The Scarlet Crane: Transition Magic Book One (The Transition Magic Series 1) Read online

* * *

  Ten years earlier, two blocks had been bulldozed on M Street NW to make room for a new DTS headquarters. The building rose three floors above street level and included a covered atrium half the size of a football field. Offices facing the atrium had small balconies overlooking the courtyard below. Kind of a federal Embassy Suites, John thought.

  From the street, the structure looked more like it was part of a university campus than the home of a major security apparatus. University or not, John agreed with the locals that its construction had come at a high price. No more Hippo Bar. No more neighborhood tattoo parlor.

  John directed the cabbie to the back, paid, and dragged his bag to the employee entrance. It was a little after five, but the DTS staff operated twenty-four seven.

  He clipped his badge and ID card to his jacket pocket. An RF scanner had processed the chip embedded in his card before he opened the door. One of Marva’s admins had placed him on the approved list, so the guards had his photo and confirmation of his scheduled meeting on their displays.

  A Marine greeted him as soon as he passed through the whole body scanner. “Good afternoon, Dr. Benoit. Please confirm your identity with the retinal scanner.” John positioned his right eye in front of the sensor on one of the free-standing kiosks. “Thank you, sir. Please register at the Director’s security desk within the next ten minutes.”

  He double-quicked along the maze of ground-floor corridors to Marva’s office suite, enjoying the echo made by his cane. The hallway opened to a desk and waiting area before a set of double doors with a large DTS crest in gold leaf spread across them. The guard recorded his arrival and alerted Akina, Marva’s senior admin. The air smelled faintly of roses.

  He sat, thinking he might be waiting for a while. Marva’s days routinely ran long, and she was undoubtedly buried in something. His thoughts drifted back to Quince and how he died, alone, thousands of miles from home.

  He wondered, not for the first time, how many had died from magic. Kids, trying it and dying. Adults like Quince Adams trying to protect kids. It might be 2014, but magic was still an untamed demon that devoured lives by the thousands.

  Each of the world’s cultures had evolved its own barriers against Transition’s predation—laws, social norms, secrecy—anything to stop kids from trying magic. To protect their children, yes. To preserve their political power, emphatically yes. The DTS embodied this divided loyalty.

  The office doors opened, and Marva Bentley glided across the reception area. She exuded an imposing confidence—six feet tall, slender, movements purposeful and concise. They usually met with a handshake. But as John rose to greet her, their spontaneous embrace was as natural as it was irresistible. She leaned back, eyes shining. “I miss him too, Dish. Come on in.”

  * * *

  They settled in her conference room. Two dozen blood-red roses sat in an anthracite vase on a credenza at one end of the room. The secure video gear was mounted on the wall at the opposite end, flanked by two sets of French doors that led to the garden. An American cherry table polished to a mirror finish stretched the length of the room.

  John walked over to the flowers, bent, and inhaled their aroma. “An admirer?” He smiled and arched his brow as he took at seat at the conference table.

  She ignored his question, sat on the opposite side of the table, and pushed a red-banded folder across the table. “The file from Quince’s investigation. It has the intelligence I originally shared with him plus what we’ve accumulated since. It was thin to start, and it’s still thin. He found nothing substantiating the rumors. As far as I know, he never made contact in Hanoi.”

  John left the folder on the table.

  A flicker of his smoldering anger over Adams’ death flashed to the surface. “Goddamn it, this situation doesn’t add up.” His voice rose as he spoke. “The rumor’s a concern, sure, but we hear crap rumors all the time. Yet you pulled rank, grabbed Quince, and put him in the shadows. Reporting to you, right? Then he’s off to Hanoi on a goddamned tip. I’ll tell you what I think—you held something back when you briefed him. And now he’s dead.”

  Their eyes locked, Marva’s face yielding nothing. Then in a low, icy whisper she said, “Agent Benoit, do not, ever—”

  She stopped and looked away, staring sightlessly at the roses. A minute passed. “Let’s sit in the garden.”

