Technically, he won't be aware he's helping you and your lot in any way."
Jim shook his head, dialed the number, and handed me the receiver. "You talk to him."
I listened to the ringtone. "Can you have horses waiting for us at the ley point in Macon?
Something flashy that I wouldn't normally ride in a million years?"
Jim gave a fatalistic shrug. "Sure."
"Hello?" Raphael's smooth voice murmured into the phone.
"Raphael? I need a favor."
RAPHAEL WAITED FOR ME BY THE LEY LINE, LEANING against a Jeep. The Jeep had been modified to run on enchanted water and it looked like it had tried to vomit its engine through its hood.
Raphael looked . . . There were no words. I had explained my plan on the phone and he had arrived wearing leather: black, shiny boots up to his knees, black leather pants that showed off his legs, and a black leather cuirass that molded to him like a second skin. A shotgun hung over his shoulder. An oversized sword, three feet long and nearly six inches wide, rested at his waist in a short sheath, completing his ensemble. The sword was too heavy for any normal human and covered with black runes etched into the upper portion of the blade. Coupled with the rich waterfall of Raphael's black hair and his smoky blue eyes, the effect was devastating.
I wasn't sure what I needed more: a cardiac surgeon to restart my heart or a plastic one to reattach my jaw.
Two teamster ladies waited for their shipment on the ley line platform. They watched Raphael and did their best not to drool. As I neared, one of them, a redhead, nudged the other with an elbow, and said, "We're expecting a load of plug nickels from Macon."
Ammo. Bullets were an expensive commodity. Some merchants took slugs in lieu of money; that was how the term "plug nickels" had come about.
Raphael dazzled them with a smile. "Not a highway-man."
"Too bad," the redhead said. "Because you can hold up my shipment anytime."
Raphael bowed. The ladies looked close to fainting.
I marched over and stood next to him before the teamsters threw caution to the wind and jumped him right there on the platform. The redhead eyed me. "Killjoy."
I turned and gave her my hard stare. The teamsters moved to the other end of the platform. I didn't blame them. I was decked out. Unlike Raphael, who was shiny, I had gone for the solid, light-gulping black of treated leather, from the tips of my soft boots to the shoulders hidden by the dramatic cloak I had to borrow from Jim. I looked like a piece of darkness in the shape of a woman. Jim wasn't happy about letting me have the cloak either, but I had no clothes that would adequately serve my plan and no time or place to get them. All of us were living on a timer we'd borrowed from Derek, and his time was running out.
The cloak coupled with a black leather vest made me suitably menacing. All that was missing was a giant neon sign with rotating sparklers proclaiming HARD CASE. LINE TO GET
YOUR ASS KICKED FORMS TO THE RIGHT.
A wide smile stretched Raphael's lips.
"If you laugh, I'll kill you," I told him.
"Why the rifle? Everybody knows you can't shoot."
Who were these everybodies and would they like to stand in front of me, preferably within ten feet, so I could discuss this issue in greater detail? "I can shoot just fine." I just missed eighty percent of the time. With the gun anyway. I did better with a crossbow and even better with the knife. "Do you know the runes on your sword are nonsense?"
"Yes, but they look mysterious."
Before us the ley line shimmered. Some poetic descriptions likened it to the rise of warm air above the heated asphalt. In reality the effect was more pronounced: a short, controlled spasm, as if an invisible vent slid open, belching a distorting blast, and abruptly closed. The ley current was no joke. The magic itself flowed about a foot and a half off the ground. It grabbed you and pulled you with it at speeds ranging from sixty to roughly a hundred miles per hour.
Anything living dumb enough to step into the current had to wave bye-bye to the bloody stumps of its legs severed just below the knee. Most people used ley taxis, rough, wooden platforms cobbled together, but anything sturdy enough to support a body would do in a pinch. A vehicle. A