“I have proof that it does. And this is a deal where you get a written guarantee that this is your home as long as you want to live here, rent free, utilities on me, complete with any upgrades needed to keep it current.”

  An urge to whistle appreciatively tried to work its way up Heath’s throat. That could come to hundreds of thousands of tax-free dollars over the course of a few decades. But Heath clamped down that urge before it reached the back of his mouth, much less his lips.

  “Not much of a guarantee if you sell the land, even to a shell company you own.”

  Suit smiled and gave a gracious nod.

  “The guarantee will include language that prevents the land from being sold unless the buyer agrees in a separate contract to maintain all the same terms for you. Someone else buys it, you still get the same deal. Even if it’s flipped again.”

  “Starting to sound reasonable,” said Heath, shaking his head. “Still—”

  “There would, of course, be a fee for your troubles — say, twenty-three thousand, six hundred sixty seven dollars — plus reimbursement for reasonable expenses.” Suit extended his hand, with a broad smile that made Heath itch along his spine. “Do we have a deal?”

  Heath had to hand it to Suit. It was a fair price, and the man knew how to offer payment to a conjure man. Root magic doesn’t deal in round numbers.

  “First I have to know something,” said Heath. “Why me?”

  “Because I don’t think you’ll want to keep the book for yourself.” Suit lowered his hand and shrugged, such a slight movement of his shoulders that he might have been adjusting the fit of his jacket. “I can’t say that about the others I’ve considered for this.”

  The frogs and crickets started up again. They didn’t believe Suit was telling the whole truth, and neither did Heath.

  But he couldn’t deny that the offer was reasonable. And he loved his apartment too much to just walk away from it.

  “All right, then.”

  Suit offered his hand again to shake.

  Heath looked at it. Shook his head. “When I see the paperwork. Then we have a deal, and then I will get to work. In the meantime, I have a thousand…”

  Heath’s words trailed off as Suit’s lips stretched in a smile. Suit reached into the pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a contract, and as Heath looked over the terms he felt a fresh wash of cold down his face and spine.

  Every point they’d discussed was covered. Just as though Suit knew exactly what deal he was going to get. And maybe that was all it was. Maybe Suit was just a good negotiator.

  But as Heath signed on the dotted line, he couldn’t help thinking about Granddad and his stories.

  The next morning saw storm clouds moving in from the west, but Heath didn’t pay them any attention. If this were January, or even May, those clouds might have settled overhead for a good long rain. But this was July, one of the two or three months Portland could count on for actual sunlight.

  Those clouds didn’t have a chance. They’d be burnt away by noon at the latest.

  So Heath threw on another pair of black jeans and a light, blue-and-white striped shirt with short sleeves, a collar, and a pocket where he could tuck a couple of little extras in case he needed them. Then he hoisted his backpack and headed off for a breakfast meeting with two of the only human allies he knew he could count on.

  The meeting was at Tsarina’s, a marvelous little hole-in-the-wall Russian place on Front Avenue, hidden away in the industrial section of northwest, near the Willamette. Everywhere around Tsarina’s were parking lots full of semis and buses, all fenced in behind alarms and razor wire, and warehouses in ice cream colors with long, rounded tops like tiny, repurposed airplane hangars. Fewer trees per square foot than any other part of Portland, which made it only ten times greener than the section of Manhattan where Heath grew up.

  Tsarina’s was long as a rail car, and so narrow it only accommodated five army surplus folding tables along one wall – three folding chairs each – leaving a single path from the front door to the counter. The tables all had cheap, red-and-white checkered tablecloths, and narrow glass vases that each held an orange Gerber daisy. The floor echoed like hollow aluminum no matter who was walking across it, and along the walls were old photographs of the last Russian royal family. Actual photos, not printouts or newspaper cut-outs, and small enough to have been family mementos.

  Tsarina’s was the kind of place that only had one employee bathroom back behind the counter. If you were a customer, you got to use it if they liked you. If they didn’t, it was out of order.

