The first item up for bid was a skull ring releasing a metal magic that turned the wearer to iron. Death guaranteed. An African woman in a colorful headscarf studded with dime-sized emeralds won it.
The woman next to me commented to her friend that the bidder was the long-time mistress of a powerful dictator. Maybe not for much longer.
The auction moved on to random items like a pouch of brown powder with magic nulling abilities, a mummified eye that allowed the owner to spy on any environment, and a mirror that let you see through walls.
I struggled to remain poker-faced. My brush with the Nefesh world had apparently been superficial at best. Would I have had a different understanding if I’d had my magic all these years? Or even if my father had stuck around? No doubt he’d seen more than his share of dubious artifacts. I snapped my attention back to the auction because I didn’t want to miss a second of the proceedings.
As the night went on, I bid on several items to have some skin in the game, but I ensured that I dropped out before I could win.
Interestingly, the Asian woman had the same strategy.
I nudged Levi when it happened for the third time and he nodded.
“How’s your magic holding up?” I whispered.
“All good.”
Dang, he wasn’t kidding when he said he had stamina.
The penultimate lot before the main attraction was a variety of enchanted swords, with each piece sold separately. A man with thin hair and a suit so shiny it was practically an oil slick bet on every item, the fat diamonds in his multiple rings flashing every time he signaled. He seemed very eager to own the entire collection.
“He’s overcompensating,” I whispered to Levi, “Probably has pubic lice.”
“Why have one STI when you can collect them all?” he murmured.
“Santino, you’re terrible.”
“You wouldn’t want me any other way, Lillian.”
Once that lot was dispensed with, and props to Thug Money for his shit-disturbing ploy that snatched the final sword away from the original bidder, Mr. Sharp nodded at the white-gloved attendant.
“That brings us to our final item which is not up for auction.” Our self-styled procurer raised his hands at the angry outburst. “You misunderstand. This item is available to everyone.” He chuckled. “Well, all present, that is.”
The attendant wheeled in a table with a metal briefcase on it.
Mr. Sharp stepped out from behind the podium and unlocked it. He held up a stoppered vial with a shifting shadow inside.
A smudge.
My hand tightened on Levi’s forearm. He was slouched lazily in his chair but the preternatural awareness rolling off him made the hairs on my body stand on end. This was full-on “protector of my Nefesh, fuck with me at your peril” mode.
“What’s that?” the woman next to me asked Mr. Sharp.
“Magic. In this case, water elemental magic. But we can supply any type that you like.”
An electric charge jolted through the room, everyone reaching the conclusion they’d been invited to draw. That Mr. Sharp held the key to acquiring magic, any magic now within reach instead of limited to being born with one specific type. Mundanes could become Nefesh and Nefesh could hold multiple powers.
Except they hadn’t seen what I’d seen. They didn’t know that smudges killed and this had to be a con.
“What do we do with it?” a man with a pronounced Adam’s apple and a Slavic accent said.
“I invite you all to envision a world where Houses no longer dictate the rules in favor of one ruled by the powerful elite,” Mr. Sharp said.
“Even Mundanes?” A cunning look crossed the Slav’s face.
“Absolutely. This is a world where Mundanes could become a thing of the past.”
I barely contained my snort. Yeah, because if they tried to use this, they’d be dead.
“A world where one could have multiple abilities, all made to order.” Mr. Sharp smiled. “For the right price, of course.”
The room erupted into pandemonium.
“Sounds like a fairy tale,” I said loudly in my Lillian voice, cutting through the roar of discussion. The room fell into a tense silence, awaiting Sharp’s response.
“I assure you, Madame, it’s quite real. Thanks to special technology, my employers have found a way to harness magic. All magic.” He tapped his finger against the vial. “With one simple injection? This could be yours.”
The crowd relaxed. People loved a good shortcut to power. Especially if it was only available to the privileged few. Idiots. This guy was trying to put one over on them, what did they think he was going to say? Whoops, sorry. Actually it’ll kill you super dead.
