AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, yeah. You wouldn’t,” he said enviously. “You keep yours open all the time, wasting a ton of energy because you got a damned ley line sink under the house and don’t care. But it took the smuggling community years to figure that out.”
“To figure what out?”
“That if you keep your portals open all the time, you don’t get that big burst. Or, you do, but you only get it the first time, and if there’s lots of ley lines in an area spewing out lots of magical energy, the Corps ain’t so good about tracking you down on the first go. It’s the third or the fourth or the tenth when they get you, narrowing it down a little more each time, see?”
“But most people can’t keep a portal open all the time,” I said, draining my glass and grabbing the bottle.
I was more a bottle kind of gal, anyway.
“We’re not talking about most people,” Ray said, looking at me disapprovingly. “And you guys aren’t the only ones to have a ley line sink. They show up every time two lines cross. And they cross all the time around here. Ley lines don’t like New York, they love it, especially Manhattan. They’re snaking around all over the place like a subway map on acid.”
“Yeah, I—”
“Leave it to norms not to wonder why there’s this huge, overcrowded city on a tiny is
land barely two miles long,” he said, shaking his head. “Which also happens to be one of the hardest places to build in the world. I mean, it’s crazy. Manhattan’s traffic is a nightmare ’cause it’s an island, which is bad enough, but then every new subway tunnel has to bore through a slab of solid granite that eats drill bits like candy.”
“Ray. I know all this.”
“Yeah, but I’m getting to stuff maybe you don’t know. Just eat your pie.”
I didn’t think I could hold the pie. I pulled it over anyway. Mmm, flaky.
“But norms are attracted to ley lines,” he continued, “even though they don’t know it, and so cities tend to grow up where you got a lot of ’em. But unlike most places with this many lines, Manhattan doesn’t have a damned vortex. The lines cross, sure, but they don’t puddle up in one big snarl. That kind of thing’s useless ’cause it puts out too much power. Every time you try to open a portal around one of those, you get kerblammy—”
“Kerblammy?”
“—and that’s not good for business. But around here, the lines are more like…like this.” He held his hands up, interlacing the fingers. “They cross, but not all at one place. So you get lots of lines, lots of ley line sinks to power portals, and lots of background energy, making finding them a nightmare for the so-called good guys.”
“So-called?”
He shot me a look. “Come on. You like your wine, don’t you? Who you think brings that in?”
“We’re not after the portals because of the wine,” I reminded him.
“Not now, maybe, not with the war on. And not because of the Senate; they don’t care about stuff like that. But the Corps?” He scowled. “They’re a huge pain in my ass.”
“They also have a point. A lot of bad stuff comes through those things—”
“And so does a lot of good stuff. And so does a lot of stuff that can be bad or good, depending on how it’s used, but that the Circle just outlawed all together, ’cause it’s easier that way.”
I didn’t say anything, because I kind of agreed with him there. The Silver Circle was the light magic organization that governed the mages like the Senate did the vamps. The Corps were their police unit, and overall, they did a pretty good job of countering the Black Circle’s shysters, crooks and hoodlums. But they did tend to be a little…anal…about some things.
Including most things that came through illegal portals.
“I mean, it’s complete bullshit,” Ray bitched. “When the fey got mad way back when and yanked all the portals, nobody thought about the little guy, did they? Nobody thought about all the people on both sides that had friends and businesses and lives that depended on being able to come and go. Some of their leaders get in a snit for some reason, and all of a sudden—nothing. And they don’t get over being butt hurt after a while, like normal people. It’s been thousands of years and the pathways are still blocked and trade’s still in the shitter and nobody seems to give a damn!”
“Except for the heroic smugglers.”
“Sure, be that way. But when you want something—when the damned mages want something—that ain’t supposed to be available outside Faerie, who do you come to see?”
“So you’re the good guys?”
“Yeah,” Ray said defiantly. And then he shifted in his seat. “Sort of. Anyway, my point is, Manhattan is the shit. If you’re a smuggler, this is where you want to be.”
I thought about that while I gummed pie. “So you’re telling me you can just cut a new portal here, and nobody will notice?” I was pretty sure that hadn’t been in the briefing I’d had.
He shook his head. “Not if you’re trying to slice all the way through to Faerie, no. Takes too much power. But smaller stuff, yeah, you can get away with that. It sort of melds into the background noise. Like Olga’s portal—that didn’t raise any eyebrows, right?”
