Motherlode by James Axler

did not!” his sister exclaimed in outraged tones.
    “Don’t lie to me, little missy,” Madame Zaroza said. “It’s not like I won’t know.”
    “Well—” It was the girl’s turn to sidle her big long-lashed eyes and scuff her foot. “I might’ve peeked. A little.”
    “She picked the lock,” Madame Zaroza said matter-of-factly. “Same as I did, the moment I got alone with it once they brought it back here.”
    “So, what is it?” J.B. asked. Krysty knew he was not much given to abstract curiosity—not like Ryan was, much as her man tried to pretend he wasn’t. But the Armorer was clearly hoping it would be some kind of wizard gadget.
    Madame Zaroza snorted a laugh. “No clue,” she said. “Couldn’t describe it to you if I cared to try. Only thing that really matters to me or you, for that matter, or so I reckon—is that somebody’s willing to pay for it.” She yawned and rolled her shoulders.
    “But your quest for the Great Whatsit is in vain here. I already passed it on to the person who hired the job done.”
    Ryan’s eye narrowed to a slit of blue fire. “Are you trying to put something over on us?”
    The room got tense. Before taking his blaster off Madame Zaroza, J.B. had insisted his friends’ weapons be returned to them. Though their longblasters were in a trunk outside, where Jak could keep an eye on them, everybody had his or her handblasters and knives.
    “Pull back off the trigger, there, sport,” Madame Zaroza said. “I know better than that. Mebbe my children here think we could get the better of you a second time tonight. I don’t. We got paid for delivery. Even ten times that wouldn’t be worth getting even one of us chilled. Least of all me.”
    “Don’t tell them, Z,” Draco said. “Mebbe they ain’t such bad sorts for locals. Mebbe they ain’t coldhearts. But they’re still rubes.”
    “I already agreed to,” she said. “And, scammer or not, I’m as good as my word. Especially to a bunch of chillers like this. Anyway, I don’t owe my principal anything more than delivery of the goods.”
    She tipped her head briefly to one side. “Rad-blast it, I doubt the principal would mind if I told. But I’m going to. It was Baron Sand, up to Arroyo de Bromista.”
    Ryan looked at Krysty. She nodded. As far as she could tell, the woman was telling the truth. She didn’t have any kind of power that’d let her tell—not mutie stuff. But both of them trusted her intuition and her judgment.
    “All right.” Ryan stood. “Reckon you might want to shift away from Amity Springs, and keep clear for a while.”
    “Reckon we will,” Madame Zaroza said with a rueful smile. “We’re already ready to roll. It’s why we break down the show every night and pack it in. Never can tell when we may need a sudden change of location for our health.”
    Ryan rounded up his own troop with his eye. “It’s time we shook the dust of this place off our heels,” he said. “Our employer won’t like the taste of what we’ve got to tell her any better, the staler we let it get.”
    “Tell D.L. I’m so sorry,” Madame Zaroza said in a dull voice.
    “D.L.?” Ryan asked.
    “Dark Lady. Tell her sometimes there’s such a thing as conflicting loyalties. You know? Uh—she will.”
    “Why not?” he asked.
    She relaxed visibly.
    “But won’t this Baron Sand get hot, you ratting him off like this?” Ryan asked.
    “Baron Sand won’t care,” she said with a secretive and, Krysty thought, somewhat sad smile. “I think I can assure you of that.”
    “Doesn’t sound much like most barons we’ve encountered, ma’am,” J.B. said. “The harder cases they are, the tenderer their sensibilities tend to be about that kind of thing.”
    She laughed.
    “You’ve just pretty much defined Baron Sand, my boy. Not a scrap like any other baron you’ve known. Expect surprises.”
    * * *
    “B ACK SO SOON ?”
    It was Mikey, the more ingénue, snarkier head of Dark Lady’s titanic mutie