by D. N. Hoxa
It totally worked. His eyes almost dropped out of his skull.
“I did—for the second time,” he said, raising his chin as if he dared me to defy him.
“No. You kidnapped me the first time, and you distracted a weretiger the second. That’s not saving.”
I could hear his teeth clenching. I wanted to laugh, but I needed to focus on walking ahead as fast as I could. I looked behind me every few seconds to make sure Dumont wasn’t right behind me. I’d rested for almost half an hour on that sidewalk, but I didn’t feel safe yet. Shapeshifters couldn’t keep their animal forms for long, thank God. It burned their energy fast, and if they weren’t careful and allowed themselves to collapse while in animal form, you never knew how they’d wake up—normal or as a beast, no longer able to shift back. In those cases, there was only one option: to shoot them dead. Or cut their heads off.
“In that case, you’re welcome,” he said, successfully avoiding the trap. He was no fun.
“Seriously, though, who are you?” I asked. He was powerful enough to outrun a weretiger like Dumont. I wondered what else he could do if he put his mind to it.
“I’m just a Pyro looking for revenge,” he simply said.
“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you?”
“Nope. I don’t have the patience.” At least he was being honest.
“You also don’t sugar your coffee much,” I mumbled. “What did Nana do to you?” The curiosity burned a hole through my gut. I really wanted to know what drove him.
“Something that shouldn’t be done to anyone.”
“But wha—”
“And we’re leaving it at that.” He didn’t even let me finish.
“You should know, she’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am. She’s the strongest magian I’ve ever met.” I thought it was fair to warn him, since he had saved me. Once.
“Is that why that man was able to take her from her home so easily?” said Logan with a lighthearted voice.
My ears suddenly whistled. “That man, whoever he is, is messing with Egyptian runes,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t like it when people talked about Nana. When I did, it was a different story. She was my family—or at least all I had left of it.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find him.” I actually liked how confident he sounded. Much more so than I felt.
“Who are we going to ask for help?” We were already close to downtown, and I was almost a hundred percent sure we weren’t being followed. The night was still young. Who knew? By the time I went to bed, I could have a clear picture of who we were dealing with here.
“An old friend of a friend,” Logan said.
“You don’t even know them personally?”
He shook his head. “Never met them.”
This was ridiculous. “Then how do you expect them to help you?” People who knew me hesitated. The world we lived in wasn’t all rainbows and roses, more like storms and thorns. People didn’t want to get in trouble with either the MM, the humans, or the high priests by helping someone they’re not supposed to. Trouble meant death more often than not.
“Have a little faith, will you?” he said with a grin.
I raised my hands in the air. “Fine. Whatever you say, big guy. Just don’t start crying when they shut the door in your face.” That was the most likely scenario.
“If I do cry, I’ll burn my tears before you see them. How’s that?”
I grinned. “Oh, no. No, no, do let me see them. I love a big, strong man with tears in his eyes.”
“So you think I’m big and strong?” My smile fell instantly. Oh, man, I fell right into that. “You haven’t seen nothing yet.” And he winked.
Mortified, I laughed, but it sounded like screeching tires. “I’ve seen enough, thank you very much.”
He laughed his heart out, the bastard.
But it was a lovely sound. Not that it mattered because it didn’t, but it was like…you know the kind of sound that makes your toes curl and makes you want to start laughing, too? Yeah, that kind of sound. But it still didn’t matter.
“Who are they, anyway? Who are we meeting?”
“You’ll see for yourself,” was all he said, and we didn’t talk more for another five minutes or so, until he stopped walking.
We were downtown, close to the Coliseum, and he’d stopped in front of a four-story building with white windowpanes and two large trees covering the entrance.
I knew that place. It was a restaurant, one of the oldest in town, and the building belonged to Oliver Thame, a notorious Nix who kept a very strict friends’ list and wasn’t on the best of terms with the high priests. Word was that Thame’s father had been human, his mother a Nix—a water spirit, able to bend water at her will, just like Logan could do with fire. Even if that were true, the human side of him didn’t do much to diminish Thame’s power. People said he could make it rain if he wished—which I’m pretty sure was an exaggeration because come on—but it was still something to watch out for.
My chin hit the asphalt. Figuratively.
“You can’t be serious.” He was a Pyro. Thame was a Nix.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said and crossed the road.
My God, he was serious. “Hey, wait a minute,” I said as I followed him, determined to smack some sense into his head if needed. “This is Oliver Thame’s property. His people run this place, and they’re all Nixes.”
“I know.” He continued ahead, into the narrow passage between the two trees that kind of separated this from the other buildings at its side. It led directly into the double doors of a restaurant that wasn’t very well known, but Thame didn’t need customers to keep it open. It was a cover-up for his other businesses, or so the rumors said.
“So, stop!” I said, a little louder than I intended, but it did the trick. Logan stopped and looked at me, confused.
“Let me remind you again: he’s a Nix. You’re a Pyro. Water and fire do not mix well together, remember?” He shouldn’t have needed the reminder.