“I heard House Pacifica was experimenting on people,” the Asian woman said. “Is that how you got this?”
Levi’s Santino face darkened. I stroked his back until he relaxed, wondering what had prompted her to speak up.
“The fuck would they do that for?” Thug Money scoffed. “He just said this would destroy the Houses.”
Thank you, Thug Money, for providing the voice of reason.
“Houses have to operate according to a lot of laws,” the Asian woman retorted. “But if the House Head decided to go private…”
“It’s the Queen of Hearts,” the African woman said. “Rumor has it she’s expanding her interests in a substantial way. This fits the bill.”
White Rabbit Man didn’t react at all.
“That true?” I whispered to Levi.
“There’s always that rumor,” he said.
“I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny whom my employers are,” Mr. Sharp said. Coy bastard, keeping doubt on both House Pacifica and the Queen, and providing two convenient scapegoats for when the goods didn’t perform as advertised. He held the vial higher. “This is going to change the balance of power. It’s not just magic. It’s legacy magic.”
The audience gazed up at him in greedy rapture. Hook, line, and sinker to Mr. Sharp.
The doors were flung open.
“If you will follow me back to the foyer, there are a number of attendants waiting to take your orders.” With that, he sealed the vial containing the trapped smudge back inside the metal briefcase.
Another guard entered from the door next to the podium. One with a purple birthmark under his eye.
I dug my nails into Levi’s thigh.
Mr. Sharp cuffed the briefcase to Birthmark Man’s wrist and spoke a few words to him, before the man left through the same door he’d entered.
Levi stood up and offered me his arm. “Lillian?”
“Let them go ahead, Santino. As the good man said, this is available to all.”
While we waited for the room to clear out, I checked it for hidden cameras. There was nothing readily apparent so I moved to level two and opened an app on my phone.
Levi raised an eyebrow so I flashed him the screen, keeping it low and partially covered by my hand. It was a hidden camera detector app. Technology was marvelous.
“Tonight was a con,” I said. “A cash grab. Smudges don’t stick.”
“And someone wants me to be a fall guy for when the truth comes out.” Levi sat forward, his elbows braced on his knees and his Santino face grim.
“Yeah. You or the Queen. Can you think of anyone who wants to personally target you?”
“All House Heads have enemies, but I can’t think of anyone I’ve so badly wronged that they’d go to this extreme. Or that have the power and resources to do all this.”
The hidden camera detector app finished its sweep without finding anything. I glanced out the door. No one was paying us any attention. “Come on. I want to poke around.”
There were purple bruises under Levi-as-Santino’s eyes.
“You all right?” I said.
“I’m angry and the auction went longer than I anticipated,” he said as Levi. His voice was steady and there wasn’t any tension in his body. How tapped out was he?
“Can you hold
on ten more minutes? Birthmark Man was the one handing out flyers. I want the location of the missing kids and that briefcase.”
Levi nodded.
We exited out the same door into a back hallway.
The rest of the mansion was eerily deserted. It was also empty, with one unfurnished room after another.
“They rented it for this occasion.” I swore viciously, my slim hope that Meryem might be on the premises dashed. “How are you doing?”
Levi made a see-saw motion with his hand. “My vision’s going.”
I came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hallway. “What do you mean ‘going?’”
“Tunneling. I’ll be blind soon. Temporarily.”
I almost punched him. “Are you kidding? You shouldn’t have come with me.”
I meant that he shouldn’t have pushed himself, that even if the blindness was temporary it wasn’t worth him succumbing, that I’d have found a way in, but that’s not how he took it.
His expression hardened. “This has happened enough times that I can manage. Finish up and we’ll go.”
He clearly wasn’t open to backpedaling explanations, so I peered around the corner. There was one more doorway and then the kitchen, which was the only place with any activity other than the large foyer.
