Auckland Allies Complete Boxed Set: Auckland Allies

By Mike Reeves-McMillan

The Auckland Allies series, complete in one volume, annotated by the author.

Auckland, New Zealand: a city dotted with extinct volcanoes, which can be used to anchor powerful magic. That's exactly what the sinister Blokes in Black want to do, and since nobody else is stepping up to stop them, an underpowered, bickering group of magical nobodies is stuck with the task.

Sparx: Huge nerd. Minor electromancer.
Tara: Angry artist. Also martial artist, kind of, a bit.
Steampunk Sally: History fangirl. Can see a few seconds into the future if she squints.
Dan: White knight. Demons expert. Has a van.
Lynn: Giant Buffy fan. Giant brain. Tiny sense of self-preservation.

Follow this assorted group as they learn to work together to battle demons, ghosts, body-snatching Nazi sorcerers, werewolves, and the Guardians (part cult, part supernatural vigilante force, part bureaucracy; no sense of humour about any of it).

Contains:
Auckland Allies
Ghost Bridge
Unsafe Harbour
Wolf Park
Memorial Museum
Author's annotations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Reeves-McMillan
• Release date: May 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224001477

Book preview

Auckland Allies Complete Boxed Set

Complete series of five urban fantasy novels set in Auckland, New Zealand

Mike Reeves-McMillan

C-Side Media

Copyright © 2015, 2016, 2022, 2024 Mike Reeves-McMillan

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Many of the places are real, though.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by Chris Howard (Saltwaterwitch.com)

Book 1: Auckland Allies

Tara

Chapter 1

I had just finished tattooing around my left nostril and was checking the effect in the monitor when my phone rang.

I started in surprise—just as well I had put the tattoo needle down—and picked up the phone, cursing under my breath. I could have sworn I’d switched it off.

Sure enough, the little plane showed at the top, but the caller ID told me Sparx. That explained it.

Sparx was another practitioner—hence the craft name—but his powers ran to electronics. He rented the other office space above the New Age shop, next to my craft studio. We’d referred a few clients to each other. He’d also helped me rig up the camera and monitor that I used to tattoo myself, without asking any questions about why I needed a camera that could pick up ultraviolet.

I suspected he might have a thing for me, which wasn’t mutual. He’s one of those bony, sloppy nerds, and habitually wears wrinkled monochrome clothes, a long black ponytail, a little goatee, and a hangdog expression. As far as I was concerned, Justin Timberlake wouldn’t have had to bring sexy back if Sparx hadn’t taken it away to begin with.

I answered. What? I said in a this better be good tone, the calm of my working trance shattered.

Tara, he said, You have to get out of there.

What? I said again, questioning this time. Sparx...

Listen to me, he said. I just got a tipoff from a client. He was warning me, but it’s really to do with you. Someone’s put out a hit on you.

Sparx, I said, are you high? I’m a Maker. I’m not political.

Look, I know this guy. I’d take the warning seriously. Besides, a lot of people on the upper slopes of the power law graph consider what you and I do political. You know, empowering the little people down in the long tail. I got the impression, in fact, that that might be the problem.

He had a point. Probably one of my clients had used something I sold them in a way that annoyed someone dangerous, and that had spilled over onto me. Magical politics can get complicated. Or very straightforward, sometimes.

All right, I said, assuming that, for the sake of argument, what are you suggesting I do? I put the phone on speaker, broke the working circle with my ritual dagger, and started packing away the tattoo kit in its box, my hands working at high speed. I have a fast hands spell that enables me to do practiced movements rapidly without losing accuracy, and I use it all the time.

Your studio isn’t defensible, he said.

How do you know?

Business premises. Same as mine. Can’t ward it strongly enough to keep out the kind of mage they’ll send. You need to be in a home.

My sister has been saying that for years. I’d worn a silk robe for my ritual, one I’d had a clothmage friend embroider to my design, but now I stripped it off and hurried into my usual daywear: jeans, cobalt-blue long-sleeved T-shirt, flat-soled martial arts shoes. I slipped the dagger into its soft leather sheath and tucked into the back of my belt. My jacket would hide it. A decorated clip already held back my shoulder-length dark-blonde hair. It helped with the fast hands spell.

I kept talking as I dressed. Thanks for the warning, Sparx. I owe you one.

Wait, he said. My place is closer than yours.

Sparx, I began.

No, listen, there’s no time to argue. Grab what you can’t do without and meet me outside.

I glanced around, hooked a couple of amulets off a display stand, shrugged into my jacket, undid the do-not-disturb spell on my studio door and flung it open.

Sparx stood outside, wearing a Bluetooth earpiece. When he saw me, he did something to his watch, I assumed hanging up the phone. He’s the kind of guy who’s had a smartwatch since before they were cool (and looks down his nose at these new Apple ones). As we hurried down the old wooden staircase, he pulled on a pair of tan leather fingerless gloves with circuitry worked into them and metal bracelets that locked around the wrist end.

I shot him an inquiring look as I tossed him an etched stone amulet, which he slipped over his head without more than a brief glance. Sparx knows my stuff. These would protect us from one direct magical attack, maybe two, depending on the practitioner.

Tasers, sort of, he said, waggling his gloved hands, and I nodded.

You’re prepared for something like this?

Not as prepared as I’d like, but I knew it might happen someday.

I nodded. The thing about magic is that it attracts people who like power. They’re not always nice people.

Kat waved to us through the window. Speaking of nice people, I thought. Kat’s the fluffy little hippy who keeps the New Age shop. I put up with her vague earnestness because she’s my best source of referral business, and because it would take a lot of effort to dislike someone like Kat. I definitely didn’t want anyone breaking up her shop because of me.

I’m not sure she believes in insurance, for one thing.

I led Sparx around the back to the alley where I parked Maria, my classic Vespa. I had restored her myself, working certain designs into her in the process, under the azzuro chiaro paint job, and she ran better than when she came out of the factory. I scowled at Sparx when he gave her a sceptical look. Sparx took the bus to work, but I wasn’t going to endanger innocents by getting on a bus, and we couldn’t wait in any case.

