Death & Desire: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 2)

by Deborah Wilde

  I made the armor vanish in order to ride the magic and destroy it once and for all. I ran the feather against my lips. Maybe there was a way for it to exist safely and–

  “Ash!” Priya danced nervously away from Nadija, who was getting to her feet.

  I shot my magic into the feather and fell into that cosmic sandstorm, swaying at the orgasmic high that punched through me. Zero to blast off in seconds flat.

  Nadija recovered enough to knock me to the ground, assuring the feather that she’d protect it while she wrestled me for possession. I was too hooked into the magic to fight back. The best I could do was curl over top of it, Nadija’s punches a distant irritant, and my spirit hovering above the chaos in serene bliss.

  The world turned Technicolor sharp and clear, every image broken into tiny distinct dots like reality was a Seurat painting. I tasted sand at the back of my throat.

  Hat firmly back on his head, Moran cold-cocked Nadija with the flat side of his sword.

  “Tiiiimber,” Pri yelled.

  Nadija’s weight fell off me, replaced by the tip of the sword pressed into my side.

  “The Queen requests the feather.”

  Nothing was getting between me and this magic.

  I grabbed Moran’s blade and yanked as hard as I could on it. Copper blended with the scent of hot sand and warm liquid dribbled down my arm, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything besides the eternal wind over dunes and a deep clarity.

  Moran didn’t lose his grip, but he stumbled, grabbing the tin foil hat to remain safe. “Of all the stubborn…” He vanished for a second, and Priya shrieked, Moran now holding her around the waist, the blade against her throat. “In the name of the Queen, give me the feather.”

  My insides were glitter, the world a dreamy haze, and the mysteries of the universe mine to unravel.

  “Ash,” Priya squeaked.

  Her anguish penetrated my euphoria. Slightly. “The feather. Yes.”

  I unpried my fingers off it, but in the seconds it took Moran to release her and move close enough to take the feather, I pulled the magic out of it in a black smudge. Red forked branches pinned it and the white clusters bloomed.

  Still caught in the grip of the high, I laughed hysterically.

  Nadija, demonstrating an exceptional determination and impressive recovery time, screamed in rage and ran at me and then it was pandemonium as Miles’ people poured out of a van.

  The feather in my hand had gone from white, fluffy, and full of magic, to grey, limp, and impotent.

  “All gone,” I said to Moran. Seeing was believing, after all.

  “Welcome to the gameboard.” Moran inclined his head at me and disappeared before the security team reached him.

  Priya gasped, rubbing her throat. “Is it over?”

  A woman in a House Pacifica uniform wearing the same tin foil hat and lead apron, yanked the feather out of my grip and secured it in the metal pouch.

  I grabbed her by the throat and fired my magic inside her, but was ripped forcefully away before I could hook into her powers. I pressed back against Levi’s fleece jacket. “Hello, sailor.” I inhaled deeply. “Mmmmm. I like your magic.”

  Levi let loose with a string of Italian curses. “Ash, you need to get this out of your system. Come on, bella, fight it.”

  I laughed at the silly boy as reality fractured into atoms and I sailed through the heart of the universe.

  “Do something,” Priya said, her voice tight with anxiety.

  I tried to assure her that I was fine, but then a dog licked my cheek and the roughness of his tongue sent me spinning sideways through a black hole, and I left the world behind.

  I woke up on my sofa. Moonlight streamed in through the open slit in the curtains and the house smelled like cookies, which was a weird brain glitch because my mouth tasted like sand and my cheeks were stained with tears.

  Priya was curled up in a chair in a pair of pink pajamas, asleep, and even Levi had dozed off on the other side of the couch, wearing the same toque as he had in the park.

  My brain processed that my feet were in his lap, but not much more than that because I was dizzy and pain flared in my left side with each breath. “What happened?”

  It came out “wharmmgigggappgged,” along with a lot of drool from my overly thick lips.

  Levi’s eyes snapped open. “Welcome back. Don’t try to talk. We gave you a powerful tranquilizer to combat the withdrawal effects of the magic.”