  * * *

  They moved to a glass-topped table on a stone patio just outside her French doors. The courtyard was landscaped as a traditional English shade garden richly layered in ivy, hostas, and ferns, accented with primrose and foxglove. The susurration of a white noise generator crackled around them.

  About as private as possible, short of standing in an open field.

  “Several things,” she said. John leaned forward to hear her.

  “The rumor was a tip from a CIA source in the North Korean security service. You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who even know the source exists. The President had to sign a directive before the CIA would bring me into the loop. If it’s ever discovered I’ve told you, being fired is the best thing that would happen to either of us.

  “The source claims this—whatever the hell it is—is a joint effort between China and the People’s Republic of Korea.

  “Apparently he picked this up from a drink fest with an old military academy buddy. And the buddy heard it from a friend of his. So this drunk friend of a drunk friend of a friend says the Chinese and the PRK are running a kidnapping operation that targets kids of Transition age, but who aren’t yet in Transition.”

  “Jesus Christ,” John said.

  “I thought this was most likely bullshit until Quince was killed. Now I don’t know. Maybe he simply stumbled into a turf war in Hanoi. Or maybe there’s something to the report.”

  John understood that a tip from within the PRK would get top-level attention. One that involved magic would trigger alarms everywhere. The odds of something being real might be low, but the consequences could be huge.

  Marva’s voice hardened. “While we’re at it, Agent Benoit, let me remind you. I will always have information you don’t have. I’ll make the calls on what to share and when. Live with it.”

  John sighed. He hated himself for it, but given the same information he would’ve made the same decisions. Adams was the perfect choice. A skilled, experienced guy that she could pull off the line long enough to find out what was going on. There was no reasonable way to anticipate the deadly outcome.

  What could he say? The fire still burned, but it made no sense to focus it on Bentley. “I appreciate the risk you just took. I can do a better job for you because you took it.”

  Not much of an olive branch, but enough. “Good.” She nodded and paused for a moment. “The aircraft carrying Quince’s body and the container with the contents of his hotel room will be delivered to Hangar 1 at Andrews. I want to give them a little time to work, so they’re expecting us tomorrow at eight.”

  “One final thing,” she said. “I’m assigning Agent Hill to work with you. You’ll be the lead, but I want a fully cooperative effort from the two of you. You’ve had some issues with her in the past. Any now? Do you have a problem partnering with her?”

  “No and no,” he answered. This had just become more interesting.

  Moscow

  The Russian Federation

  “Govno—shit!” Anya Terasova cursed and smacked her sleeping mother. “Get up mama, they’ve seen us. We gotta go.” They’d been sleeping behind a trash container on a subterranean plaza outside a locked metro station. “Now!”

  Two Moscow police, snug in their canvas coats and fur ushankas, marched toward Anya and her mother, snapping their truncheons against their palms. Their message was clear to the twelve-year-old: get out or get beaten and dropped into a prison hellhole.

  The day before, Anya’s mother had spent their last rubles on alley vodka and Metro tickets. She’d insisted they come to this unfamiliar part of the city because she’d heard
about a charity that would provide food and clothing. The rumor had been a lie; she and Anya had wandered in vain until long after the sun had fallen.

  Maybe we should take the blows and let the cops cart us away.

  Prison would be warmer than the streets. But it would end any chance for Anya’s dreams. She was in Transition. Just eight days remained. Eight days to discover the ritual words, release the magic, and seize a better life.

  No way that happens in jail.

  Her mother growled, “Lemme sleep, you little bitch.”

  “Can’t do that,” Anya said. “Get up!”

  She dragged her mother to her feet, almost gagging on the stink of piss and soured booze that the old woman wore like a favorite coat. They struggled toward the stairs that led to the plaza exit. Scaling the last step, Anya turned them away from the piercing wind and shuffled down the ice-covered sidewalk. A department store sign flared midnight and minus twenty.