Shut up, I said, and get on. I pulled on a pair of light gloves over my pale, burnable Irish skin, despite the overcast winter sky. It was one of those Auckland days where the light is grey and headache-inducing. Still lots of ultraviolet coming through the hole in the ozone layer.

The horn, he said. It has a rubber bulb.

Yep. No electronics anywhere on her. I unlocked the seat and pulled on my helmet, the black one covered in gold Celtic designs. It would protect my head from anything short of direct artillery fire, though unfortunately it wouldn’t do the same for the rest of me. I passed him the white helmet with the daisies. He gave me one of his woeful looks, but put it on.

Why is no electronics a good thing?

Because there are people like you.

Nobody is like me. I stand alone.

I snorted, and swung myself onto the seat. You will if you don’t get on the scooter, I said, and started it as he climbed hurriedly on behind me. Watch where you put your hands.

As we puttered onto the road, Sparx said, Those martial arts shoes.

What about them?

Do you actually do martial arts?

Tai chi, I said. He sighed, and I gunned the engine, insofar as you can gun the engine of a forty-year-old 125cc Vespa.

☐

We didn’t take the most obvious route to Sparx’s place, but there was a street we had to use or go ten minutes out of our way, and I decided to risk it. I did activate my tattoos, though.

Nobody knew about the tattoos, not even Sparx. They were an idea of my own, and so far it was working out. Starting on my hands with Celtic spirals, a pattern of knotwork ran up both arms and across my shoulders, then up my neck, where it branched to loop around my ears, eyes, and—as of that morning—left nostril. All in ultraviolet ink, but I knew where they were, and they united the magic in several different parts of my body, meaning I could shift it to where it was most needed. I don’t have much magical whammy (that’s a technical term), not compared to some, but I make up for it with skill and hard work. It’s amazing how much you can do with a small amount of power, well directed.

Right now, my mediocre talent was focused into my eyes, watching out for signs of other people working magic.

Two nondescript men in button-up black shirts, black jerseys and black trousers stood opposite each other on the sides of the road, just as it passed a small block of shops. I wouldn’t have given them a second glance—they didn’t have any magic showing—but something about the way they looked at me and then each other, and their similar clothing, roused my suspicions. I slowed Maria, narrowing my eyes, just as they pulled a clothesline taut across the road at the height of my chest.

I slammed on the brakes and turned into the skid, aiming for the man on the left, whose eyes widened. Sparx clutched at my waist and made an inarticulate noise. I shoved him off me as we screeched to a stop, my right shoulder pressed against the still-taut line.

Get the other one, I yelled, and headed for the left-hand man, drawing my ritual dagger from behind my back where Sparx had been crushing the handle into my right kidney. The man let go of the rope and took to his heels. Even at Maria’s speed, that clothesline stunt could have killed us both, and I was seriously vexed. I gave chase.

Most people, apparently including Sparx, think of tai chi as a gentle exercise to help Grandma improve her balance, so she doesn’t break a hip tripping over the cat. What they don’t realise is that it’s basically kung fu slowed right down.

I sped it up again.

With the help of my tattoos, I poured enough power into my ritual dagger to make it, for about a second, a tai chi sword.

A second was enough. I could have killed the guy, but apart from the ethical and legal issues around that, it would have tainted my dagger, and I didn’t have a week to spare to make another. I struck him with the magical part of the blade, and chose a nerve plexus rather than, say, his heart. He went down in a twitching heap, and I spun round.

Another twitching heap across the road was our other attacker. Sparx, with a self-satisfied look, was changing batteries on his taser gloves.

Come on, I said, and we piled back on Maria and roared off before anyone could come out to investigate the ruckus.

☐

As the adrenaline faded, I wondered what had come over me. I’m a Maker, not a destroyer, and yet when threatened, I’d gone right on the attack. It gave me the shivers, and I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience any time soon. I hoped that the two clothesliners would be all we had to face.

I also wondered who might have started this trouble. Apart from my usual stock items, the amulets and such, I’d sold three commissioned pieces recently. Potions Dave had bought a ritual dagger similar to mine, but Dave was well-established, had a decent amount of power himself, and was the kind of person who’s in good standing with everyone. Rachel Weaver had commissioned a plaque with one of her poems for a friend’s wedding, but I couldn’t see that upsetting anyone. I’d hardly put any power into it, just a bit of a spell to amplify happiness and harmony.

That left Steampunk Sally. She had a very small ability to see events a few seconds before they happened, and she’d brought me a pocket-watch case and a pair of brass goggles and had me work spells into them to enhance her powers. Now that I thought about it, there were all kinds of ways that could go bad, from poker to safecracking. If I made it to Sparx’s place, I was going to call Sally and have a serious discussion. Assuming she was still alive.

☐

A block away from his house, Sparx directed me away from his street towards a nearby park.

Back way, he explained, shouting to be heard over Maria.

We parked in the shade, and he led me to a walkway at the back of the park, fenced on both sides from the properties it ran between. I oriented myself. One of the properties was Sparx’s place, I thought.

I didn’t know you had a gate back here, I said.

I don’t spread it around, he said, pausing by what looked like just another piece of wooden fence between two posts and laying his fingers against it at one end. He closed his eyes. After a moment, a latch clicked and he drew the disguised gate open and waved me through. I glanced at the latch as I passed. Electronic. Sparx, of course, could operate it through the gate.

I switched my attention to the back yard. It could have done with mowing, about a year ago, from the looks, and several dusty patches needed re-seeding. A weather-beaten green patio umbrella covered in spiderwebs leaned drunkenly above a couple of dirty lawn chairs. I got the impression Sparx didn’t come out here much, though his pasty complexion could have told me that.

Right, said Sparx, turning away from the relocked gate, we...