  They probably lost customers that way, but as far as Heath could tell, they didn’t care. The two tables nearest the counter were always full of old men speaking Russian, and though Heath didn’t come here as often as he liked, he would have sworn they were always the same men.

  Fans blew hard from back in the kitchen, carrying rich, meaty smells at any time of day, and easing the summer heat.

  Colin was already waiting, sitting with his back to the door at the first table, when Heath let the aluminum screen door slam shut behind him.

  Colin had that skinny, long-haired white kid look that Heath thought of as stoner chic. Fine blonde hair. Skin so pale it might burn under artificial light. Old blue jeans, faded and paint-stained in some places and worn in others, and certainly in no better shape than his sneakers. An Iron Maiden tee shirt from a tour that must have been before Colin was born. He was in his third year at the University of Portland, studying guitar, and practiced the oddest magic Heath had ever run across.

  Despite appearances, Colin never smelled like pot, not even since recreational use became legal in Oregon. He smelled like baked goods. Today it was cinnamon rolls.

  “Did you eat before a breakfast meeting?” asked Heath as he took the seat facing Colin.

  “Haven’t been to bed yet. I was really feeling the transcription of this Vivaldi piece and it wouldn’t let me rest, you know?”

  “Four Seasons?”

  “Pffft. So last year. Cello Sonata No.4 in B flat major, RV45.”

  Heath stared blankly. Colin snickered like a cartoon dog.

  “Cretin.”

  “I prefer my music to have complicated drum rhythms.”

  Before Colin could voice his rejoinder, the aluminum door slammed to announce the entrance of Nariko.

  Almost as tall as Heath, Nariko had the misfortune of growing up with the kind of willowy beauty that attracted American Japanophiles by the truckload. Her twin sister Michiko dealt with this problem by cutting her glittering black hair short and wearing frumpy pants and tops to downplay what good genes had given her. She went so far as to hide her jade eyes behind hideous frames even though she didn’t need glasses.

  Nariko took the opposite approach. She wore skirts and flimsy tops with her long hair down when she was casual, and tight jeans and form-fitting shirts with a tight bun when she was working, like today. As for the hopefuls, she cut down on their approaches with a resting bitch face that could shatter concrete.

  She took the wall-facing chair, spun it around, and plopped down with her arms folded across the back.

  “What’s shakin’, bitches?”

  “Heath has no appreciation for classical music.”

  “You should see him when he hears bagpipes. Like a cat heading for the ceiling.”

  “That was one time…” Heath stopped as soon as he saw them both grin. “Look. Can we discuss my musical tastes later?”

  “Just as soon as you develop some,” said Colin.

  Heath was saved from replying because Inga cleared her throat. Heath didn’t know if Inga owned Tsarina’s or just ran it, but it wasn’t the sort of place that encouraged questions.

  Either way, Inga was built like a five-and-a-half-foot tall potato, right down to a blotchy complexion. The dark brown dresses she wore only encouraged the image in Heath’s mind. She had lots of yellow-blond hair and bound it into tight braids that she wound round and round the top of her head. But she smiled her slightly scary smile at the customers she liked, and she was smiling then when she said, “Heath, I know, will have his two breakfast pirozhkis with coffee watered to down to American levels. And you two?”

  “I’ll have a breakfast pirozhki,” said Nariko, pronouncing it better than Heath would have, “but I’ll take my coffee at the same strength you’d drink it, Inga.”

  Inga nodded with approval, then had to pull out a pad of paper to write down Colin’s order, which would have been enough to feed a family of six that hadn’t eaten in a week. She took the whole order with one eyebrow raised, but said nothing until he finished.

  “This is all?”

  “For now.” Colin smiled, teeth white enough for a dental poster.

  When Inga left the table, Heath told them what he was after and why.

  Nariko shook her head, one eyebrow raised in her “fool” expression, while Colin whistled.

  “I have a couple of good spirits for finding books,” said Colin, “but something like that…”

  “You undercharged,” said Nariko. “As always.”