“You want to wait here?” I said. “I can check the last room myself.”
“Illusion won’t hold if we’re separated.” Levi leaned against the wall looking dangerously pale, one hand over his eyes.
“We’ll be super quick.” I put my arm around his waist to support him. The second the coast was clear, we hobbled to the door and slipped inside.
“This area is off-limits,” said a man.
“Perhaps if you marked your powder rooms properly, I wouldn’t have to waste my time looking for one,” I said in my most imperious voice. Oh, hel-lo, Birthmark Man.
“Scusaci,” Levi said in his Santino voice. “We were just leaving.” He stood straight and steady, looking directly at the guard, without a trace that anything was wrong with him.
One of Levi’s shoes flickered from pointy-toed leather loafers to a scuffed Daytona boot.
Shit.
I shuffled slightly sideways so Birthmark Man wouldn’t see. Levi was running out of juice and if we were exposed, we were fucked. But this was flyer guy. He was my shot at finding the kids before anyone else got hurt, and I wasn’t leaving without that briefcase.
With an apologetic glance at Levi, I manifested a dagger and flung it at the man.
The dagger flew straight and true, but right before it hit him, his skin transformed into rubber. The blade bounced harmlessly off and boomeranged back at me.
“I’m rubber, you’re glue,” he said.
I yelped, barely scrambling out of the way as the knife sank into the wall next to my head. “Words bounce off me to stick to you, not knives, you taunting fuck. Seriously? Insult magic?”
He frowned at me because I’d forgotten to use my Lillian voice.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Birthmark Man glanced at Levi who was listing precariously, but I snapped my fingers to keep his attention on me, skittering back out of reach. A rubber body meant a ton of mass so he couldn’t move fast, but we still had no way to hurt him.
“I’m not anyone you want to trifle with,” I said in the British accent. “Where are the kids that you took with those pathetic flyers of yours?”
“Lillian, it’s time to leave,” Levi said.
“Answer me,” I said.
“You can’t do anything to me in this form, old woman,” Birthmark Man taunted. “I’m invincible.”
His magic pulsed beneath his skin, smelling of glue and wet leaves. Not even a grilled steak would have smelled as good right now. I could take it. Just a taste. Enough to scare him into answering. All I needed to do it was blood.
His.
Ducking low, I rushed him, knocking him over. He hit the ground with a meaty splat and I landed on top of him. His body was rubber, but his teeth weren’t. A lapse in judgment that was going to cost him. I landed one of my patented terrible punches that hurt my hand and knocked out his front tooth.
He fought hard, dealing a punishing undercut against my ribs, and bucked me off him. I caught hold of the briefcase and snapped it free of the cuffs, tossing it to Levi.
The briefcase flew right past Levi and bounced off the wall with a thunk. He stood there, one hand braced on the wall, blinking rapidly, like he was trying to clear his vision.
Much as I wanted to help him, I refused to lose this opportunity.
Birthmark Man and I grappled, grunting. He rolled over, his weight half on top of me, but I kneed him in the groin and as he flailed back in pain, I decked him in the mouth again.
Blood welled on his gums and I surged my red magic into them. His blood was a conduit to his magic and it was like I’d mainlined directly in. I shuddered, my flesh tingling. Warmth unfurled inside me.
The world snapped into sharp focus, like going from Kansas to Oz and seeing color for the first time.
“Lillian,” Levi growled.
I didn’t move. Dynamite couldn’t have shifted me away from this rush.
“Where are the kids. No? Nothing to say?” My blood magic didn’t just flow through Birthmark Man, it turned into dozens of tiny hooks, snagging his magic. Making it mine.
His magic swam through his blood in a thick, heavy stream, similar to molasses, though it tasted like it smelled of glue and wet leaves. Even that didn’t deter me.
