven, Earth, and Purgatory to get it back—and this way they have access to my shower if they need it. That’s always been the policy with the overhead apartments, which is part of why they try to only rent to derby family. No one wants to lose access to a hot shower.”

  All that made sense to me. “Right,” I said.

  From the look on Sam’s face, none of it made sense to him. He was smart enough not to argue. Under the circumstances, we didn’t have that luxury.

  Cylia’s apartment was small enough to be compact, cozy, or cramped, depending on living preferences. The living room was about the size of my bedroom back home, with doors leading off it to the kitchen and even smaller bedroom. Everything was decorated in early thrift store, with a comfortable-looking, overstuffed couch given pride of place in front of the ancient television. It reminded me, in its piecemeal way, of home.

  “Bathroom’s through there,” said Cylia, indicating the bedroom door. She closed the door, thumbed the deadbolt, and turned to Sam. “All right. Drop the cloak. Let me get a look at you.”

  Sam shot me an uncertain glance. I nodded, trying to project encouraging vibes, and he unfastened the cloak, letting it fall from his shoulders.

  Cylia frowned, scanning him up and down before looking him dead in the eyes and saying, “My name is Cylia Mackie. I am a jink, which means I’m as inhuman as you are, just slightly better at hiding it. I won’t say you can trust me, because I don’t know you well enough to make that kind of promise. I will tell you that Annie trusts me, and you wouldn’t be standing here, with her, if she didn’t believe I could help. Will you let me try to help?”

  “Sure,” said Sam, uncomfortably.

  I didn’t say anything. Cylia was right that we wouldn’t have been here if I hadn’t trusted her—although being trapped in Lowryland with no car and a boyfriend who had suddenly lost the ability to change shapes had made my definition of “trust” a lot more flexible. Cylia was nonhuman and could drive. Right now, that made her the most trustworthy person I knew.

  Cylia stepped toward Sam, reaching toward him like she was approaching a skittish animal. At the last moment before she would have actually pressed her hand against his chest, she stopped reaching and swept her fingers downward, through the air a bare inch or so from his skin. She stepped back again, frowning, and stuck her index and middle fingers in her mouth.

  “This is weird,” said Sam.

  “Life is weird,” I said.

  “It’s gone,” said Cylia, around her fingers. She pulled them out of her mouth, scowling, and said, “Your luck is gone.”

  “That’s what you said in the car,” said Sam. “You didn’t explain what it meant then, and you’re not explaining what it means now.”

  “I mean . . . oh, hell.” Cylia scowled for a moment before she said, “Neither of you is a jink, so neither of you can see luck. That means there’s going to be a certain amount of ‘take my word for it’ in what I’m about to say. Can you do that for me?”

  “We can try,” I said.

  “Okay. This sort of thing goes better when you have something to do with your hands. Follow me.” She turned and walked into the kitchen, where a card table was shoved up against the wall. There were three folding chairs already waiting there. Had this been anyone but Cylia, I might have thought she’d planned our visit. As it was, I knew that she’d just gotten lucky.

  I settled with my back to the wall. Sam sat in the chair on the long edge of the table. After a moment, he scooted it around so that he was next to me, both of us crammed into a space that was barely big enough for one. I patted his knee reassuringly, and he responded by wrapping his tail around my ankle, holding me in place, keeping me where he was. I made no attempt to pull away.

  Cylia went to the fridge and returned with a Tupperware pit
cher filled with distressingly pink liquid and three matching glasses. “Hibiscus lemonade,” she said, putting the glasses down and filling them. “Drink. The sugar will help.”

  “Can I get that in writing to show my grandmother?” Sam asked, taking one of the glasses. “She likes to say that having a grandson who can literally climb on the ceiling justifies keeping the sugar levels low in our house.”

  “The sugar will help you regenerate your luck,” Cylia said. “I can’t speak to hyperactivity.”

  “Oh.”

  I took one of the glasses. The lemonade was tooth-achingly sweet, but tasty all the same. “What do you mean, the sugar will help regenerate his luck?”

  “All right.” Cylia sat. “This is where we get into things that you’re going to have to take my word for, because you literally don’t have the senses to understand them.”

  “Huh?” said Sam.

  “Jinks and mara—their cousins—have an extra organ in their brains,” I said. “It’s sort of like the electroreceptor organs you find in sharks. It lets them see things that are invisible to the rest of us.”

  “Like luck?” asked Sam dubiously. “That doesn’t sound like a real thing.”

  “If everything that didn’t sound real would have the decency to stop existing, the world would be reduced to what could be reasonably detected by a jellyfish, and I wouldn’t need to pay my water bill,” said Cylia. “Jinks see luck. It’s everywhere, on everything. It . . . accretes like dust, sticking to whatever it touches until it rubs off, or gets used up, or blows away. Luck isn’t a thing you earn. It’s a thing you have.”

  “Isn’t that distracting?” asked Sam.

  “Is color vision distracting? Because there are people who don’t have that, and they probably think the rest of us are weird, the way we run around seeing red and green all the time. How about depth perception? Or any of the other things that vision can do? I was born seeing the luck, and so it’s normal to me. If you took it away, that would become distracting.” Cylia laughed uncomfortably. “Right now, you’re distracting. Looking at you is like looking at . . . like looking at a hole. There’s no good, there’s no bad, there’s no nothing.”