  My pulse spiked and my blood turned to ice. I’d been out for who knew how long and Evil Wanker did not exactly sound like the charitable type when it came to deadlines. Jolting upright, I grabbed the top of the couch as the world swung sideways and I fell. My hands were fat mittens under layers of gauze.

  Levi caught me by the shoulders and set me upright. “Try not to damage yourself more than you already have. I had to pay the House medic overtime to fix you up.”

  Adrenaline cleared enough of the slur from my speech to be understood. Levi could have cost me everything. “You put me under like a dog and your big concern is going over budget? Take it out of what you’ll owe me for the vials.”

  “So much for not talking,” Levi said.

  “He didn’t mean it like that about paying the medic,” Priya said.

  “He meant it exactly like that. The only people Levi actually cares about are born Nefesh. Might as well get used to it as a Mundane working for him now.”

  “Priya is deserving of all my respect and care,” he said.

  The implication stung. So I hadn’t gotten there as quickly as I wanted to. So I’d hurt my best friend by getting her wrapped up in this. I got it, okay? “You aren’t authorized to make that kind of decision. Or was the thrill of breaking my will such a lure that little things like consent flew out the window?”

  “Breaking your will?” Levi slapped his leg. “Oh, if only I had that superpower.” He stood up. “Fun as this has been–”

  “Stay. Please.” Priya put out a hand to stop him. “Lack of control makes her crazy. She’s sorry.” She kicked me. “Apologize.”

  I crossed my arms.

  Priya crossed her arms right back and added a chin lift. “I made the call, okay? Not Levi. Your eyes had rolled back to the whites and you spasmed so violently that you fractured a rib.”

  I breathed out deeply through a knot of pain, and sure enough, under the loose pajamas that I’d been put in, my ribcage strained against a bandage that was wrapped around it. I rubbed my mitten-hand against my scalp, trying to soothe the itch from the dried crystals and wondering when I’d be able to shower.

  “Anytime we talked to you, you either replied in gibberish or laughed like a deranged hyena, so yeah, I gave the go-ahead to knock you out.” Priya clutched a pillow, her fingers making grooves in the fabric.

  I gnawed on my bottom lip, weighing my right to feel violated against what I’d have done in that situation. Then a bit more of my brain fog lifted and I remembered I was a terrible friend because she’d been kidnapped thanks to me and I hadn’t even checked in on her. “Did Nadija hurt you?”

  “It wasn’t pleasant, but I’m fine.” Her cheerfulness had a back-off bite, her smile was brittle, and she’d bitten her thumbnails ragged. She hadn’t been this low since her engagement had blown up but push her too fast and she’d shut me out. I’d learned that the hard way.

  Guilt clogged my throat, turning my voice harsh. “How long was I out?”

  “Ash!” Priya glared.

  “I’m sorry for thinking the worst of you,” I said stiffly to Levi. “Though it’s not like you don’t have a track record of that very behavior where I’m concerned. I can provide an itemized list starting with our first meeting, if you need help with your recall.”

  “Straight from the heart.” He laughed bitterly, but he did sit back down.

  “Pri, can you get me my phone?” Step one in getting Priya to talk honestly about her condition: lower her guard by playing helpless. Not entirely an act ri
ght now.

  Priya picked my jacket off the ground and reached inside a pocket, coming out with the photo of us with the X over my face. Her lips flattened out into a thin line and she tossed it onto the coffee table.

  Levi glanced at it with no discernible expression.

  Pri found my cell and unlocked it. “Tell me what you need.”

  I had to find Evil Wanker, but there was still my outstanding debt to the Queen in order to get possession of the vials, and I was too groggy from the tranquilizer to think my way coherently through a search. I allowed myself a bit more time to clear the drug from my system. “Missed calls or texts.”

  “There’s one from an unknown sender. An address with a crown and red heart emoji.”

  Abraham’s. “Get me whatever you can dig up on Abraham Dershowitz and the accident that took his wife’s life,” I said. Step two: get her focused on other tasks, then sidle in sideways to the topic. “Why was the wife there when his design collapsed? Had they been fighting? Was she suicidal? Did she suffer from dementia? Fast as you can pull anything together, please.”

