Amber Uncovered Read online

  She walked in and found Josh and Alicia sitting at the table.

  “There you are,” Josh said. “Good job getting that guy off my tail. Plus, it worked out even better when he left to chase you. I went back in and cleared out the cash register. Grabbed a few other things too.”

  He slid a small stack of bills across the table to her. She quickly counted them, coming up with almost fifty dollars.

  “Did you already split this with Eric or does he need half of mine too?” she asked.

  Alicia giggled.

  “No, Eric already got his,” she said. “The guy had more than three hundred bucks in his register.”

  “What else did you grab?” Amber asked, looking at Josh.

  He tossed her a couple of sealed bags marked with the logo of her favorite beef jerky, plus a handful of candy bars.

  “Sorry, I didn't want to take any longer so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff next to the counter. Alicia was keeping an eye out at the door for me so we just tossed a bunch of stuff in a bag and ran after I grabbed the cash.”

  Amber raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Really, you didn't pick up any reading material this time?” she asked, smirking at him.

  Josh blushed.

  “Damn it, you know I can't afford the Walkers, so I grabbed a couple of girlie magazines one time. What am I supposed to do?”

  “One time?” Amber asked.

  Josh's stash of porn magazines was a legend among the kids in the group. No-one had any idea where he kept them either and he wasn't saying.

  His blush darkened.

  “Okay, so a couple of times.”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “A few times?” he asked.

  “All the time,” Alicia and Amber said in unison.

  “Yeah, okay, I grabbed some magazines as well, happy?”

  “Just so long as you did. I'd worry if you hadn't. I'd wonder what was wrong with you,” Amber said.

  Josh buried his face in his hands.

  “Thanks a lot,” he muttered through his hands.

  Amber took the items he'd given her and stood. Then she walked over and, with Josh's face still buried in his hands, surprised him with a kiss on the top of his head.

  “You're welcome,” she said. “Always happy to keep you grounded in reality.”

  She turned to walk out and wasn't sure if the sounds coming from behind his hands were choking or laughing.

  Either way, it ought to cheer him up, she thought. I'm sure he took some extra time to pick the jerky I liked so I owed him.

  She went out to 'her' area of the main room. She had a few blankets and a sleeping bag, with all the clothes she owned tucked into another bag she kept buried inside of it. She dropped off the jerky and all but one of the chocolate bars. The one she kept, she opened and started eating as she headed back down the stairs.

  She had a key to one of the apartments, also compliments of Tim. Inside the apartment, all the interior walls were made of cheap wood, and in a few spots there were some gaps. She went to the wall where she could pull out one of the boards, revealing a hole in the floor underneath. The hole was an old drain and went down several feet, although it was no longer connected to anything.

  She reached into the drain. About six inches down, out of sight unless the entire wall were removed, there was a fragment of metal jutting out into the pipe. She took the wire she'd wrapped around it and pulled up the small cloth pouch that was attached to the wire. Thirty dollars of the fifty went into the pouch before it was lowered back into the drain. The other twenty she slid into her pocket.

  Maybe I'll go see a movie or something, she thought. I haven't done that in a couple of months.

  * * *

  With her remaining twenty, Amber went shopping. There was a used book store just a couple of blocks away where she could get three books for five bucks. She was in the store a couple of times a month normally so the owner knew her. The place didn't seem to make enough money for Eric to even notice that it existed so she wasn't worried about bringing attention to it.

  She didn't live with many other kids who read much, there were only two of them out of the forty or so people who lived in the building. But she'd pass on whatever books she bought to those two when she was done with them, and they did the same for her, so she always had something to read.

  Which is nice because sometimes there isn't enough money to do anything else, but I've always got a couple of books around to read, she thought.

  When she entered the bookstore the owner waved at her from behind the counter. He was checking someone else out, so she went back into the stacks. The store was infused with the scent of old books, and she took a deep breath.

  There's nothing else like that smell anywhere, I love it!

  She glanced at the romance section with its overflowing shelves and stacks of books piled on the floor, but had no desire to read any of those. Andrew's ladies had taught her to read, all of the women he protected getting together and teaching Amber how to read, to write, to do basic math, and all the other things she would've learned in elementary school.

  But, the only books they had to teach her how to read had been romance novels. By the time she could make her own choice in reading material she was thoroughly sick of those. An amusing side effect of her teachers and the printed material they used to teach her to read was that Amber had a thorough knowledge of sex, both normal and kinky, even though she was still a virgin.

  She'd never even thought of experimenting with that knowledge until the past year or so. Instead, she'd settled for using some of the techniques she'd learned for solitary satisfaction instead of going after the boys who had, unintentionally, introduced those thoughts to her brain.