I flung a hand back, gesturing for silence, as something caught at my enhanced senses: a surge of magic behind the steeply sloping roof of Sparx’s house.

Before we could sprint for the door, a tall man dressed all in black rose over the roof.

When I say he rose, a whirl of wind lifted him, black trousers flapping, and deposited him on Sparx’s corrugated-iron roofing (which needed painting, and creaked under the strain).

That wasn’t good news. Anyone who could do that had a lot of power and decent control, and could sic the weather on us. I glanced up at the sky. Black clouds. Wonderful.

I grabbed Sparx by the shoulder and hauled him into the biggest patch of dust, then pulled my knife and crouched. I swept a perfect circle around us, Sparx jumping over my arm and barely keeping himself from staggering out of the circle as he landed. Not a natural athlete, Sparx.

Before I could close the circle, something that felt like a large pillow hit me right in the chi. My amulet and Sparx’s both cracked, and I blessed my forethought in grabbing them. Without them, that pillow would have been more like a car.

It would take our opponent a few moments to summon more power, and I took advantage, completing the circle and laying down a series of interlocking curves just outside it, like opening fern fronds, each overlapping the next. My fast-hands spell enabled me to complete the well-practiced movement in moments.

Even so, I had just finished when the black-clad man’s next spell started whirling the air around my protective circle. I swallowed hard. To cast a direct magical strike like that and then raise that much air power that fast afterwards, he had to be seriously strong. Well out of my league, and I was stronger than Sparx, who couldn’t move anything much bigger than an electron.

Well, what we lacked in raw power we would have to make up in skill. I visualised the pattern I had scribed into the dust rising up into a column around us, diverting the force of the wind. Sure enough, the dust outside the circle whipped into a small tornado, but the air around us remained still.

Good circle, said Sparx. Now what do we do?

Focused on the immediate threat, I hadn’t thought beyond it. We couldn’t move the circle; it was anchored to its physical representation on the dusty ground. If we tried to leave it, the winds would seize us, and most likely snatch us into the air and impale us on someone’s old TV aerial. Even if I’d had an effective attack, I couldn’t use it.

Can you call anyone for help? I asked. He looked embarrassed.

I kind of used up all my favours over a thing last week.

Doesn’t matter, I said, panic rising. You can owe them. I can owe you. Just...

It’s going to be too late, he said. You feel that?

What?

He tore off his right glove and grabbed my hand. At first, all I could feel was his clammy palm in mine, and then I sensed it, a shift in the air that raised the hairs on my neck.

He’s building up a charge around us, said Sparx. Can your circle cope with a lightning bolt?

I clutched my forehead with my free hand. That was way above my level. If he could feel it building, the charge must be inside my circle already. Unless...

Sparx, I said, you can reach through my circles, right? He must have done so earlier, to set off my phone.

Yeah, he said. You don’t block off much, to be honest. From my perspective, he hurried to add, anticipating my glare.

Can you build on my spell to shut the charge outside?

If I could see it, maybe, but working just from the marks on the ground...

I took a deep breath. Here, I said, and pushed all my power into my left hand, the hand he was holding. All my power, and all my senses, open to him. Can you see it now?

He didn’t need to answer. I saw him grin, saw his look of concentration as he reached out his power, borrowing mine to work on a scale he’d never worked on before. I felt my body temperature drop as he drew on me, and goosebumps rose on my arms. I felt nauseated, too, like you do when you’re in shock. I clamped my jaw shut and hung on.

I could only see glimpses of what he was doing, weaving his very different power with my own, but the spreading grin on his face told me that he was succeeding.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a magical circle that’s creating a tube of safety in the middle of a lightning charge when that charge suddenly goes off. If you ever find yourself in such a position, close your eyes. There’s nothing much to be done about the deafening thunderclap, but at least you can avoid being blinded. There you have it: the famous benefit of hindsight.

I recovered first, probably because my senses had been dulled by Sparx pulling on my power, and glanced over Sparx’s shoulder at the rooftop. Somehow we had ended up in a slow-dance position, propping each other up in the rapidly dissipating protective circle. I scanned desperately with my dazzled eyes for the assassin.

I finally figured out what I was seeing, and yelled in Sparx’s ear.

Sparx! What do you think happens when you’re high up on a tin roof and call lightning, and it doesn’t hit its target?

I’m guessing nothing good.

I’d say you’re right. The assassin lay on the roof, his head hanging over the leaf-choked guttering. A silver pendant hung out of his collar, marked with what I thought was some sort of seal for controlling demons.

We approached the house and looked up. I narrowed my eyes and tried to see through the flashing lights in my vision. Was he breathing?

Sparx, I said, call an ambulance. Better get the fire service too, they’ll need a ladder.

☐

Sparx hung up his phone from his smartwatch and gave a wry laugh. Seems strange, he said, calling for help for someone who just tried to kill you and got hoist with his own petard.

You don’t come from a magical background, do you?

Nope, he said, I’m muggle-born.

I shot him a look, but didn’t comment on his terminology. We don’t use the J.K.R. word. "My father’s a practitioner, and even though he raised me with a more... mainstream morality, he made sure I knew about what you might call the magical code duello. Humanitarian concerns aside, in the world of magical politics a gesture like that sends a message. We’re telling whoever’s peeved at me, ‘We dealt with your guys, but we didn’t kill them, like we could have. If you back off now, this ends here.’

Now, I need to talk to Steampunk Sally and see if she’s connected to this.

Sparx nodded, then grinned at me.

What? I said.

We made a pretty good team there, didn’t we?

Don’t get any ideas, I said.

But I was grinning too.

It worried me.

Sally

Chapter 2

The disappointing thing was that I didn’t get to say hit me.

I tapped my finger behind my chips, my attention wandering around the neon tawdriness of the Sky City Casino. The waistcoat-and-bow-tie-clad blackjack dealer turned over another card. I glanced at the card for the sake of form, waved my hand from side to side (the signal for stand), and she turned over her card, and busted. As I had known would happen.

