by Dima Zales
“I had to come.” Ariel sits next to me in the limo. “Besides, today will be an important challenge. There will be vampires at the event.”
“I’m sure you can handle it,” Felix says reassuringly.
“Besides, they won’t pay you any attention at the Farewell Rite.” Kit’s face looks just like Ariel’s as she says this. “Drinking or giving vampire blood is defined as a hostile act—and if anyone breaks the no-hostilities pact, the penalty will be swift death, with the whole Council there to enforce it.”
“Oh.” Ariel takes out a vape pen from her giant purse. “I didn’t realize.” She puts the smoking gizmo in her mouth, takes in a deep puff, and breathes out a cloud that smells suspiciously like cannabis.
“Should you be getting high?” Kit makes herself look like Cheech, then Chong.
“It’s medicinal.” Ariel takes another drag. “Carefully formulated and approved by the folks at rehab. It really mellows me out and is good for my non-vampire problems.”
Felix and I exchange furtive glances. Not only is she becoming more comfortable talking about her PTSD, she’s asked the folks at rehab to help her with it.
I’m happy with this development. Pot is not as strong as some of the stuff Ariel had previously been on.
“Speaking of therapy,” she says, dipping her hand into her purse again. “I made you this.”
She pulls out a pair of knitted mittens and hands them to me.
“What is this?” I hold the gift with my thumb and index finger, as I would a dirty diaper.
“I needed a hobby.” Ariel takes out knitting needles, yarn, and an unfinished set of socks from her purse.
In the stunned silence that follows, Ariel demonstrates her newfound skills, calling out the types of stiches she’s doing as her needles fly over the yarn.
“Dude,” Felix says when he regains his capacity for speech. “I know time goes a bit faster on Gomorrah, but I didn’t realize you’d turn eighty on us so quickly.”
“Hardy-har-har,” Ariel says without looking up from the swift movement of her fingers. “Did you know these things are also great weapons?” Almost too fast to track, she thrusts one of the needles in Felix’s general direction, then resumes the knitting as if nothing happened.
“When you put it nicely like that, I applaud your great new hobby,” Felix says hastily.
“It’s very soothing.” She looks up at him. “These socks are for you, in case that’s not obvious.”
“It’s obvious they’re for someone with tiny feet,” Kit says and looks at Felix’s shoes with a smirk. “And you know what they say about—”
“I have normal-sized feet,” Felix snaps. “And above average—”
“Hey guys, I have an important question.” I look at Felix and Ariel. “You two are as old as I think you are, right? Felix’s joke made me realize you might actually be eighty, given Cognizant longevity and all that.”
Ariel grins. “I’m as old as you think.”
“So am I,” Felix says.
“Phew.” I jokingly fan myself. “I thought so—given how immature you both are—but this knitting business made me second-guess myself.”
“Anyway.” Ariel focuses on her knitting again. “What’s new with you?”
I make sure the partition to Thalia is sealed shut and whisper, “I made a breakthrough.”
I proceed to tell Ariel about the recent attack in the restaurant, then about the map that leads to a world with (hopefully) my biological father.
Ariel turns to Felix. “You’ll need to make me a spacesuit. I’m going with you.”
“What about your recovery?” I ask, doing my best to suppress my excitement—and guilt over the excitement.
“I’ll take a break,” she says dismissively. “This sounds dangerous, and you might need me.”
“I was going to invite Vlad.” I grab a beer from the limo bar. “Are you sure you can be around him?”
Ariel puts down her needles and massages her temples. “I think so. Given how he behaved when I hit my rock-bottom, I think he’s safe to be around.”
With a shudder, I recall Ariel crawling on her knees and offering herself to Vlad in exchange for his blood. Pushing the memory aside, I smile at her. “Okay. Let’s see how you feel when you see him and other vamps at the funeral.”
“Yep.” Ariel’s answering smile looks forced. “Now, do you have a trick you can show me?”