  “If I live there another forty years—”

  “If you survive getting your hands on the book in the first place.” Nariko stroked Heath’s cheek, the tender way she used to, lips quirking in a half-smile when she said, “You’re sweet, but you’re dumb in all the wrong ways.”

  Colin snickered, and Heath felt heat creep up his neck.

  “I was talking about business,” Nariko said archly.

  “I signed the contract,” said Heath, “so until I know that this is a lot more involved than he told me I need to do my due diligence and find out what I’m in for. Will you guys help me?”

  “I don’t know, man,” said Colin. “I could maybe find out something about your biggest competitors, but this kind of thing isn’t as hands-off as I like to work.”

  “I suppose I better,” said Nariko. “You’re too pretty to be a corpse. But you owe me for this one. Big time.”

  “You know I’m good for it.”

  Whatever Nariko would have said next was lost when a big block of a man kicked the door open. He smelled like olives, wore a trench coat despite the heat, and looked as though every bone in his face had been broken and set wrong. His coat had a spell or two on it. Something to do with disguise, and something else for protection. Trench Coat leveled a submachine gun at the room.

  “I’m looking for Heath Cyr,” he rumbled.

  “This is why I eat before our breakfast meetings,” said Colin.

  Trench Coat’s black eyes were just coming to rest on Heath when Inga stormed out of her kitchen. Her heavy steps reverberated through Tsarina’s aluminum floor like an earthquake. Her frame filled the aisle between the tables and the wall.

  At the two tables nearest the counter, the old Russian men stopped talking.

  “You missed him,” said Inga. “Heath Cyr has come and gone and now you scare my customers? My customers? Waving a popgun around Tsarina’s? Little boy, you are playing in the street. Toddle along home before someone runs you over.”

  Trench Coat blinked in a moment of shocked confusion, the barrel of his submachine gun edging toward the ceiling before lowering again toward Inga.

  Heath seized the moment to snatch a tiny wax paper envelope from his shirt pocket. He blew orange dust into Trench Coat’s face. Trench Coat’s eyes fluttered and he passed out on the spot.

  “I’m out of here,” said Colin. “Inga, I’m sorry I—”

  “Go, all of you,” she said. “Leave this one to me. He must learn not to do such things here.”

  Colin was out the door before Inga finished talking.

  “I—” started Heath, but Inga interrupted him.

  “I will send your food to your home. Your meals are on Tsarina’s. This should never have happened here.”

  “But he was here for…”

  Heath’s words died when he saw the look on Inga’s face. She had the dead eyes of a woman who had killed before. Perhaps often. Perhaps even enjoyed it. Nariko grabbed Heath’s hand and led him out the front door, stepping over Trench Coat as they went.

  “Let me guess,” said Nariko, her eyes scanning the streets. Normal daytime traffic, which here on Front Avenue meant only two or three moving cars in sight. “You didn’t drive.”

  “No,” said Heath, watching the areas opposite wherever she looked, but nothing immediately caught his eye. “Never when I don’t have to.”

  He could hear shouts and loud bangs and the rumbles of giant engines in the background, and he was sure he could smell diesel on the building breeze. But these were just the sounds and smells of the local workers. He spotted Trench Coat’s car, a rented pick-up truck with the motor running and the driver’s door open. No one in it.

  “Bitch seat for you then, unless you want to risk his truck.”

  “I think Tsarina’s might be a front for the Russian mob.”

  “Dumb in all the wrong ways,” said Nariko, half-dragging Heath to her sleek, silver motorcycle. A BMW, but Heath didn’t know the details, only that it was big. And enchanted. Nariko practiced an Eastern flavor of magic called Shugendō that Heath didn’t quite understand. Somewhere between Taoism and Shintoism, and the way she’d once explained her bike to Heath, a combination of harmony and her ancestors kept her safe from tickets and accidents.

  The ancestor part Heath got. But he had no idea how harmony entered into the equation.

  “Hang on,” she said, saddling up and kick-starting the bike. She raised an eyebrow. “But not too tight.”