My grandad had made the brass goggles, and I’d bought the pocket watch from another steampunk, but Tara had… enhanced them. With a determined effort, I stopped myself from touching either one. I didn’t want to look like I had some kind of device helping me to cheat, especially since that was exactly what I did have.

I have a small natural ability to know what’s about to happen. It extends maybe two seconds into the future, if I’m in the right frame of mind, a little longer if it’s important, like a personal threat. What Tara had done to my gear roughly doubled that.

Four seconds isn’t a long enough lead time to cheat at poker, or even roulette, but it works just beautifully for blackjack.

I touched my chips, preparing to move them around, and froze, a premonition of danger lancing through me with a jolt. I know not to ignore those feelings, and I grabbed my bag—one of my creations, leather covered in brass gears—and swept the pile of $100 chips into it. A few of the chips, rimmed in black, red and yellow with a picture of the Sky Tower in the middle, fell to the floor, and I scooped them up and crammed them in the bag.

The dealer looked at me suspiciously and made a signal that I assumed called security. I had been winning pretty consistently (not all the time, I wasn’t that silly, or even that good if I’m honest), and she had to suspect that I was working some kind of system.

My gut feel was that the safest exit lay behind me, and I hurried for it. I was dressed in full steampunk cosplay, since I needed an excuse to wear the goggles (I could have got away with the watch in ordinary clothes). I love dressing up, but my soft top hat, corset covered in brass gears, and long Victorian dress aren’t ideal for an inconspicuous exit, especially from a room where most other people are wearing casual modern clothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large man in a black button-up shirt and black trousers heading in my direction. The shirt didn’t display any casino logos, but I assumed he was security.

The Sky Tower, on top of the casino, is the tallest building in Auckland, but the casino itself is relatively low-rise, and I didn’t need to use a lift to get down to the street. That was good; a lift would trap me, make me easy to catch. Downstairs, I slipped through the thickest part of the crowd, pulling out the two antique hatpins and sweeping my hat off to hold in the hand that wasn’t carrying my bag, to make me harder to spot. I’m short, which means I’m already hard to see in crowds, but at the same time it meant I couldn’t see my pursuer.

Not that I needed to, I reminded myself. Any more than I needed to see the blackjack cards.

I composed myself as best I could, being chased through a noisy crowd in a garishly-decorated casino. My talent works best when I don’t pay attention to it, when I’m loose and calm, like you need to be to remember a word that’s on the tip of your tongue. That’s hard to achieve when you feel like you’ve just made a mess of things, when the tears are queued up behind your eyelids and nobody’s going to rescue you.

I took a roundabout path through the crowd, circulating until I neared a door, then made a break for it onto Federal Street at the back of the casino. Damp, cool air shocked me as I emerged.

Federal Street is what they call a shared space, meaning that cars can use it, but they need to watch out for pedestrians. Also vice versa, though, so I glanced around as the heels of my buttoned boots clicked on the grey cobbles, heading for Victoria Street. The concrete Sky Tower towered—well, it would, wouldn’t it—over the corner, dwarfing the much older buildings opposite. Central Auckland is a mix of late-20th and early-21st-century highrises and mostly-two-story buildings from the early 20th, with not much in between, and often the two styles stand right next to one another.

I hurried down the hill, towards Queen Street at the bottom. The trees of Albert Park, several blocks away on the opposite hill, beckoned me. If I could reach my locker at the university without being caught, I could change into less conspicuous clothing and be away free.

My intuition kept twinging at intervals, indicating that I hadn’t lost my pursuer yet. I reached the corner of Victoria and Albert Streets (Auckland was established during the Victorian era, can you tell?) and glanced around for somewhere I could shake him off.

Atrium on Elliot. That would do. It’s, I suppose, an arcade—in the Victorian sense of a pedestrian shopping precinct that connects two streets, rather than the video game kind. It starts in a hotel lobby on Albert Street and comes out on Elliot Street, further down the hill. I dived through the traffic, knowing that the light would change in the next four seconds, and glanced back when I reached the other side. The man in black was trapped on the other side by the now-moving cars. Auckland drivers get ruder and more impatient the closer they get to the centre of the city, and nobody was going to stop for him, or even slow down.

The light phases aren’t long, though, so I picked up my pace through the first of the atrium’s three levels (it’s a steep hill between Albert and Elliot Streets). As you come off the first escalator, there’s a sharp turn, which took me out of sight of the entrance. I briefly considered the lifts as I passed, but I knew they wouldn’t come any time in the next four seconds, and I didn’t dare wait for them.

Once you get around that first corner, the main atrium is a three-story-tall space served by a series of escalators. Presumably in order to make you walk past the shops, the escalators are set up so that you have to go all the way round the central shaft, or across a central bridge on the middle level, to get from the bottom of one escalator to the top of the next. Because it’s an open shaft, I could be spotted across the space.

I hit the first escalator and fidgeted behind a couple of oblivious teenagers absorbed in their phones, my urgent need to escape warring with my cultural reticence about speaking to people I didn’t know. The escalators are narrow, one person wide, and I would have to shove between them to get through. I settled for bursting past them as we reached the next level, and hurrying across the bridge to the top of the second escalator.

I glanced up and saw my pursuer one level up. He yelled something to me, and I ran onto the escalator and down the moving steps towards the food hall at the bottom. Looking back, I saw him rounding the shaft.

A moment of panic at the glass doors onto Elliot Street, when the automatic door opener took a second to recognise me, and then I ran up a short flight of steps and onto the street.

Elliot is another cobblestoned shared space, with benches and street trees that narrow it to a single lane for the occasional car that passes, though without them it would be two lanes wide. I hurried across and plunged into the Strand Arcade.

Normally, I would have taken time to admire the wrought-iron railings of the century-old arcade, but this was not the time. The arcade takes you in a straight run from Elliot to Queen, with no cover short of ducking into one of the shops, which would trap me. I considered, and dismissed, going up to the higher levels—it stretches up several stories, but I didn’t know of any other exits.