  That kind of entanglement would be bad. I could just see Eric realizing something was going on. I'd be out walking the streets in a heartbeat if he thought I was having sex. He'd think that if I was going to do it, I might as well be making the two of us money by doing it.

  She settled into the fantasy and science fiction section. Like the romance section there were books stacked to the ceiling and more piled on the floors. But the owner had placed a small stool here, knowing that Amber liked to read a few chapters of a book before deciding whether or not to buy it. He knew that she didn't really have a home and while he didn't want to get involved in her situation, he was more than willing to make her as comfortable as possible in his shop. He went out of his way to give her time, and a safe place, away from Eric and the rest of the kids.

  He'd actually apologized for it once, saying that he didn't like to fight unless it was a life or death situation. He'd heard stories of Eric and didn't want to cross him. She'd waved away his apologies, understanding completely, before purchasing her books. A smile was plastered across her face that day when she realized that someone cared, at least a little, even if he was a coward at heart. More importantly, after several months the owner told her that if she ever wanted to get out from where she was, he had a friend that might be able to help.

  So when she settled in to read the beginnings of several books, looking for some to buy, she felt safe in his shop.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Charles surveyed the vacant lot next to his apartment building. It was half full of parking lot, but that wasn't the portion he was looking at. He was looking at the bare soil that covered the rest of it, tiny bits of green grass poking up through the surface.

  I've got the rooftop garden, but that just isn't enough. I need more. The only place in this forsaken city where an Earth Wizard can feel comfortable is that one park in the middle of downtown. And even that spot is tiny, just one small clearing in a minuscule forest.

  He looked at his sketch, determining what trees and shrubs he'd be able to plant on the remainder of the lot. He already knew that he'd have a hell of a time trying to keep trees alive at ground level in the middle of the city. The light wouldn't be right, there'd be lots of exhaust
from the cars driving by, and the soil was just lousy. He'd already done what he would with the soil, but there wasn't much he could do about the other things except try to allow for them in his plan.

  Finally, after several abortive efforts, he came up with a plan that would theoretically mimic the chaos of an actual forest, not that he had even as much room as they did for the tiny one in the park, but he'd done the best he could for the space he had available.

  And I'm hoping that having this right next to my apartment will help more than it's actual size would dictate. If I can feel it right there, next to me, all day long, then maybe that will be enough. At least enough that I don't have to leave town for the forest every weekend. I'm not going to be doing my job of watching the city very well if I have to be gone from it two out of every seven days.

  The list of plants he was going to need was depressingly short, but he knew how he could normally improve his mood. Back in the apartment building he took the stairs to the roof. Five floors of stairs weren't too bad, and taking them certainly beat using the old elevator that moved at a glacially slow speed.

  Those are the breaks when you generate your own electricity. You have to get whatever is most efficient, even if it isn't the quickest or newest. At least you do when you're limited on the amount of electricity you can produce.

  He exited the rooftop door into a riot of greenery and intense sunlight. Half the roof was dedicated to a solar array that powered the building. The other half was his garden. It had been necessary to reinforce the structural beams in the building before he did anything up here, but with his Earth Magic he'd been able to strengthen them to the point where his gardens all had a foot or more of soil in their boxes and the building supports weren't stressed. The solar array weighed a lot less than the gardens did, but was probably just as important.

  With a building full of wizards and people with magical talents, AC electricity was incredibly unreliable. It tended to fluctuate wildly with the moods of the wizards nearby. DC electricity, on the other hand, seemed much more stable near wizards. With a little bit of control, a wizard could handle most DC electronics. He'd gone a step further even, any of the electronics in the building that were most likely to be affected by a wizard's mood were supplied through the building manager, which was Charles himself.

  In his brief stint in the army he'd discovered that hardened or partially hardened electronics were mostly immune to a wizard's mood swings. Something about the protection from ionizing radiation also served as protection from the errant energy a wizard's moods created. So now whenever the building needed electronics, he'd try to find a hardened version and purchase that. He even had a laptop computer that he could use himself, a hardened version manufactured by a military contractor that had gone public with their products.

  He glanced over at the solar panels. He did try to stay away from those since even though they were hardened, his excitement at getting them installed in the first place had fried several components that needed to be replaced. Most of the time he was on the roof he was calm due to his garden being right there.

  But better safe than sorry, he thought.

  Now he moved over to his garden area, stroking the plants and talking to them. He'd had exceptional luck with his garden on the roof and he attributed it to a combination of things. His own magic helped, as did the care and attention he'd showered on it. But the best thing for his garden was almost entirely out of his control.

  What looked like a tiny hummingbird came flying out of the greenery and perched on his shoulder.

  “How are you Rose?” Charles asked.

  The hummingbird's outline shimmered and was replaced by a tiny winged humanoid, smaller than a child's doll.