  “One sec.” Heath trotted over to Trench Coat’s truck, Nariko rolling her bike after him. He slipped a piece of chalk out of his shirt pocket and drew three crosses on the hood, then uttered the final line of a Unitarian service for the dead.

  The truck died with a sputter.

  Heath swung onto the bike behind Nariko, and tried not to think about how good it felt to have his arms around her again.

  She kicked the bike into gear, and in moments they were speeding along the streets of Portland. The wind whipping through his hair brought back memories of trips together down the coast. Times when her hair was down and buffeting his face.

  But today the wind smelled like rain, which was ridiculous. And the storm clouds were still rolling in up above, dark and threatening. And showing no sign of burning off.

  Nariko took a left when she should have taken a right, as though she wanted to get on I5 south or head downtown.

  “Forgotten the way to my place?” he asked at a stoplight.

  “Four cars back. The sedan.”

  Heath tilted his head around until he could get the right angle in the bike’s left side mirror to see a white sedan tucked in between two big SUVs. Two men inside, with deep tans, short black hair, and trench coats.

  “Pull over,” said Heath.

  “Like Hell,” said Nariko, emphasizing her point by slipping between cars to cut to the front of the line.

  “We can’t get away from them.”

  “Watch me.” Nariko revved the engine like she was thinking of jumping the light.

  “I didn’t get to Tsarina’s by car, but they followed me by car? Doesn’t make sense. They’ve got a tracker on me. Might as well talk to them now.”

  Nariko narrowed her eyes at Heath.

  “Who sends a submachine gun when they want to talk?”

  “Got rid of Colin. Got us out of Tsarina’s. Put us on the run. The only way we reclaim the initiative…”

  Nariko snorted and jerked her head back around, revving the engine.

  The light changed.

  She eased her bike around the corner and rolled it to a stop in a Dairy Queen parking lot. Both she and Heath made a point of watching the white sedan ease on past.

  “So much for talking,” said Nariko.

  “Give them a second.”

  No more than a minute later, the white sedan returned and pulled into the driveway, parking in a spot near Heath and Nariko, but not too near. The two beefy men got out of their car, hands held out to show that they were empty.

  Heath smirked at Nariko.

  “Maybe I’m not so dumb after all,” he said.

  “Jury’s still out on that one.”

  Four other cars in the Dairy Queen parking lot, but the people they belonged to were all inside the restaurant. As places to hold a public conversation went, this one wasn’t bad. The MAX line went right past, light rail trains going back and forth to Beaverton and parts beyond. Office buildings across the street, and an exotic furniture store taking up most of the block past the Dairy Queen, complete with its own underground garage.

  Traffic. People. Bystanders. Maybe even witnesses, if things went wrong. Heath slung his backpack around and slipped one hand inside it. Not grabbing anything just yet, but ready all the same.

  The big beefy guys approached slowly, their eyes flicking to the backpack then back to Heath and Nariko. Like the would-be assailant with the submachine gun, they smelled like olives.

  “That’s close enough,” said Nariko, when they were still a dozen steps away.

  They stopped.

  “You can see our hands,” said the one on the left. He had a horizontal scar under his right eye, maybe two inches long and puckered. “How about returning the favor?”

  “Can’t say I’m feeling too inclined that direction,” said Heath. “Not after your friend with the submachine gun.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Scar. His partner, who had a heavier, wider jaw, shook his head.

  “Of course you don’t,” said Heath. “What do you guys want?”

  “My name is Marvin,” said the one with the scar, and Heath decided that would do as well as anything else. “And my friend here is Jarvis.”

  “Marvin and Jarvis?” said Nariko. “Look, I get not admitting to knowing a guy who would waltz into a restaurant carrying a weapon that might be illegal even here in the PNW, where the firearms roam wild and free. But if you’re just going to bullshit us—”

  “I’ll prove it.”

  Jarvis looked dubious, but Marvin nodded. Each man slowly opened wide his trench coat and eased a hand inside an interior pocket to pull out a wallet. They retrieved driver’s licenses and tossed them on the ground at Nariko’s feet.