  The wind tore at their long coats. The pal’ta were stiff with grease and dirt and worse, but the dense wool gave them life. Mama had traded sex for the winter clothing from a creep named Scrounge. Her mother hadn’t noticed, but the asshole had tried to grope Anya when he’d placed the coat on her shoulders. She’d snarled, twisted away, and jerked the coat from his grasping hands. When she later complained, Mama had promised that he was harmless. “He prefers to strip the dead,” she’d said, “because they don’t argue or fight him.”

  Scrounge’s thievery wasn’t what scared Anya.

  She spotted a large trash bin by the curb. She detoured to it, tipped it onto the road, and grabbed the filthy newspapers that spilled out before the wind took them.

  “Our lucky night,” she mumbled, her numb lips slurring her words. The wind sang as it danced around them, trying to rip the paper from her grasp. Street lamps cast feeble yellow puddles of light, illuminating nothing.

  She led them to an alley. “Here, let’s go in here.” She pushed into its dark mouth, seeking desperately needed shelter, her mother following in her wake. The alley twisted the wind into a screaming vortex, shoving them back. Anya turned, eyes watering, and yelled to make herself heard. “I was wrong, mama, we’ll die if we stay in here.”

  She pulled her mother back to the sidewalk and battled on, down an icy path between piled snow and dilapidated buildings, newspapers under one arm, her mother clinging for life on the other, seeking a shield, any shield, from the Arctic air.

  She stumbled and fell to the ground, whimpering, pulling her mother down with her. After a moment she gathered the papers from beneath her, pushed to her hands and knees, squatted, and stood. She reached down and dragged her mother to her feet.

  If we fall again, we’ll never get up.

  She turned to resume her struggle and spotted a store with boarded windows and a door recessed deeply from the street. “There. Maybe there.” She shuffled to the building and into the inky space and sighed with relief as the wind abandoned pursuit. She propped her mother against the door and fumbled to unbutton her coat.

  “Whaaaat? Get away!” Her mother tried to yank her coat closed.

  “Leave it,” Anya barked.

  Working quickly, she wrapped newspapers around her mother’s torso, re-buttoned her coat, and stuffed papers up the sleeves.

  “Okay mama, lie down. I’ll help you.” Anya guided them both to the ground, then pulled and dragged until her back was against the door of the alcove and her mother was tight against her. “Rest now.”

  Exhaustion eventually trumped cold and fear and she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  “GET UP, GET OUT. NOW!”

  A cop was pounding the boarded door above their heads with his nightstick.

  “UP!”

  Anya jerked awake and scrambled to her feet, pulling her mother along with her. The crystalline light of the frozen blue day forced Anya’s eyes into narrow slits. She turned on the cop. “Stop screaming! Give us a minute!” Her mother shoved past her and staggered away, shedding newspapers as she went.

  The cop retreated a couple of steps. “It’s too cold to sleep in the open. You’re lucky you didn’t die out here.”

  She knew in her bones that cops were dangerous, but she too surprised and pissed to be cautious. “Yeah, and what do you suggest we do? Go back to our flat and turn up the heat? What fucking shit.”

  He stared down at her, smiling. “You’ve sure got a mouth on you.”

  He seemed friendly. She noticed how young and cute he was, which triggered a wave of heat that spread over her chest and face. The unfamiliar feeling was brushed aside by a familiar worry.

  What’s he want?

  She backed away from him and started after her mother, but he grabbed her arm and jerked her back.

  “I’m serious. You can’t stay outside.”

  “Let me go!” Anya screamed and glanced around, looking for anyone who might help her. Her mother was the only other person on the street.

  “Relax! I’m not going to hurt you.” He released her and held his hands up like he was trying to calm a scared dog. “Tell you what. Go to the shelter next to St. Sergius. Tell them Victor sent you and they’ll take you in, even while you’re in Transition. They have food and beds.”

  He was staring at her lavender eyes as if he was unable to pull his gaze away. All kids entered Transition at some point in early puberty. Their passage, marked by iridescent lavender eyes, lasted twenty-eight days. During Transition, they could perform magic if it was unique and their own genuine desire. If not, they died.

