Low Midnight (Kitty Norville 13)

The house was a two-story clapboard box, probably a hundred years old, in decent repair. Nothing was falling off it, the roof was in one piece, and the paint wasn’t too badly worn. TV dish on the roof. The barn nearby was in less good shape: unpainted, wooden sides weathered to a pale gray, roof patched with sheets of tin. The remnants of corrals marked off with rotted posts indicated the place hadn’t functioned as a working ranch in a long time. A half-dozen cars and trucks, some of them covered in tarps, some of them in pieces, were parked outside the barn, along with rusted equipment—tractor frames, chain drags, and old-fashioned mowers—long ago grown over with grass and weeds.

A handful of newer, functional cars and trucks sat outside the house, and Cormac headed there, parking at the end of the row.

When he got out of the Jeep, he heard the steady pop of small arms fire on the other side of the house.

The twitch of anxiety in the back of his mind was Amelia’s. A shootout? Here?

She still had some romantic notions about the West. This wasn’t a shootout. Yes, he heard more than one gun firing—but the shots were controlled, evenly spaced out, steady. He came around to the back of th

e house and saw the firing range, a homemade setup, soda cans and empty beer bottles on straw bales about thirty yards out. Layne’s two sidekicks from the other day were shooting semiautomatic handguns, managing to hit most of what they were aiming at. A couple of other guys, more of Layne’s followers, Cormac guessed, stood by to wait their turn. Layne hung back, leaning on a fence to watch, along with Milo Kuzniak. Kuzniak was flipping the pages of a pocket-sized book, ignoring everyone else.

Knowing it would be a terrible idea to sneak up on these guys at this particular moment, he scuffed his feet on the dirt path circling the house and called a hello to Layne. One of the sidekicks still spun around, gun raised, a wild look in his eyes. Like he really was going to shoot at intruders. Cormac was expecting this and didn’t even flinch. He was pretty sure that even if he did shoot, the guy was in too much of a panic to actually hit him.

You are ridiculously confident.

Smug, that’s the word you’re looking for.

“Roy, settle down,” Layne ordered before smiling over at Cormac. The sidekicks lowered their weapons and relaxed, but only a notch. Kuzniak quickly shoved the book in a pocket. They kept eyeing Layne and each other, looking for clues about how to act. Cormac’s arrival had disrupted the hierarchy. “Hey, you made it.”

“Nice place,” Cormac answered. “Family farm?”

“Someone else’s family,” Layne replied. “I got it cheap in a foreclosure a couple years ago.”

Which was Layne all over, really.

“What do you need a place in the middle of nowhere for?” Cormac asked.

“Oh, this and that. Got my fingers in a lot of pies these days.”

Cormac could imagine: drugs, guns, protection rackets, moonshining, scamming, general malfeasance. It’s what the guy did in the bad old days, though on a much smaller scale. The barn would make a great warehouse for pot or guns. Might even have a meth lab tucked away.

He wondered if Mollie was around, and if she knew what her brother was up to. He took a look around—he remembered a couple of cars from the parking lot of the bar, but that didn’t mean any of them were hers. He wasn’t going to ask Layne about her.

“You want to take a turn? Get in some practice?” Layne craned his head, obviously looking for the holster Cormac wasn’t wearing.

“No, I’m fine,” Cormac said. There was a pause, everyone looking at him like they were waiting for an explanation. Cormac didn’t give it. He nodded at Milo. “So how’d this work? Did Layne come to you because he knew something was up there, or did you go to him because you needed a backer?”

As he was sizing Milo up, Milo was sizing up him, standing apart, his gaze dark, focused—a little nerve wracking. A mousy guy like him probably worked on that stare, going for intimidation. Or he might have spent way too much time looking into other worlds. Wasn’t any way to tell how much of a magician he really was until he did something. The guy didn’t carry a gun, and that said something.

Cormac didn’t have to work for his dark stare, not anymore. If his stare had turned otherworldly over the last few years, it probably didn’t look too much different than the stone-cold stare he’d cultivated before doing time. No one would notice the difference.

“Oh, I’ve known Milo for a while now. He helps me with a lot of things,” Layne said. “You know anything about protection spells? Charms? Sounds crazy, I know. I thought it did, ’til I saw it work.”

A wizard on retainer? Was that what the criminal underworld was coming to? “Oh, I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in my day. I’m willing to give just about anything the benefit of the doubt,” Cormac said.

“I figure it can’t hurt to cover all my bases.”

Cormac turned inward a moment, thoughtful: What do you think? Is this guy for real?

These aren’t my people, Cormac. This isn’t my world. I have no idea.

“I want to show you something.” Layne walked off and gestured Cormac to follow him, around to the back side of the barn. Kuzniak and one of the heavies followed. So they didn’t trust him, either. That was fine.

Layne pretended not to notice. “I’ve been having some problems. Usual kind of crap, jokers trying to edge in on my business, scare me off, whatever. Like last night, a couple of punks came through on ATVs and shot up the barn, trying to set it on fire.” He pointed.

Tire tracks tore up the grass, showing how a couple of vehicles had roared in and swept around before heading back out again. Farther on, Cormac could see part of the barbed wire fence knocked over and broken. The side of the barn had scorch marks on it, streaks of soot, scars from a fire that had been quickly put out. Someone might have thrown a Molotov cocktail at the thing and had it fizzle out. The ancient, dry wood of the barn should have lit like a torch the minute flames hit it. The surrounding grass had only smoldered.

Magical protections on the property, something to quench fire or repel attack. That, or the barn had been sprayed with fire retardant. Cormac looked at Milo, who was obviously waiting for a reaction. The man quirked a smile as Cormac glanced away. Like he thought he’d won something.