Dark mind, p.16
Dark Mind, page 16
That sounded inconvenient, not cause for concern. For an instant, she envied Nikolai’s shameless ability to delve in and out of minds, unperturbed by what he found. Perhaps she could use fleshweaving in a similar way. It wouldn’t tell her specifics, but it might tell her something.
She scanned the driver’s body. Late middle age, overweight, minor body ailments that would have developed from sitting in a car all day. Lungs ruined from habitual cigarette use. She disregarded the obvious and searched for anything more subtle. Muscle tension and high levels of what the Mundanes had recently coined cortisol, a chemical released in response to stress.
“Look in the mirror again,” she said. “Watch the police car. Keep watching.” She waited until his gaze shifted before exploding the engine of the police car.
“What the—? Lord!” His attention drifted—they were approaching the car in front of them too fast. He slammed on the brakes, but it wouldn’t be enough. The driver’s mouth fell open as she lifted the taxi into the air, over the car, and set it down on the other side.
“Don’t brake, they’ll hit us!” She accelerated the cab and yanked them down a side street.
He stared at the steering wheel, which appeared to move of its own accord. “How did you— How’re you—?”
“It was quite simple, really. You shouldn’t use such flammable compounds in your machines if you don’t want them to explode. As for the method—magic. I would think that’s obvious, but so few people believe in it anymore. Can you take over again? I’m not good at this.”
He placed his hands back on the wheel and swallowed. “Did you kill him?”
People were odd about that these days. “No. I confined the explosion to the area near the hood. And I won’t kill you.”
“What else can you do?”
She sighed. “I thought we were past the small talk.”
“Humor me. I’ve never had a magical person in my cab before. Not that I know of anyway.”
“We’re not as common as we used to be, and it would be easier for me to list the things I cannot do.”
“Can you fly?”
“Yes.”
“So why not just fly everywhere? Why take a cab?”
“Because I don’t like drawing attention to myself.”
He laughed. “But you’ll cause an explosion and make a cab fly?”
“An explosion could be caused by anything. And I figured most people would be too busy watching it to see what I did with the cab.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure whoever was in the car behind us noticed.”
She waved a hand. “One person doesn’t matter. Tomorrow they’ll question what they even saw. As will you, probably. I usually try to keep my magic more subtle.”
“Like what?”
She reached into his body and began setting things to rights. Joints were restored, arteries cleaned, lungs cleared, heart fortified. He didn’t feel it at first, then gasped as all the little aches and pains he’d felt so long disappeared. He looked at her with a smile—the kind she’d learned to dread. Not gratitude or joy in what she’d done, though that was there too, but the realization of what she could do. More than anything, it was that smile that kept her from casting spells among Mundanes.
She cleared her throat. “I’d appreciate it if you answered my question now. What did you mean by extreme lengths?”
The cortisol was back. “I, uh, don’t normally talk about stuff like that. Not with people like you anyway.”
She sat up straighter. “I know I look young, but I’m over a thousand years old and have seen quite a lot. So please, be frank with me. I’m not one to keep up on cultural trends—there are far too many to recall, especially at the rate they change—but it’s possible I’ll be coming through this area somewhat regularly and I can’t very well adapt if I don’t know.”
He gazed at her for another minute, then ran his fingers over his short curly hair. “In 1919, a white woman accused a Black man of rape. There were a lot of accusations like that back then, people tryin’ to get us in trouble—most of them amounted to nothin’—but this story got picked up by the Omaha Bee. The police barely had time to arrest Will Brown before a mob started forming. They went to the courthouse and started chanting for him to be handed over. When the police refused, they broke into shops, stole guns, shot up the station, and set it on fire.
“I was only eight. My parents told us to hide, to keep quiet. The crowd was beatin’ up every Negro they could find, and any white person who got in their way. The mayor tried to talk them down. They lynched him—or tried to. Had him strung up three times before he was finally rescued. Will Brown wasn’t so lucky. Mob lynched him, shot him hundreds of times, drug him through the streets, and burned him.”
“You speak as though you feel sorry for the beast. If I’d caught him, I would have started with the burning, then healed him up and done it again. Rapists deserve nothing but pain.”
He gaped at her a moment. “Will Brown was no rapist.”
“You’re certain of that, are you?” Men always wanted to believe the best in one another. They didn’t have to deal with the lurid stares, the groping, the subtle blocking of physical space, the backhanded compliments and patronizing remarks. They didn’t have to fear traveling alone or at night, nor did they have to ask themselves if someone’s motivation was merely to bed you—because it nearly always was, and when it wasn’t, they aimed to take advantage of you in some other way.
“Positive. And even if I wasn’t, Will Brown deserved a fair trial.”
“Trials are rarely fair.”
He scoffed. “We can agree on that.”
She leaned forward, mind galvanized with righteous fervor. “I understand you feel empathy toward this man, but consider the woman. Accusations like this often go unpunished. In many places, the woman would be put to death for such a transgression or forced to marry her attacker. No one gives women power in this world. We have to take it where we can. If she said he raped her, I’m inclined to believe it.”