By now, I was panting, and my boots were starting to pinch. My precognitive gift warned me that pursuit wasn’t far behind. I hurried onto Queen Street, crossed (dodging traffic), and took advantage of the short arcade that leads up one level to Lorne Street. I felt safer staying off the main streets, and Queen Street, which runs at the bottom of two of Auckland’s many hills, is the main street. I thought I’d got into the arcade without being spotted, but I didn’t hang about, dashing past the sushi place and up a few steps onto Lorne.

There’s a little square set back from the other side of Lorne Street with a set of steps at the back, and I took them up to Kitchener, mentally saluting the women’s suffrage centennial mural (1893-1993) as I passed it, gasping from the climb. I just needed to go past the art gallery, up through Albert Park, and I would be, if not home safe, at least…

Hey! called a male voice.

I spun round, startled, and caught sight of a black-clad figure. I started to run, which in full steampunk costume is not something to be undertaken lightly.

Sarah! called the voice. Sarah Brown! Hey, it’s me!

I stumbled on the steps beside the gallery, and turned.

Oh, I said. Hey, Gaz.

☐

I’ve known Gary Williams since high school, and we’re both studying at the University of Auckland, though we don’t have any lectures together. He’s a nice guy, a musician, but neither a steampunk nor (as far as I know) a magical. I waited, deliberately not turning all the way round towards him, for him to come up beside me, and then started walking again.

What was that about? he said. Why did you run?

Thought you were someone else. Long story.

Is someone bothering you?

No, no. Just someone I don’t want to see. How are you going?

OK, he said, and we fell silent as we hit the steep part of the hill. I was already winded from hurrying down from the casino, and as much as I love corsets, they don’t help the breathing. It provided a good excuse not to say much more to him.

We parted at the back of the Maidment, the university’s on-campus theatre, and I made it to my locker, took out my dress-down clothes, and stashed the bag with the casino chips, the hat, and the goggles. The watch by itself would boost my precognition by maybe a second. That would have to be enough.

Anyway, I was pretty sure I’d eluded pursuit.

☐

I still waited until a couple of days later to go back and cash in my chips.

I dressed in clothes that nobody would look twice at, dyed my hair a darker brown, let it down around my shoulders, and drifted it across my face. I keep it up in a ballerina bun when I’m wearing the costume, under the hat, in part to give the hatpins something to hold on to. Flat sports shoes and modern-style makeup completed the, I hoped, unmemorable look. The costume is pretty distinctive, and it’s what people remember; I have an average face.

Now, Sally, I said to myself, as I entered the casino, remember, quick in and out. Don’t draw attention to yourself, and you’ll be fine.

I took a deep breath, composed my face into what I hoped was blandness, and made for the cashier.

The premonition hit me while he was counting the money for the second time. I danced from foot to foot like a child who needs to pee.

Can you hurry? I said. I need to be somewhere. Somewhere not here.

He gave me a look, carefully squared the bills and slipped a rubber band around them.

There you go, miss, he said, proffering the bundle.

I practically snatched it from his hand and fled.

Different route this time, my gut told me. Instead of turning left on Federal Street, I went right, along the front of the hotel opposite the casino. It was a Saturday, and the lunchtime crowds were out, spilling from the restaurants along the street. I ducked across a tiled square and down past an artificial waterfall, hurrying down an escalator in the direction of Queen Street. I glanced back; no black-clad casino security guys that I could see, but my precognitive sense still said danger, danger, danger.

The pedestrian signal went as I neared the corner of Wellesley and Albert, and I ducked across, then risked traffic to cross Albert Street against the light. An SUV, one of those suburban battleship ones, came close enough that if I’d been wearing my bustle he would have clipped it.

Remember how I said Central Auckland is a mixture of mirror-glass monoliths and two-story early-20th-century buildings? One of those low-rises stands at Wellesley and Albert, a timeworn beige building labelled Griffith Holdings in big letters along its second-story frontage. I ducked round behind it, aiming to get off the main street where some trees would help to screen me from view, and found myself in a carpark at the back of a brutalist mid-20th-century slab.

By this point, it was hard to tell the danger sense from general nervousness and adrenaline. I didn’t feel as if I was about to be caught in the next three seconds, but I also didn’t feel remotely safe. I needed to get out of sight somewhere that my pursuer wouldn’t think to follow.

Circling Griffith Holdings, I found, on the back corner furthest from the two streets, a rough brick wall, timeworn and full of what looked, in my situation, very much like handholds. I glanced around. Surely nobody would be in the ugly office building on a Saturday, looking out the windows. Nobody was walking through the carpark, either; signs indicated that it was reserved parking for Auckland Council pool vehicles—and again, weekend. One of the trees grew close to the corner in question, and would screen me from most angles, even if it currently lacked its leaves.

I fished in my jacket pocket for a pair of winter gloves to protect my delicate, ladylike hands (hah!) and began to climb. The first meter or so of the corner was sheathed in chicken wire, presumably to discourage exactly what I was attempting, but I did something I’d seen a guy do at a climbing wall and just made a run at it. The wire flexed enough to give me footholds on the bricks underneath, and my gloved hands clawed at it, momentum getting me past that first couple of meters.

On the way up, I kept getting flashes of premonition, though it was hard to tell, given that I don’t like heights. I’ve climbed at the climbing wall a couple of times, but there you have a safety line that will drop you to the ground in one piece if you slip or let go. Here, there was just a two-storey drop onto concrete. The premonitory warnings feel exactly like the stabs of fear you get when your hand slips while climbing a crumbling brick wall built in, at a rough guess, 1910, and poorly maintained.

Little daisies and other random weeds had colonised the crumbling mortar between the old bricks. I didn’t stop to admire them.

