She braced against the pain and pushed harder.
The lock resisted.
Harder.
Pain began deep inside her, growing hotter and hotter, the price of too much magic expended too quickly. The weight of the lock ground on her, like someone had piled a ton of rocks on her shoulders. Come on . . . Come on . . .
Metal slid against metal. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, revealing four shelves filled with cash.
The pain ebbed. Audrey exhaled. Kaldar grinned like an idiot. The way he looked at her almost made her blush, and for a Callahan, that was saying something.
He leaned over to her, and whispered, a little too loud, "Audrey, you are magic."
She had no way of knowing if he was being sincere. But she really, really wanted to believe that he was.
JACK sauntered down the street next to George, squinting at the early-morning sunshine. They were gloriously filthy.
They'd both rolled down the hill twice, and now George's hair looked like a dirty mop. Swirls of dust stained their arms and faces. The memory of Kaldar's voice resonated through his head. Less happy, more hungry. Hungry. Right.
"Doode," George said.
He'd practiced all morning but still didn't get it quite right. "Nope, more u, less oo. Duuude."
"Dude."
"Dude."
"Okay, dude." George nodded.
"How's it hanging?" Jack asked.
"How am I supposed to answer that?" George looked at him.
"I don't think Kaldar said anything about that. I guess 'good'? I don't get it. What's hanging anyway?"
George shook his head. "Your stuff, you nimwit."
His stuff . . . Oh. Ha! "In that case, it's hanging long!" Jack dissolved into giggles. "Long, get it?"
"My brother, everyone." George bowed to an invisible crowd with a martyred expression. "A refined and sensitive creature."
A beat-up red car turned the corner and swung into a parking lot ahead. Audrey was driving, with Kaldar in the passenger seat and Gaston in the back. He barely recognized any of them. Audrey wore a baseball cap that covered her hair. Kaldar and Gaston looked like two beggars in ripped-up clothing. Jack forced himself to ignore the car. They were the backup. If anything went wrong, the adults would run to rescue them. When he told them that if something went wrong, they would have to rescue the other guys instead, nobody seemed amused.
Jack hid a sigh. He was under strict orders to do nothing violent unless it was absolutely necessary.
They strolled up the street. Out on the sidewalk, kids traveled in pairs, handing out little pieces of paper. George and Jack stopped, leaning on the building, and watched them for a while. The kids worked the street up and down, targeting women mostly. They had it down pat: a suck-up smile, a few quick words, hold out the paper, a sad dog face if they didn't take it, a giant smile if they did, and on to the next victim. A tall, lean man watched the whole thing from the side. He held a placard that said, COME TO JESUS! LIVE AN ABUNDANT LIFE.
Jack didn't fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn't comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus' necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn't stop laughing and had to sit down.
The man with the placard noticed them. The next time a pair of kids passed him, he handed the placard to them and started across the street toward the two of them in an unhurried fashion. George tensed next to him. A nervous burst of alarm dashed through him, and Jack squared his shoulders. Kaldar and Audrey had made them practice the conversation for the last three hours. This was the real thing, and he was so excited, he had to fight to keep himself from jumping and yelling something stupid.
A faint scent of cinnamon fluttered on the wind. Placard Man. Declan smelled like a pie, but this man's scent was slightly bitter, spiced with cloves. It wasn't that Placard Man was that powerful or had that much magic, but he'd definitely been around it.
The man stopped a few feet away, hands in plain view. "Hey there."
Showtime. Jack gave him the kind of look bluebloods unleashed when they first found out he was a changeling: half suspicion, half derision.
George just stared at the man, his face flat and unfriendly, tense as if ready to bolt any second. Kaldar had explained the street-prostitute thing to them. He said it was the easiest way to go, and they both agreed they could do that.
"I saw you standing here," Placard Man said.
Jack bared his teeth at him. "We can stand here."
"It's a public street," George said.
"That's an interesting accent," the man said. "You boys are English?"
Aha, they had practiced that one. "Canadian," Jack said, while George said, "None of your business" at the same time.
"Canadian." The man nodded in appreciation. "You're a long way from home. Does your family know where you are?"
"What do you want, dude?" George asked.
"I want to help," the man said.
"Right." George laughed, cold and bitter.
"We don't need any," Jack told him.
"From what I'm looking at, you do. Do you boys know about Jesus Christ, our Savior?"
"I don't know, does Jesus have food?" Jack smirked.
"Yes," the man said. "Yes, he does. When's the last time you two ate?"
"Look, why don't you bugger off," George told him. "We aren't bothering you."
Placard Man smiled. "I tell you what, I'm shorthanded today. If the two of you give out flyers for me for the next two hours, there will be a sandwich and a bottle of water in it for each of you. And a cookie."
"What kind of cookie?" Jack asked.
George put a restraining hand over him. They didn't practice that, but Jack went along with it. "What else do we have to do for the food?" A warning note crept into his voice. Heh. George was kicking ass and taking names.
Placard Man sighed. "Nothing else. Definitely nothing like what you're thinking of. Nobody will touch you or force you to do something you don't want to do. Just simple payment for two hours of honest work. And the cookie is chocolate chip, by the way."
George pretended to think it over.
"I'm starving," Jack said.
"We just hand out flyers," George said. "Nothing else."
"Nothing else."
"We're not going into any buildings with you, dude."
"That's fine," Placard Man said. "No buildings."