  “I am well. Your garden is well also. It is good that you have so many wizards in this building. Their errant energy keeps me healthy and allows me to survive in this wasteland.”

  “This is a city, not a wasteland. At least that's what most people would tell you. I find myself almost in agreement with you though. There's little of nature or life here, is there?”

  Rose darted off his shoulder, flying through the greenery for a few moments before returning.

  “There is this,” she said. “And you have said that you will be adding more, yes?”

  “The lot beside us, the one that is half dirt? I'll be putting in a lot more plants down there.”

  “You promised me roses, will there be roses there?”

  “Wild ones perhaps, if they'll take root and thrive. I'll plant them and tend them, but beyond that I can't make any guarantees.”

  “If you plant them there, they will grow. I will help.”

  “Isn't that too close to the other buildings for you? I thought you said you felt ill when you got too close to them.”

  “I can stand such things for brief times if necessary and the lives you plant will help me resist the drain once they have grown some.”

  “Well, I intend to plant within the next day or two. So, we'll see how it goes after that.”

  Charles knew what the problem was. The same electricity that caused problems for wizards drained the life from the fae. There was something about the alternating currents that was like the ebbing tide, slowly draining more and more power from the creatures who possessed it. Wizards and fae alike were drained by it, but wizards could compensate somewhat, until they overcompensated and blew out any nearby electronics. But the fae could be drained to their deaths in a matter of hours. What he hadn't known was that trees and other plant life could help shield from the drain.

  At least it can act as a shield for the fae, he thought. Who knows if it does the same for a wizard.

  “Good, when you have planted I shall start strengthening them,” Rose replied, before taking to the air again and disappearing into the greenery of his garden.

  Charles settled down onto the roof, leaning his back against one of the gardening boxes and drinking in the feel of the healthy plants surrounding him.

  “Why did I ever take this job?” he asked himself.

  You know why, he thought. Because you couldn't stand the thought of wizards coming into their power in the midst of this city with no-one to explain what was happening. Because no-one else would take the job, you felt that you had to do it since you owned property here. At least you've got the garden and the park, it would be so much worse without those.

  He stayed there for a good hour before finally getting back up and going inside. He still had to go get the trees and other plants for the empty area of the lot today. Once he had them, he could prepare them for planting overnight and get them settled in the following day. He'd already taken care of the maintenance on the building for the week so he had several days in which he could focus on the planting.

  Lunch was followed by a quick drive to a plant nursery on the outskirts of the city. They had most of what he wanted, and he found alternates for the ones they didn't. He piled his purchases in the back of the old pickup truck that he used for work-related errands and secured the load before he drove home. Once there he brought everything down into the basement where he started preparing them for planting. He'd have left it all outside for the preparations, which would've been the best choice, but he wasn't sure they wouldn't get stolen.

  Although why they'd steal an unplanted tree is beyond me. I'm sure they wouldn't plant it themselves. Probably whoever stole it would've done so just to show that they could, and to take something away from someone else. Their idea of showing power is laughable, but inconvenient also.

  He went up to his room on the ground floor and retrieved several crystals that were glowing softly. As a wizard he was able use the crystals to store up excess energy, retrieved from either himself or the sun. The sun charged crystals very slowly, but at a steady rate. When he tried to use his own power to charge them, he could exhaust himself quickly. Life experiences that made an emotional impact provided quite a bit of energy, but it had been some time since he'd had many of those. Most of the time, at
least while he was in the city, he was just going through the motions of life.

  The infrequent occurrences when he found and assisted budding wizards on the cusp of their power were the times when he found himself recharging most rapidly in the city. His trips to the forest helped immensely as well, but what allowed him to recharge the most was his visits to a female friend of his, also a wizard, with whom he'd been in an on again/off again relationship for several decades.

  Wizards didn't age like others. Their aging was unique to each individual except for one thing. Their lifespan, unless shortened by accident or intent, was several times that of the average human. So his relationship had been going on for thirty years, yet neither of them had felt the need to push beyond the casual stage, although he had thought about trying to do so a few times.

  He grabbed several of the crystals before heading back down to the basement. He'd let the trees bask in the stored sunlight overnight, then in the morning he'd use some of the energy from the crystals to give the root systems a boost when he planted everything.

  Charles headed back outside next, and started digging the holes for the plants.

  That's a major bonus of Earth Magic, he thought. When you want to do some planting, the dirt comes out of the hole just as easy as pie with a little applied magic.

  In just over an hour he had the holes dug for everything he wanted to plant. He went ahead and sprinkled the additional nutrients he wanted to supply into the holes and mixed them with the soil. Between the power he'd feed the plants, and the nutrients, they should grow at a rapid rate.

  Although I don't know what Rose is planning. I know the fae can influence plant growth quite a bit. How will I explain trees shooting up at a rate they never grow at naturally?