The driver shook his head and mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“I said this is why we don’t talk to you. There’s no point.”
“Of course there’s a point! You’re trying to convince me of something. Debate is good for the mind. And I asked you. I wanted to know.”
“It’s pointless because you don’t want to know and you’re not open to being convinced. To you this is . . . a mental exercise or somethin’, a fun way of passing the time. It doesn’t affect you. When someone like Will Brown is murdered, it happens to all of us. You think, there but for the grace of God go I.”
“If you’re not a rapist, you have nothing to fear. That woman wouldn’t have accused him without good reason. I’m merely asking you to consider the evidence and—”
“What evidence?” he snapped. “That after the war white men were mad about competing with us for jobs? That they looked for excuses to bring us down? Or how about the fact that Will Brown had rheumatism and was in no shape to overpower anyone? The woman who accused him was a prostitute and her boyfriend—who helped rile up the mob—”
“With good reason.”
“—worked for Tom Dennison, a crime boss trying to smear the newly elected mayor. Dennison controlled the Omaha Bee. Told them to print stories of Black mobs roaming the streets, stealing guns, and raping white women.” He shook his head. “You don’t know how unlikely somethin’ like that is. We know not to mess with white folks. And I’m not talkin’ rape or murder or theft. You look at the wrong man sideways and you’ll get beaten. You look at a white woman the wrong way and it’ll get you killed. I took a risk just givin’ you a ride! Will Brown was a scapegoat. The mayor unseated Dennison’s man. It wasn’t about Will Brown, or us, or lost jobs—it was a way to make the new mayor and his police force look incompetent. We were just . . . disposable. Dennison knew people hated us, so he fanned the flames.”
He’d spoken so fast and with such fervor that she had trouble absorbing it all. Clearly he knew much about the workings of the city, something she’d never bothered with no matter where she lived. Why go through the trouble to learn when it all changed so quickly? Everything always seemed to come back to politics, that invisible machine that moved the world. She’d known far too many men like this Dennison, men who sought to use her for her abilities while hiding their true goals. This would have been yet another instance where she might’ve unknowingly done enormous damage had she tried to help.
The cabbie shook his head. “Debate isn’t good for the mind when it pokes at old wounds.”
“No, it isn’t.” She didn’t mention he’d poked at hers. As he’d said, sometimes there was no point. “I understand,” she said tentatively. “Or rather, I understand enough to know that I don’t really understand.”
“Well, that’s something.” He glanced at a bus as it drove past. “It’s been nearly forty years and the fear is still strong. They only just started hiring Colored bus drivers. Everyone assumed that if a white woman was alone on the bus with a Black driver, he’d rape her.”
“That . . . doesn’t even make any business sense. Why would anyone risk losing a job just for something like that? You’d never have any repeat clients.”
He laughed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people who have nothin’ to fear manufacture their own. It’s like people can’t exist without it. Some fears are sensible. Some aren’t. You know what scares me? You. When you got in my cab I was petrified. What if someone sees me with her? What if I get stopped? But it’s not like I could kick you out either. What if you got angry? That’s the fear I live with, only mine is real.”
It was hard to imagine a Mundane male fearing her tiny, thin frame. The only people who feared her were those who knew what she was capable of.
He let her chew on their conversation for a few minutes before asking where they were headed. They’d been driving on the same road for a while now. She scanned again for the source of magic and found they were getting closer. “Keep heading this way. I’ll tell you if we need to turn.”
They drove until the buildings thinned, the weak magical signature creeping ever closer. At last they got close enough for her to make out the signature’s cause—not some magical hot spot as she’d hoped, but five Magi clustered in the same location. Probably just a family reunion. Medea swore under her breath.
“You alright, ma’am?”
“Fine.”
Should she continue on, or go back to the gateway? If Nikolai had been with her, she would have considered approaching the Magi and asking for their help with the experiments. Six test subjects were better than one. But her people skills were less than optimal. Every time she’d sought participants in the past, she’d been unsuccessful. She could return with Nikolai, but that might encroach on their experiment time. The control run needed to be completed before the appliances arrived at the test site.
They were close enough to the destination that it seemed pointless to turn around now. Might as well grab an address.
“Pull over just up there.”
They stopped in front of a large building surrounded by an expanse of lawn dotted with trees. A tall, wrought iron fence served to keep out prying eyes and casual trespassers. A Magi compound at the edge of a large Mundane city? Interesting. If they practiced magic here, that was another strike against the Mundane-technology-causes-magical-interference hypothesis.
The driver peered out the window. “You got family in there?” Something like pity tinged his voice.
“Not exactly. Listen, I was supposed to meet my apprentice in the northern part of the city—we’re leaving to do experiments in the country for a week—but I need him to come here first. I think it’s off 24th, but I can’t remember the address. Do you happen to know that area?”
He snorted. “Yeah, I know it. Do you remember what was nearby?”
She pursed her lips. Most of the landmarks she recalled were likely long gone. She listed them anyway.