Precognition would have come in handy for finding handholds, but between the fear of heights and the sense of overall threat, by the time I was too far up to go back, I couldn’t have predicted the position of the sun at noon. When a precognitive is in danger, you don’t get a lot of sense out of her regarding anything else. She knows where the danger is coming from, roughly, and where to go to avoid it, and that’s about all. It’s a survival mechanism, I suppose, but a particularly annoying one.

At a point about my own height below a dubious piece of cast iron that marked the edge of the roof, I slowed, my arms burning. I was just above the canopy of the tree. Did I not feel safe because someone was about to see me, or because I was clinging to a brick wall nearly two stories above the ground?

Such philosophical questions had to be pondered later. Right now, if I didn’t reach the top I wouldn’t have the strength, and then I would cling to the wall for a short time before reaching the bottom very, very quickly. I set my jaw and hauled hand over hand, eyes fixed on the tricky bit at the top.

With a last flash of fear, I hauled myself onto the rust-marked corrugated-iron roof and dragged myself behind an extractor fan outlet, gasping. The outlet blasted me with kitchen smells from one of the restaurants on the Wellesley Street side of the building. The Asian barbecue, I thought.

The fear slowly faded, and after I had lain there for ten minutes or so, I started to think about how I was going to get down when the time came.

Peeking round the steel extractor chimney, I saw a rickety wooden stair, probably a fire escape, leading down the side of the building into a small enclosed yard full of restaurant-related detritus. It started at the upper floor, and I was a good three metres above it. I was weighing up whether it would be worth the risk—and how likely I was just to fall back into the hands of casino security—when I got a premonition that my mobile was about to ring.

I fished it out of my pocket, checking, as I did so, that my wad of money was still there. It was, to my immense relief. The phone’s screen told me it was Tara calling.

Ahoy-hoy? (People think that’s Mr Burns, but it’s the phrase Alexander Graham Bell used to answer the phone. Hello is Edison, and you don’t want to get me started on Edison. I’m a Tesla girl all the way.)

Sally, said Tara’s no-nonsense voice. She’s not a warm person.

Hi, Tara. Um, this might not be the best time…

Do you know anything about some characters in black?

Well, I might…

Because they just tried to kill us.

Us?

Me and my… colleague. I thought she worked alone, but whatever.

You think it’s because of the gear you did for me?

I haven’t done anything for anyone else lately that might provoke that kind of reaction. What have you been doing?

Well, I’ve been sort of gambling.

"Sort of gambling?"

Well, it isn’t really gambling when you know the outcome, is it? And casino security has been after me.

Casino security clotheslines people on motor scooters now?

What?

Sally, we’ve just had a heavy-duty hitter try to take us out with lightning, and we’re not impressed. Where are you?

Well, I’m actually on a roof.

Your roof?

No, someone else’s. Downtown.

Near the casino, by any chance?

Well, as it happens, yes.

Can you be seen from the Sky Tower?

I glanced up. I hadn’t even thought of that. No, the angle’s too tight. There’s another tall building in the way. Anyway, I feel safe. You know, precognitively. I’d had to explain, and demonstrate, my powers to Tara before she could boost them.

Do you plan on getting down any time soon?

That was sort of my next thing to work on, yes.

And where will you go next?

Home, I suppose. Um… could you possibly give me a lift? I don’t really want to wait at a bus stop when people are after me.

I heard Tara sigh. Sally…

Tara, I heard a man’s voice say in the background, come on, we’ve got to help her.

No we don’t, said Tara, not into the phone, but I could still hear her. She sounded more than a little miffed.

Look, I’ll go if you won’t.

You don’t have a vehicle.

Um, can I borrow…?

No, you can’t borrow Maria. Nobody drives Maria but me.

There was a silence, and I imagined them staring each other down, then Tara said, Oh, all right, then, I’ll go and get her. Where are you exactly, Sally?

I gave her directions. Call me when you get here, I said.

I’ll go with you, said the background man.

There’s only room for two at a time on the scooter, Tara pointed out.

So I’ll take the bus back. I want to be there, in case I’m needed.

Who’s that? I asked.

Sparx. Do you mind if he comes?

Not at all, I said, trying to remember if I knew a Sparx. He had a baritone voice, a bit monotone, but he was saying the right things, from my perspective.

All right. Twenty minutes or so.

☐

Twenty minutes is a long time to lie on a rusty roof wondering why black-clad men are after you, especially if you’ve just been told that they have magical powers and have tried to kill people. By the fifteen-minute mark, I’d worked myself up into a state of near-panic, and those tears that had been prickling my eyelids had leaked out and ruined my mascara. I’d run a series of thoughts round and round: Were the men coming for me? Could I make it down from the roof? Would Tara and the mysterious Sparx ever get here? Even though my danger sense told me I was currently safe, it only meant that I was safe for the next few seconds. By the time it warned me, it might be too late.

At last, the phone rang again. My voice shook when I answered.

I’m down in the carpark now, said Tara.

I peeked over the edge of the roof and saw her standing beside a retro scooter, the light-blue colour of a 1950s kitchen mixer. I had a moment’s shock when I saw a tall man standing next to her wearing black, but then I realised it was a jacket zipped up over a pale shirt. He looked pretty harmless, too, not like someone who would be hired to do security.

Is that Sparx next to you? I said. They both looked around, and located me.

What the hell are you doing up there? said Tara, into her phone. And how are you going to get down?

I’ve been thinking about that, I said, my voice steadying in the presence of rescuers. My best bet seems to be to climb as far down this ventilator chimney as I can and then drop onto the fire escape.

That’s a fire escape? It’s the most flammable-looking part of the building.

Yeah, I don’t think this building is exactly up to modern safety standards. It looks like it’ll hold, though.

Hang on, let us go round the building and see if there’s a better option.

They walked past and out of sight in the direction of Wellesley Street. I heard them talking, but couldn’t hear what they were saying; Tara apparently didn’t have the phone near her mouth. She came back on and said, I think you could probably climb down the front corner here pretty safely, but it’s right out on the main road.