  He looked down the street at Anya’s mother. “They won’t take you if you’re drunk or stoned.” He gave Anya directions and had her repeat them back to him. “It’ll take you most of the day on foot to get there, but you’ll be safe.”

  “Thanks,” Anya said, “Why are you… I mean—”

  “Go. Alone if you have to.”

  She blushed, nodded, and headed down the street. How was she going to talk her mother into this? She caught up before finding an answer.

  Her mother stopped and turned on her. “What was that about?”

  “Mama, he told me about a shelter that will take us.”

  “You stupid little idiot. Never trust cops. All they want to do is beat you or fuck you.”

  “If we don’t go, what’re we going to do?” Anya asked. “We’re miles from the streets we know and we don’t have any money.”

  “I’ll take care of it. I’ll turn a couple of tricks to get money for metro tickets back to Prudy. Then Scrounge will take care of us.”

  Anya tensed as if she was being threatened with a knife. Her mother had taught her than men were as dangerous as police. As far back as she could remember, she’d lived alone with her mother in a succession of abandoned houses.

  “He owns an old building. He’ll let us move in with him. He’ll share food with us.”

  “Why is Scrounge any different from any other man?” Anya asked. Her voice rose in panic. “Why would he help us? All he cares about is himself. Why wouldn’t we just find a house like we always do? Besides, it’ll take you days to get that money and we have to find a place to stay now.” She tried unsuccessfully to hold back tears.

  “Not all men are bad, Anya. Scrounge can make life better for us. And he’ll help us because he likes you. You’re going to have to start pulling your own weight. You’ll be out of Transition soon. Then you’ll be old enough. I’ve been protecting you, but it’s time for you to grow up.”

  Anya’s shivers had nothing to do with the cold.

  “Sex is the only thing we have that’s worth anything,” her mother said. “You treat Scrounge right and we’ll be okay. We sure as hell don’t need some snotty shelter and their rules.”

  Maybe Anya should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. Lots of kids—her age and younger—traded sex for food and protection. And lots of mothers believed the end of Transition meant their girls were adults.

  “Scrounge isn’t touching me, mama. Never. I�
��ll kill myself first. And I’m never going to be a whore like you. I’m going to the shelter. You do what you want.”

  Her mother slapped her so hard that Anya staggered. Blood spurted bright red from her nose onto the grimy concrete. She pressed her sleeve to her nose to stop the bleeding.

  “Never talk to me like that! You’ll fucking do what I say.”

  They glared at each other, neither giving ground.

  Her mother sighed, reached over, and roughly wiped the blood from Anya’s face. “I know this is hard, but it’s life. We’ll go to the damn shelter until I can get the money together for the metro, and then we’ll head back to Prudy. And you’re going with me, don’t think you aren’t. If I have to, I’ll get you tossed out of the shelter on your ass. So quit your whining.”

  Mne po barabánu — whatever.

  Voice muffled by her sleeve, Anya issued her own warning. “No drunks in the shelter, mama. You want to eat and get warm, you’d better stay sober.” She winced when her mother raised her hand again but the blow never fell. They turned and began their pilgrimage.

  * * *

  They arrived mid-afternoon, exhausted and dizzy from hunger. Two buildings, separated by a wide alley, faced them from the other side of the street.

  A dingy one-story structure of crumbling brown bricks squatted on their right. A small rough sign—St. Sergius Shelter for the Homeless—directed visitors to a side door.

  On their left, across the alley from the shelter, was the most amazing church Anya had ever seen. It was three floors high, built from dark bricks the color of wine. Glittering stained glass windows on each level were surrounded by stone edging so white it looked like fresh snow. The steep roof was covered with blue tiles and topped by an ornate gold cross that soared into the sky. A gleaming white sign with gilt lettering proclaimed Saint Sergius Cathedral.

  “We need to hurry,” her mom prodded. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Anya led them across the street and down the alley to the side door of the run-down building, where she stood on the stoop and banged her fist on the door. Nothing. She banged again.