“You weren’t kidding about the immortal thing. They tore that building down ages ago.” He chuckled at her dubious expression. “You ever want to know about a place, ask a cab driver. We know our cities inside and out. So your man, uh, your apprentice—he’s nearby?”
“He should be somewhere along that block, probably near the mouth of an alley. Would you mind retrieving him? Early twenties, dark hair, tan complexion, smarmy smile.” She sighed. “He probably has a car with him. If he does, I doubt you’ll be able to convince him to ride with you, so just tell him to meet me here.”
She reached down the front of her dress and fished out a diamond, proffering it to the driver. “I trust this is enough to cover the ride and buy a few more hours of your time.”
His eyes widened, but he made no move to take it. “I have a better idea.”
Oh no.
“My mother hasn’t been doing so well—”
“No.”
“Why not? You healed me easy enough.”
“As I said, I don’t like drawing attention to myself. Besides, I don’t have the time. I’m leaving the city tonight.”
“What about when you come back?”
“I’ll have other things on my mind. I don’t have time to be coordinating rendezvouses with people.”
He gave her a look. “You’re immortal and you don’t have the time?”—if she had a coin for every time she heard that—“Then I guess I don’t have time to go get your apprentice.”
“Hey!”
“Fair’s fair. And you owe me a second one.” He smiled. “Fare, that is.”
“I am offering you a diamond. Surely you can pay for medical care several times over with that!”
“Doctors can only do so much. I haven’t felt this good since I was a boy. I can breathe again.” He pounded his chest and took a deep breath. “My mother’s in real bad shape. They think it’s cancer. No diamond or doctors can fix that. But you can.”
Damn it. This wouldn’t end well. He’d tell others and it would become a whole thing. But she really needed Nikolai here. “Fine. I’ll be coming through again in about a week. I can’t give you a precise time because I don’t know it. If you meet me by the alley where you find my apprentice, I’ll heal your mother.”
He smiled broadly. “Great. I’ll see you in a week.”
She hurriedly opened the door and started up the path before he could entangle her in any more commitments.
“Wait!” His voice rang out behind her and she flinched. Should she pretend she hadn’t heard? He’d probably thought of someone else for her to heal. She took a chance and turned back toward the cab.
He leaned out the window, hands cupped around his mouth. “What’s your man’s name?”
“Nikolai,” she called back.
She unlocked the heavy wrought iron gates and walked up the long path toward Shady River Hospital.
14
HYSTERIA
Medea entered the building. The sign outside said it was a hospital, which was perfect. If the Magi were here for treatment, she could heal them in exchange for their services in her experiment. More likely they were on staff, putting their craft to work as healers. Her smile blossomed at the thought of meeting other Magi with an interest in healing—such a lost art these days. She could barter a few of her better spells in exchange for their time.
She passed the front desk, boots clomping against the tiles, and headed for the double doors.
“Ma’am?”
Locked.
“Can I help you? Ma’am?”
She focused on the locking mechanism and slid the tumblers into place.
“How did you—? Barney, come help me out here!”
The double doors opened to reveal a long hallway with more doors. Fluorescent lights flickered irritably overhead. Medea cast Light all the way down the hall and severed the connection to each Mundane fixture. Much better. Unfortunately, the Magi were spread out within the facility. She’d have to visit them one at a time.
“Ma’am!”
She started to open a door, but a meaty hand pushed it closed. A bulky nurse looked down at her with a smirk. He wore a crisp white uniform starched to absurd stiffness.
“Where do you think you’re going, sweetie?”
“I’m here to see someone. Five someones,” she clarified.
“Uh-huh.” His eyes ran down her body and he snickered softly. “Then you need to come to the front desk and sign in.” He gestured to the double doors.
She could plow right through him, but the Magi might not take kindly to her injuring a coworker. “Alright.”
The man led her back to the front desk, where a dour woman asked her name and business.
“My name is Medea and I’m here to see some people.”
“Medea what?” The receptionist’s pen hovered over the sign-in sheet.
“Just Medea.”
“What’s your last name, dear?”
She was getting really tired of the pet names. “I don’t have one, dear.”
“Uh, okay . . .” The receptionist’s face morphed into the grimace of someone forcing a smile. “Who are you here to visit?”
“I have no idea. I was just passing by and felt them. Do you have anyone here who claims to do magic? If so, I’d like to speak with them.”
The receptionist and the nurse exchanged a look. God, she missed the days when she could ask to be taken to the local shaman or wizard or witch and have Mundanes say, “Sure thing! I know just the fellow, he cured my kid last week.” But no, everyone was hiding these days.
The nurse, who had been looming nearby, casually positioned himself behind her. Under different circumstances, the behavior would have been alarming, but he was obviously on edge due to her attempted trespass. Even if their goals were opposed, she could respect a man who took his job seriously; she gave him a smile to show she meant no harm. He returned it, though he still sized her up as though expecting he’d have to tackle her.
The receptionist’s toothy grimace somehow solidified, making her look like a wax caricature. She pulled out a blank sheet of paper and set it over the sign-in sheet, then continued with her questions. None of Medea’s answers seemed to satisfy her. No address, no phone number. Next of kin?