Could you text me a picture?

OK. Sparx, how do I do that?

After a bit of back and forth, my phone dinged and I fiddled around with it until I could see the picture. I’d have to lower myself over the back parapet to a ledge that ran along the top of the brick wall, clamber down some broken bricks—less straight-up-and-down than the ones I had come up, at the other end of the wall, but hardly a set of stairs—and then scramble down onto a broken-off pillar and from there to the ground.

Yeah, nah, I said. I think I’ll take my chances back here, thanks.

Over to you, said Tara. It would be pretty public, anyway, and for all we know those goons are still around.

They returned to the back of the building, and while Tara kept watch, Sparx climbed up a sloping wall of brick, over a galvanised-iron fence and along the top of the wall, balancing awkwardly with his long limbs. He scrambled and dropped down into the yard and, after a pause to ensure he hadn’t been heard from one of the shops, snuck up the wooden stairs and stared up at me.

Let yourself down, he said, and I’ll try to catch you.

Anyone in the top floor? I asked, as I prepared to climb down.

Not that I can see, he said. Looks like offices.

I turned my back to him and lowered my right foot, feeling for the bracket that held the extractor chimney in place. It creaked ominously.

I don’t know if that will take my weight, I said. How strong are you, by the way?

About as strong as I look, he said. I’d been afraid of that. He looked like the heaviest thing he usually lifted was a laptop. I’ve only once been called sylph-like, and that was by a steampunk who was trying to get into my bloomers, and didn’t know what it meant.

Right, I said, stand back a bit. I swung myself onto the chimney, hanging onto the part at the top where it took a right-angle bend and blasted pork-scented air over my erstwhile hiding place. Before it could pull away from the building under my weight, I let myself drop, bending my knees.

I staggered back into Sparx, who let out an oof as my shoulders contacted his bony chest. He grabbed me, fortunately by the arms, so I wasn’t forced to explain boundaries to him, and steadied me.

Are you all right? he asked, letting go as if I was hot. Hey, perhaps he thought I was. He seemed like a guy who’d be shy around women.

Fine, I said, and turned. Thanks. He blushed, and nodded.

Right, I said. How do we get out of here?

Sparx

Chapter 3

The bus dropped me just down the road from Sally’s place on Dominion Road.

As I expected, the two women had got there ahead of me. Tara’s Vespa sat in the driveway. Sally let me in and offered me a cup of tea, and I joined them in the lounge. There was a plate of tea cakes, and I helped myself to one. It was decent, with a good number of sultanas.

Nice place, I said. It wasn’t new, by any means, or large, but the furniture didn’t sag or stick you with springs, and it looked as if someone cleaned and tidied it periodically. That counts as nice in my world.

Thanks, she said, and looked sad and pensive. I glanced at Tara, my eyebrows raised, and she gestured towards Sally. She wasn’t going to speak for her.

It was my grandfather’s, said Sally. He died a few months back. I could hear her throat tighten as she said it.

Oh, sorry to hear that, I said. I’d only just met Sally, but I liked her already. She, and Tara, didn’t deserve to have goons pursuing them with lightning bolts, and if I could do anything to help them out, I would.

She nodded acknowledgement. He left it to me. Which was cool of him, but it means I have to keep it up, and that takes money.

Hence using your talent at the casino? I said. Tara had filled me in on the whole Sally story while we’d been waiting for the ambulance at my place.

Yes. I mean, I have a business making steampunk accessories, but it’s only part-time. I’m a psych student.

You’re a Maker? I said.

No, I don’t know how to imbue magic into things. I can use magical items, but I can’t create them like Tara can. That’s partly why I had to get her to do my goggles and pocket watch. That, and I’m more leather and cloth than metalwork. She produced a watch, and I recognised Tara’s designs on the case.

Something I’m curious about, said Tara. How’d they figure out it was my work? And why come after me? And why at Sparx’s place?

Your style’s distinctive, I said. I’d know it anywhere, and there are plenty of other people in Magic Club that would be able to identify it.

Magic Club? said Sally.

That’s what he calls the community, said Tara, her tone leaving no doubt about her opinion of my little quirk.

Because the first rule of Magic Club… I said.

Is don’t talk about Magic Club, right, said Sally, and smiled at me. I was liking her more and more. Not just attractive, but lacking Tara’s hostility to pop culture references. Actually, make that just lacking Tara’s hostility.

It’s a sad commentary on my life that lacking hostility was a thing I noticed in a woman.

There was one tea cake left, and Tara and Sally were observing the unwritten Kiwi rule that you’re not allowed to take the last one of anything. I scoff at unwritten rules, and frequently at written ones. I also scoffed the tea cake.

Sally, when was your original trip to the casino? said Tara, giving me one of her milder looks of disapproval.

Two days ago.

That’s a quick turnaround. And the warning came through one of Sparx’s contacts.

I’m connected, I said. "Communication is part of what I do."

You sure that contact of yours wasn’t just setting us up?

Steve-o? Nah, he wouldn’t do that.

Sparx, you have a touching faith in human nature, said Tara. I don’t share it. You want to call him?

I didn’t want to call him, but with Tara glaring at me like that I was too scared to say no. I pulled out my phone.

That’s the second-biggest phone I’ve ever seen, said Sally, in a reasonable facsimile of a Maxwell Smart voice.

He’s compensating, said Tara.

Kind of a custom job, I said, ignoring her. I built the phone myself, of course. It’s based around two high-end Androids and a Raspberry Pi, but with a lot of add-ons, and a 3D-printed case to fit all of the components (and the big battery and oversized screen). More of a tablet, really, but it does make phone calls. I scrolled through my contacts and pressed the button to connect me to Steve.

He picked up on the third ring. Sparx, mate, he said, how’s it going? You OK?

Yeah, all good, thanks, Steve. We had a bit of a go-round with some blokes in black, but.

Oh, mate, glad to hear you’re all right.

