Blood Engines(103)

 

Ch’ang Hao knocked on the passenger window, startling both of them. “Will we be going soon?” he asked.

 

Cole looked at Marla. She nodded, and they both got out of the van.

 

 

 

 

 

“You took the bus here?” Rondeau said, standing outside the Celestial’s shop, still looking around for the car that didn’t exist.

 

“I don’t own a car,” B said.

 

Rondeau shook his head. “I’m sitting there being tortured—well, I wasn’t, but I could have been—and you don’t even steal a car?”

 

“I could maybe just manage to steal a car if it still had the keys in it,” B said. “But unless the door was unlocked, I’d probably hurt my elbow busting in the window. I’m not actually skilled in the criminal arts.”

 

“Fine, sure,” Rondeau said. “Let’s find a car. That one’ll do.” He hurried over to a blue two-door coupe. B followed, wondering if Rondeau was really about to rip off a car in broad daylight.

 

Rondeau grabbed the driver’s-side handle and tugged. The door popped open, and Rondeau grinned. He slipped in and unlocked the passenger door for B, who got in with him. “I don’t know much magic,” Rondeau said. “Just the Cursing, which is more a natural talent, like being able to burp the alphabet or turn your eyelids inside out. But I do know how to open shit. I learned how to do it with picks and jimmys and everything first, because Marla’s a big believer in self-sufficiency without spells, but once I had that down, she taught me the shortcuts.” As he spoke, he pulled out the ashtray and tossed it in the backseat, then reached into the cavity revealed and did something with the wires inside. The engine roared to life. Rondeau sat up, threw the car into gear, and drove.

 

“Don’t you feel guilty about stealing a car?” B said.

 

“Nah,” Rondeau said. “Especially not when it’s a rental.” He tapped a sheaf of papers clipped to the visor. “And especially especially not when I’m on a mission to help save the world. Even if I’m not actually crucial to that mission.”

 

“I didn’t have a vision about you,” B said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a role to play. We can both help Marla.”

 

“Doomed to be a best supporting actor,” Rondeau said. “It’s a hell of a life. Where are we going?”

 

“Oh, right, the Japanese Tea Garden, in the park. I don’t drive much, but I think I can figure it out—”

 

“I got it,” Rondeau said, expertly piloting the car through the maze of one-way streets and double-parked obstacles that filled this part of the city. “I was excited about coming to San Francisco. I memorized all the maps.”

 

“All the maps?”

 

“You’re not the only one with natural talents,” said Rondeau.

 

 

 

 

 

Marla and Cole crept toward the closed gates of the Japanese Tea Garden, and Ch’ang Hao walked softly a short distance behind them. A painted sign hanging on the gate read “Closed for Maintenance,” probably something Mutex had found tucked in a shed somewhere. Marla closed her eyes, trying to visualize the layout of the garden as she’d seen it from above in the glass. “Mutex is toward the northwest, near the center of the gardens. We can go northeast and slip around past the actual tea house—there’s lots of cover there, hedges, and the gift shop—and get pretty close to him without being seen, I bet.”

 

“It’s as good a plan as any,” Cole said.

 

“Watch out for frogs,” she said.

 

“I shall.”

 

“Are the frogs going to be a problem for you, Ch’ang Hao?” she asked.

 

Hao sniffed. “Frogs. No. I have nothing to fear from frogs. My kind eat them.”

 

Marla pushed on the gate. It was locked. She pressed her hand against the wood, concentrated, and was rewarded a moment later with the snap of a lock and latch giving way on the other side. She pushed open the gate, just wide enough to admit her, and looked inside.

 

The Tea Garden was beautiful, and cultivated enough that it didn’t discomfort Marla the way nature usually did. There were pebbled paths, graceful bridges, running water, creeks, and statuary, all visible from where Marla stood. There was also a dead tourist in khaki shorts lying in one of the pathways, but that only detracted slightly from the beauty. She beckoned Cole and Ch’ang Hao, then slipped inside.

 

The atmosphere inside the gate struck her instantly—heavy, electric, crackling, roiling. There was deep magic happening here, or about to happen. Cole sensed it, too. “There’s more to this than raising a god,” he said. “That’s the weight in the air, but I smell something else, another spell. Mutex is trying to do something more.”