  “No problem.” Priya nudged my leg with a pointed look between me and Levi.

  Gnawing the inside of my cheek, I curled into the far corner of the sofa. My concerns regarding being knocked out were justified, but perhaps voiced poorly. I probably owed Levi another apology. “How long was I out?” I repeated.

  “Ten hours,” Priya said. “Levi and I stayed with you the entire time.”

  “I wanted to return to the office, but every time I tried to disentangle myself until the tranq kicked in, you shrieked like a banshee and sniffed me,” Levi said.

  I groaned and buried my face in my hands. The gauze scratched my face.

  “Trust me, it was no picnic for me either,” he said. “I had to bake to get over the horror.”

  “He made biscotti, which should be cool soon,” Priya said.

  “What flavor?” I lifted my head, the conversation finally taking a turn for the better.

  “They’re for Priya and me,” Levi said.

  “It was very nice of him to help me get you home and stay while I kept an eye on you in case anything went wrong.” Priya’s smile this time was genuine. That was good, even if Levi wasn’t the same recipient of her guardedness as I was.

  “In case it went more wrong,” Levi said. “This is Ash we’re talking about, after all.”

  “What do you have to say to him?” Priya’s loaded stare was my cue to thank Levi, but I couldn’t force those words past the barbs of guilt, anger, and shame clogging my throat. I was totally being a bitch, but I was incapable of acting otherwise.

  “Where’s the feather?” I said.

  “You can’t have it,” Priya snapped.

  “Is it secured in the pouch?” I clarified.

  “Yes,” Levi said. “Miles took it.”

  Priya relaxed. “You don’t want the magic anymore?”

  Levi must have filled Priya in on the fact that the magic on the feather was intact. Our ploy to make it seem like I’d destroyed it had worked–at least where Moran was concerned.

  “No.” I said, lying.

  Levi didn’t even pretend to look like he swallowed that whopper. Perversely, his open antagonism fueled me. What’s your most satisfying relationship? Ugh.

  Of course I wanted the magic, but the last part of trying to take it had been terrifying. I’d gone into a black hole and become empty. It was worse than I imagined death to be, because there was no end. The opposite, in fact. There was a void that hollowed me out one molecule at a time. My dissolution would take eternity. The scary part, however, was that I’d felt so good I didn't care.

  Best I could through the stupid gauze glove, I curled my fingers into my sides to assure myself that all of me was actually present. The reassurance combined with the tranquilizer’s healing time had muted the siren song in my head to a two out of ten. Not gone, just not all-consuming. For now.

  Priya stood up. “I’m making tea. Want some?”

  Levi shook his head. “Bring the biscotti.”

  “Sure.” I caught her hand as best I could. “Pri, maybe you should move out on your own.” The offer, while genuine, made me die a little inside, but it was a way to check on her without directly alluding to her feelings. “It’s my fault that Nadija came after you.”

  She yanked her hand away to plant it on her hip. “Are you gonna quit talking to me as well? Because that’s the only way that anyone with half a brain wouldn’t think I’m the most important person in your life.”

  “She has a point,” Levi said.

  “Shut up. I want you to be okay.”

  “Says the woman who looks like she went three rounds with a meat tenderizer. I’ll be fine.” Priya beamed at Levi. “Levi is going to hook me up with a counselor he knows.”

  “It’s just House medical benefits,” he said gruffly.

  “Which technically, I wouldn’t qualify for yet.” She patted him on the arm and left.

  She’d agreed to seek immediate help. That was huge. I didn’t begrudge that the offer had come from Levi. Quite the opposite.

  Levi stood up to stretch out his shoulder and caught me staring. “I take it back. Insult me, but don’t look at me that way. It’s unnerving.”

  “It’s gratitude,” I said. The tranq must have destroyed my generally infallible touchy-feely blocker, because the more I dwelled on how he’d helped both Priya and me, the more the warmth in my chest blossomed. “That’s a thing. There are cards for it and everything.”

  “Expensive wastes of trees,” he said. “Now, gratitude blow jobs, on the other hand.”