“An effect,” I correct her.
“Right,” she says.
I check my pockets.
Luckily, I brought my deck of cards with me, as I usually do. I must’ve done it on autopilot.
Taking out the deck, I start shuffling. I want to try doing something I’ve been accused of doing—using my seer powers as modus operandi in an illusion.
A plan forms in my head. First, I’ll decide/convince myself to perform a classic effect where I will ask Ariel to name any card she wants, but instead of actually asking, I’ll see a vision where she does so.
This way, I’ll know her card before she even thinks of it.
Thus determined, I convince myself to do the effect and instantly focus. Without much fuss, I end up in Headspace.
I assess my surroundings.
If I had a face in this place, it would be frowning right about now.
The default shapes my subconscious or whatever served up are much too frightening-sounding for anything to do with playing cards.
These are much more likely to show me how I’m going to die.
Crap. I hate it when magic needs to be rescheduled, but there’s no helping it.
Dreading what I’m about to see, I reach out to the shape to start the vision.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m bodiless, riding as a spirit in a moving vehicle.
Seems whatever this future is, I’m not there in person.
A man is loading a bazooka with a ginormous rocket.
His gloved hands are big—which makes them very familiar.
The weapon loaded and checked, the gloved guy reaches for the car’s sunroof and exposes an also-familiar killer-clown mask.
The sunroof slides out of his way, and he gets his upper torso out while another large clown-masked dude holds him by the midriff.
Taking careful aim at something, the gloved finger squeezes the trigger.
There’s a deafening sound of a bazooka firing, followed by a boom of an explosion.
I find myself back in my body, in the limo, staring at everyone with wide eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ariel asks. “Is this part of the trick?”
I leap for the button that operates the partition from Thalia and jab it impatiently until the thing slides down enough for me to be overheard.
“This car is bulletproof, right?” I yell at Thalia as soon as I can.
She nods.
“What about bazooka-proof? Could we survive a hit from one?”
Thalia emphatically shakes her head, and Felix mumbles that bazookas were designed to take down tanks.
“I just had a vision of a man firing a bazooka,” I say. “Same guy that shot at Nero and me at the restaurant. I’m pretty sure that bazooka will be fired at me.”
“Seatbelts!” Thalia barks and grasps the steering wheel so hard that her thin knuckles whiten.
I plop back into my seat and frantically buckle up.
Everyone does the same.
“Does she realize she just broke her vow of silence?” Felix whispers in my ear. “Again?”
The limo’s motor revs, and we torpedo forward—Thalia must’ve floored the gas pedal.
The g-forces rip the cards from my hands and rain them through the limo.
The trees start passing us so fast I almost believe we can outpace a rocket.
“There’s a turn ahead,” Ariel screams at Thalia. “If you don’t slow down, we’ll skid off the road!”
Vein pulsing on her forehead, the nun yanks the steering wheel all the way to the right without slowing down
.
There’s a screeching sound, and everyone in the car turns white as we barely make the turn.
The next hour is like a racing-themed rollercoaster—leaving me on the verge of losing my breakfast.
But hey, at least we still haven’t been hit with a bazooka.
Nor is anyone chasing us, come to think of it.
Maybe they didn’t expect to have to chase us? Or we sped away before they could catch up with us?
Thalia doesn’t seem to share my optimism. She doesn’t slow down even for a moment, and as she pulls another stunt-driver-worthy maneuver, I start to ponder the irony of getting killed by her driving when that driving is a means to avoid a rocket.
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Eventually, we barrel into a fenced-off area past a sign that says something very threatening to trespassers.
The dirt road soon becomes nicely paved, and in a few miles, we reach a fortified, tollbooth-looking blockade manned by pale, sunglasses-wearing dudes in black.
“Enforcers,” Kit confirms my suspicion. Turning to Ariel, she says, “You might want to focus on your knitting.”
The vampires let us through, and Kit theatrically exhales and says, “No way anyone can shoot us now. This is Council territory.”