My lips parted breathily and my thighs tightened around his torso. I would have savored it longer but Levi gave a raspy inhale, startling me and causing me to jerk on Birthmark Man’s magic, yanking a black smudge partway out of him.
It snapped me out of my trance. Ice cold, I scrambled off him and slammed down our connection. The smudge flew back inside him.
I gasped. What had I done?
What was I?
I turned stricken eyes to Levi to find him staring at me in horror.
Not Santino. Levi.
His clarity of vision lasted one horrible instant, then the light died out of his eyes and he sucked in a harsh breath.
Birthmark Man roared and clubbed me across the head with his rubber fist. The world went blurry, all sound flattening out to an atonal buzz.
Levi’s glamour snapped into place and fumbling blindly in my direction, he caught me by the shoulder and hauled me upright.
Our assailant staggered to his feet and pulled out a gun.
“Gun,” I croaked. I stared down the barrel with a paralyzing numbness that wasn’t enough to keep the aching yearning for his magic in check.
A large reddish ant with an overly large head crawled out from the baseboard. Then another. Then a dozen more, marching up Birthmark Man’s pant leg.
“Fuck!” He tried to shake them off, but the motion unleashed a flood. They poured from the walls and up his body, encasing him.
The man shrieked and fell to the ground, trying to protect himself.
“Get us out of here. Now!” Levi ordered.
Grabbing the briefcase, I broke into a run, dragging him along with me. It wasn’t easy leading someone while sprinting when that person couldn’t see and you were bent double with violent muscle cramps that threatened to tear you apart. We almost wiped out twice getting to the end of the corridor.
I looked back before we skidded around it.
The ants were gone, but the man was still curled in the fetal position slapping at himself with broken cries.
“You did that?”
“Guess we’re both monsters,” Levi said, right before I pushed him out into the night.
Chapter 13
The ride back was as silent as the one to the auction had been but for very different reasons.
Levi was in as bad a shape as I was, sitting with his eyes closed, still blind, still maintaining our stupid illusion for the driver’s sake since this was Santino and Lillian’s ride.
&n
bsp; How temporary was temporary?
I had my arms wrapped around myself, literally attempting to keep my shit together, curled into the door as cramps rolled through me. I was shivering so hard my teeth audibly rattled.
No wonder the smudges I’d destroyed felt so foul. They were atrocities. It was also why they smelled rotten. Without the flesh to anchor them, the magic was dying. These ghostly abominations weren’t simply feeding to survive. They were attempting to find a new permanent host.
Smudges were inherent magic ripped from the body.
By people like me.
Blood magic was the “technology” that caused smudges, which meant there were more people out there with this power, living in secret.
Why were they doing this? For the money? For chaos?
Or because taking magic was better than any high, and even through all my shame and self-disgust, I would have sold a kidney for the chance to feel that again.
The driver dropped us off at the Wickanninish Inn, a world-famous resort out here on the edge of the west coast of Vancouver Island. I couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the place because I was still in a pained fog, my body spasming like a junkie who’d gone cold turkey from every drug all at once.
I don’t know the effect on my body if I’d pulled the smudge all the way out of Birthmark Man, but this coitus interruptus nipped at the heels of my car crash for worst pain ever.
I hissed as a fresh wave of hell rolled through me.
The second the Town Car had pulled away, Levi dropped the glamours and staggered forward.
My relief at seeing him was dizzying, but it was bound up with anger over the monster comment, fear over how bad off he was, and these cravings that rode me hard.
“We’re not staying here,” he said between harsh breaths. He jerked a thumb to the left, which because he couldn’t see was actually the lobby of the Inn. “One property over.”
I shoved him down onto a bench, then bent over double, a spasm punching the air from my lungs. Wiping sweat off my brow, I pushed to my feet. “Stay.”
Squeezing the briefcase handle hard enough that it bit into my flesh, the sharp bite of pain allowed me to put one foot in front of the other, head inside, and have the receptionist call a taxi.
Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 1) Page 15