  “That sounds obligatory.”

  He stroked his chin. “Obligation blow jobs. Is that a thing? Can we make that a thing?”

  I snapped my teeth at him. “You bet, baby.”

  Levi pulled off his toque, rubbing a hand over his flat hair, spiking it up. His movements were missing their usual elegance, his blinks slow. How many of those ten hours had he been awake for? He’d stress-baked. In my house, missing meetings, just to keep me safe. Once again, Levi had shown up for me and then stayed up to make sure I was okay.

  I put on my big girl pants. “I’m sorry. Truly. I know you take care of people. Even me. You’re a good man, Watson.”

  He scowled. “Moriarty.”

  “Still delusional about that, are you?”

  “Rude. Who masterminded that illusion that you’d destroyed the magic on the feather to fool Nadija and the Queen’s henchman?” He straightened the print on the wall of the red phone booth in London.

  “You. In the name of good. See how you’re missing a key concept? Now you get another apology that I couldn’t actually nuke it.”

  He shrugged, pulling an old psych textbook off the shelf and flipping through it. “Losing yourself to the magic was a possibility. That’s why you called me with Plan B. Oh, and good call on the henchman showing up.”

  “Well, I’d kind of invited him. But you don’t get it. Yes, I was caught up in the magic, but the second I hooked into it I knew I couldn’t destroy it. The magic on that feather defied mine.”

  “How? That’s what your power does. What the hell is on that feather?”

  I bit my lip.

  Levi gave me a tight smile. “Gonna play the P.I. confidentiality card? You called for help and I answered, no questions asked, but it would be nice if you had a little faith in me.”

  “It’s angel magic,” I blurted out.

  His mouth fell open and I laughed, as much from the lightness in my chest in sharing this secret with him as from the look on his face.

  “We’re the only living people who know that.” If that wasn’t faith, then I didn’t know what was.

  “Ma vaffanculo!” He shoved the book back into place so hard that the one next to it popped out and fell to the floor.

  “Pace yourself, Leviticus. We’re not at the bottom of the rabbit hole yet. Magic has a signature, right? On an artifact, it should
feel like a weaker version of Nefesh magic, and the feather’s signature was definitely Nefesh, but more so. The Typecaster who determined it was angel magic also determined that Nefesh magic stems from angel magic. We’re the dilution.”

  Levi was quiet for a long time. “How are we the only living people with this information if there was a Typecaster involved?”

  “That’s what you want to lead with?”

  He sat down on the chair that Priya had vacated, directly across from me, and leaned forward. “If someone decides to profit from this info–”

  “Impossible. The Typecaster is dead.”

  Levi narrowed his eyes. “How?”

  “Reading the magic off the feather.”

  He went “head-exploding red” and I wondered what color House HQ was right now. If they were tied together like a mood ring, that is.

  “If this is where you yell at me for trying to destroy the feather when it already had a body count, save your breath,” I said. “Remember my power exists to destroy other magic. I considered all the risks. My death wasn’t one of them. Though, to be fair, I didn’t expect its magic to trump mine.”

  He rubbed his temples. “Where’s the body?”

  “The Queen took care of it. The Typecaster was a close personal friend of hers.”

  “You called the Queen to help instead of me?” His voice dropped to a dangerously low growl.

  “It happened in Hedon.”

  “Lie. You’d be stone if that was the case.”

  I frowned. “How does everyone know about that?”

  “You went into Hedon multiple times and didn’t?” The growl became more of a strangled roar.

  “Shoot.” I snapped my fingers. “I was so busy enjoying the parades they threw for me every time that I forgot to read the helpful brochure in my welcome package with all the rules and dire consequences laid out. I’m not lying. The Queen and I came to an agreement.”

  “What agreement?”

  Oh, one where I either take an innocent woman’s magic or an old man’s. No biggie.

  “And here’s tea.” Priya sailed into the room with a tray holding a pot, two mugs, milk, honey, and a plate of golden brown biscotti covered in sliced almonds. “I made Earl Grey but I see I should have made ‘Chill the Fuck Out.’”