Thalia seems to agree with this, because we finally slow down—which gives me the chance to catch my breath and focus on our surroundings.
Everywhere I look are picturesque forests and mountains, with a particularly large and impressive-looking mountain ahead of us.
As we approach it, I spot more Enforcers on patrol. Those signs around the property should say “trespassers will be exsanguinated.”
Picking up speed, we ride over a creaky drawbridge.
“Is that a moat?” Felix asks Kit as he looks down at the dubious sludge under the bridge—a body of liquid that goes around the mountain as far as the eye can see.
“Indeed.” Kit looks down into the muck. “You wouldn’t want to swim in that.”
A moat? Don’t those usually surround castles instead of mountains? Then again, what I recall of the Council headquarters did have that vibe.
I’m about to ask Kit where the castle is hiding when I see it.
Enormous wide-open doors on the side of the mountain.
Most of the rock inside has been hollowed out, and in the empty space stands a medieval castle that could give the one on Disney’s logo a run for its money.
Ariel lowers her knitting accoutrements to stare at the structure with openmouthed awe. “Did dwarves build this?”
“I think it was someone with the ability to control stone—a bit like my dad’s powers with sand,” Felix says, his eyes not leaving the castle.
“I imagine you’re both correct,” Kit says. “At least it’s true of the Tokyo Council hideout. I was there when that one was built.”
As we enter the mountain, I gawk at the gorgeous bastions, towers, and other castle sub-parts that I don’t know the exact terminology for. We park in the castle’s open area that Kit dubs “the bailey” and walk through the main doors that bring to mind Hogwarts.
“I just realized no one blindfolded us,” I say, remembering my first trip to this place. “I guess it’s not so secret after all?”
“The Enforcers can be overzealous,” Kit says. “This location is kept on a need-to-know basis, and when you’re invited to an event hosted here, you obviously need to know where to go.”
As she explains this, we make our way to a ballroom that’s teeming with people I know. Most of them, I’ve seen during my fateful encounter with the Council, while others—like Lucretia, Nero, Pada, Darian, Chester, and Isis—are more personal connections. Even the huge dude who performed my Rite is here—and without the weird mask, he looks just like my mental picture of a giant.
I look around. The décor is vaguely reminiscent of where Beauty and the Beast might live—after their happily ever after, that is.
“What’s with the monks?” Felix asks.
I follow his gaze.
Here and there, the hooded monk-like figures I first met during my Rite are walking the perimeter. Something I couldn’t have noticed before the Rite is that the monks have a Mandate aura—meaning they’re Cognizant of some kind.
“The Brotherhood.” Kit wrinkles her little nose. “I don’t think they have much in the way of powers. But their weird religion jells well with the needs of the Councils, so they’re tolerated.”
“Yeah, quite a symbiotic relationship they have there,” Ariel mutters.
Tearing my eyes away from the monks, I study the rest of the guests. Like us, everyone is dressed in somber clothes, but the vibe of the gathering is that of a cocktail party—an impression only enhanced when I spot a few monks walking around with trays full of finger food and drinks.
“If I’d designed this event, I would’ve stuck to the castle theme,” I say under my breath. “The champagne glasses would be goblets, and instead of sliders, I’d serve one giant suckling pig.”
Felix and Ariel chuckle as we walk deeper in.
“We’re early.” Kit grabs a cocktail from a nearby server and takes a big gulp. “I’m going to go mingle. I suggest you do the same.”
“Wait,” I say. “Is this the wake? Does it precede the actual funeral?”
“I think she wants to know when her speech is scheduled.” Ariel squeezes my shoulder. “Not a fan of public speaking, this one.”
“Right.” Kit downs her drink and puts it on the tray of a passing monk. “This is the wake. Afterward, Hekima will get the floor because he has something special planned. Next, the actual Farewell Rite will commence, with eulogies after that. If—”
“Kit,” says an unfamiliar sultry voice from over my shoulder. “There you are.”