Hey, I was wondering, how did you find out about it, anyway?

Oh, well, you know, I can’t really tell you my sources, eh?

Come on, Steve-o. We just want to find out who’s got a problem with my friend so we can sort it out.

Yeah, nah, can’t help you, bro. Sorry, but you know how it is.

Steve, come on. We need to know.

Ah, yeah, sorry. Look, I’ve got to go, mate. Talk to you later, eh?

He hung up. When I rang back, he didn’t answer.

He won’t talk, I said.

That makes it seem likely that he was told to give you the warning in order to flush us out, said Tara. So whoever it was knew I’d done that job for Sally, knew where my studio is, knew you worked next door, and knew how to get in touch with you. Also, knew where your house is.

Magic Club isn’t that big, I said. There were about a hundred practitioners in Auckland all up, out of more than a million people. Lots of people would know all those things as soon as they looked at a photo of Sally’s gear.

And you can bet they have photos, with all the security cameras, said Sally. "The question is, do they know who I am? And where I live?" She glanced around her house, tension written into her posture.

Do you know many people in the community? said Tara.

Just a couple. My mentor, and you. Oh, and Pythia, I had some lessons from her.

Who’s your mentor?

Prof Gavin.

The Prof’s OK, I said.

This time, I actually agree with you, said Tara. Professor Gavin discovered a lot of potential practitioners through his position at the university. He was trusted without question in the magical community, a good many of whom were there because he’d noticed them and dropped a kind word pointing them towards each other. He wouldn’t betray one of his people.

Just as well you trust him, given that he recommended you to me, said Sally. Her tone held an edge. Tara takes people that way sometimes.

You’re not part of any of the official groups? said Tara, not acknowledging Sally’s point.

Groups?

The Association, or the Society? Or the Guild?

Didn’t know they existed.

You’re Society, aren’t you, Sparx? said Tara.

Yes, but I’m not that active, I said. I mostly just belong so I can have the logo on my website. Some people care about that stuff.

Don’t tell me, there’s fierce infighting between the groups because someone said something to someone else at the conference in Gisborne in 1982, after a few too many wines, and it came out that the president was sleeping with the secretary’s partner, said Sally.

That’s exactly how it is, said Tara. And they take it all incredibly seriously.

My parents show dogs, and that’s just the same, I said.

Seems to be how people work, said Sally. Even the steampunk community has factions, and it’s tiny.

Tara nodded, her cynical worldview confirmed.

So tell me about these groups, said Sally, directing her question to me. Prof Gavin never mentioned them.

No, he wouldn’t, he stays above all the infighting. The Association—the Practitioners Association of New Zealand, with no apostrophe, which annoys me—is the older group. The New Zealand Society of Practitioners is mostly younger, more progressive. It split off from the Association about fifteen or twenty years ago, and there’s still a lot of bitterness between the older members, though some people belong to both. The International Practitioners’ Guild, with the apostrophe in the right place, is a mainly American group that accepts people from other parts of the world. They get very excited about things and hold big conferences with lots of speakers.

How do they keep that quiet?

Everyone in the US holds big conferences with lots of speakers. Nobody pays much attention, apart from the people who belong to the group.

Anyway, point is, you’re not known in the community the way we are, said Tara. You’re known in the steampunk community, though, surely. Are they likely to trace you that way?

Sally sat up, a stricken expression on her face. Maybe, she said. I need to make some calls.

She took her phone into the back of the house, and Tara and I sat for a while without speaking.

Sally seems nice, I ventured finally. Tara gave me a look that somehow communicated, You are a sex-obsessed neanderthal and I lack any respect for you.

I don’t mean it in that way, I said, which wasn’t strictly one hundred percent true. Though I have to say, she does look like she could make a corset work.

Yeah, said Tara, "she’d make it work hard."

Tara! I said. That’s catty, even for you.

Sorry. I’m on edge. I hate this, she said. I really hate it.

I’m not a big fan either, I said. I don’t feel safe in my house.

You want to stay here tonight? said a returning Sally, apparently finished with her calls. There’s a spare room. There are two, actually. I have the flat over the garage. I haven’t moved into the house itself, and I’ve been meaning to get flatmates in, but… you know. Stuff keeps coming up. You could both stay, if you want? A lift in her voice at the end of her sentence suggested she’d welcome some company, and after her recent experiences I didn’t blame her.

Really? I said. Thanks. I might take you up on that. Is there somewhere I can buy a toothbrush?

Pharmacy up the road. But I think I have a spare one, if you don’t mind pink.

No, that’s OK, I’ll go and get one. Where is it?

She gave me directions.

What about you, Tara? she said then.

Tara gave it a lot of thought, then nodded reluctantly. I’ll put Maria out of sight, she said.

You can store her in the garage, said Sally. Come on, I’ll show you.

Toothbrush for you too, Tars? I said, as they headed out the door.

Cheers, she said. You want some money?

Fix me up when I get back.

☐

I noticed on the walk that the police station was just up the street. I’d already noticed the fire station further down, and the idea that we were located so close to emergency services gave me a level of comfort. The police, of course, couldn’t take down a determined practitioner easily, but the First Rule of Magic Club ensures that most practitioners would fade away if they showed up, rather than risk triggering an investigation and bringing down the wrath of the community.

I also noticed a Thai restaurant, a pizza place, and a Chinese takeaway that also did fish and chips. I phoned Tara.

You want me to pick something up for tea?

Oh, that would be great, said Sally, nearby. Tara’s phone is easy to overhear, even when it’s not on speaker. I’m exhausted after today. The last thing I need is to cook a meal.

Thai, pizza, Chinese, or greasies?

The Thai place is good. Sally seemed to have taken over Tara’s phone and be speaking directly into the mic. Bit expensive. Oh, hey, but I have money. My shout—it’s the least I can do, with all the trouble I’ve caused you both.

We discussed menu choices, and I ordered on my way back from the chemist’s, then