Felix whistles under his breath as I turn and examine the newcomer.
If someone took all the blond bombshell celebrities, from Marilyn Monroe to Pamela Anderson, and then mixed them in a blender, this bleached, giant-breasted lady would probably be the result.
She looks at me with her icy blue eyes, and I move out of her way. Instead of walking, like a normal person, she pretty much leaps for Kit.
Kit moves with surprising speed, and the blondie misses her mark.
“So that’s how it is?” The newcomer’s bright red lips form the mother of all pouts. “First you leave me, then you don’t invite me to this party, and now—”
“Listen, Lola,” Kit says. “I was in rehab and—”
“You don’t love me anymore!” The woman—Lola—puts her hand on her forehead theatrically, acting so devastated you’d think she just learned all of the world’s peroxide supplies dried up.
“You know things aren’t that simple,” Kit says, shooting an uncomfortable look in our direction.
Ariel clears her throat. “We need to go mingle.”
“Yeah,” Felix adds, blushing. “I want to say hello to a few people.”
My friends run in different directions, so I mumble something about me also needing to go mingle and follow Ariel.
Behind us, Kit and Lola’s conversation gets increasingly louder.
“I’ve heard of Lola,” Ariel whispers when we’re outside the earshot of even supernatural ears.
“Oh?” I grab myself a glass of champagne.
“We’re distantly related, and my parents like to gossip,” she says. “Lola is a nymph and has a reputation for being so obsessed with sex that she’s notorious even among her kind.”
“A nymph?” I look back and catch Kit and Lola making out. “Did you know that’s where the word ‘nymphomaniac’ comes from?”
“It’s fitting,” Ariel says. “Out of the two of them, it probably should be Lola who’s in rehab for sex addiction.”
“Oh, crap.” I almost choke on my drink. “This Lola must be the ‘enabler’ Kit was avoiding when she asked to crash with us. There goes that.”
“That’s scary.” Ariel walks the long way around a nearby vampire
. “I hope I don’t break my sobriety as easily as that.”
I follow Ariel’s gaze and see Lola dragging Kit up the giant staircase.
“You won’t,” I say confidently. “You’re army strong, remember?”
Ariel straightens her back and gives me a grateful look. Then she looks over my shoulder and says, “Nero.”
I turn to see him incline his head. “Ariel. Can I borrow Sasha from you for a moment?”
“Of course,” my roommate says with exaggerated courteousness. “I’ll go see what Felix is up to.” With that, she surreptitiously winks at me and saunters over to the other side of the room.
Nero’s blue-gray eyes study me with the intensity of an MRI machine. “How’re you doing?”
“I’ve had better days,” I reply, resisting the irrational urge to step closer in the hopes of getting a hug. “I had this vision earlier where someone tried to shoot me with a bazooka. I think Thalia saved the day, but—”
“Start over.” His nostrils flare, and his limbal rings thicken. “Tell me every detail.”
I tell him what little I saw, including the similarities to the restaurant shooters. “Did you get far in your investigation?” I ask when I’m done.
“No,” he growls. “But speaking of my investigation, what was that about?” He nods in the direction I came from.
“What was what about?” I follow his gaze and see no hint of what he might be talking about. “Can you be a tad more specific?”
“The blonde.” He gestures to the staircase where Kit and Lola had gone. “She didn’t look happy to see you.”
“That’s Kit’s… girlfriend, Lola.” I take a large gulp of my drink. “I don’t think she cares about me. It’s Kit she—”
“Is there anything going on between you and Kit?” Nero asks, and though he tries to make the question casual, his limbal rings grow even thicker.
I nearly choke on the bubbly. “No,” I say when I stop coughing. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Is it my imagination, or does he look relieved? In the next moment, however, his jaw tightens and he says grimly, “This Lola might think otherwise, and jealousy can be a powerful motivator.”