He smiled brightly. “Are you worried about me, Eye Patch?”
For the love of everything holy… Eye Patch? I was going to call him fire boy!
No, wait. Fire boy wasn’t exactly an insult. It was a pretty cool nickname, actually. How to insult a man who can make fire with his hands? Hmm.
“Not exactly, Sparkle.” Absolutely nailed it. “I’m worried about figuring out what those runes mean, and I need to be alive to do that, understand? Those people are going to try to kill us.”
“You should relax more often. You’re a lot more beautiful when you’re not speaking,” he said with a grin. I could pick an argument any time of the day with what he said, but that wasn’t going to win me any battles. Instead, I played it his way.
I leaned my head back and acted surprised. “Are you saying that I’m beautiful, Sparkle?”
His grin grew bigger. “Very.”
Oh, no. I wasn’t supposed to like that, was I? Because I kind of did. Just a bit.
“They aren’t going to kill us. Trust me, I know these people,” he continued because I was too busy feeling weird to come up with an awesome comeback, and now the moment was gone.
“But that’s just it—you don’t.” He said it himself. He’d never met them.
He leaned a bit closer to me, and I almost thought he was going to kiss me. Stupid thought.
“Trust me,” he whispered and turned around to walk to the restaurant.
In the time it had taken us to have that little conversation, the door of the restaurant had opened, and two men had stepped outside. All this and I hadn’t even noticed a thing. Take note, people: Logan Haines was bad for my health.
The men were big, probably Nixes. You couldn’t really tell Nixes apart from others—or any other elemental spirit for that matter. They looked pretty ordinary until they started shooting fire with their hands or water came at you out of nowhere. One of them stood by the door, and the other had descended the two steps to the pathway wit
h the cute little lamps burning with orange light to the sides.
Logan didn’t hesitate. He walked to the first man while I stayed a bit behind and prepared two of my chakris. Just in case.
“Good evening,” Logan said. “My name is Logan Haines, and I’m here to see Mr. Thame.” Who knew he could be that polite? He hadn’t been with me.
I watched the Nix carefully. He didn’t react whatsoever. He was Asian, shorter than Logan, but packed with enough muscle to be worthy in a fight. So far, though, he didn’t look interested.
“Mr. Thame is busy,” the man said. “Come back another time.”
“I’m afraid this can’t wait,” said Logan. “Please tell him I come with permission from Jora Richardson.”
Who the hell was Jora Richardson? I had no idea.
But the Asian guy did. He finally reacted: his eyes widened, and his arms that had been crossed in front of his chest lowered to his sides.
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned back to go inside the restaurant, while the other guy stayed right where he was by the door. I was burning to ask Logan who that man Jora was, but the way the other guy was watching us, I didn’t want to give away the fact that I had no idea what the hell was going on. So I kept my mouth shut for now. I could pester Logan until he gave in later.
We waited. For almost five minutes. It was cold out there, and it didn’t help that I had to turn back every few seconds to watch the street. If Dumont was still after me, he had a chance of finding us, stuck there in front of the restaurant like fools.
The Asian guy came out at last. I half feared he was going to turn us away, but then he nodded.
“Please follow me.” And he slipped inside again.
I thought about putting my chakris away, but that would have probably been stupid. I had no idea who was in there, what Oliver Thame planned for us, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t trust Logan. I didn’t know him enough to trust him, and I definitely didn’t know who Jora Richardson was, or how much power his name held.
Behind the door, the restaurant was much better designed than it looked from the outside. It was all warm browns and greens, with fancy chandeliers and crisp white tablecloths. About eight people were in there, plus the waiters, and the old guy playing the piano in the right corner of the square room. It was…nice. Not that it relaxed me, but I would have loved to have a glass of wine and listen to the old man playing for a while.
The Asian guy took us to the end of the room, through a heavy-looking wooden door that said Staff Only. His friend who’d waited by the door was right behind Logan and me, as if he wanted to make sure we wouldn’t change our minds and want to leave. We slipped inside a narrow corridor, darker than the restaurant, with another identical door at the other end. In the middle of them was a spiral stairway that took us up to the second floor. I wasn’t comfortable in the least walking between two of Thame’s Nixes. I could imagine about a hundred different ways they could kill us before we even knew what was happening.
My chakris were in my hands, and I reminded myself that I could take them if it came to it. We needed help with the Egyptian runes, so it was worth the risk. That, and I wasn’t alone anymore.
When we entered through the door of the second floor, I expected an office of some kind, where Oliver Thame did business. Instead, I found myself in a makeshift strip club.
The music blazed from the multiple speakers. There were ten guests in there, three women and seven men, watching the eight strippers on the poles and on the stage, dancing and writhing, wearing decorative strings around their legs or arms, even bellies. The strings glowed in the dark, too. And then there was nothing else on them. Except shoes. They were wearing shoes.
I was shocked, to say the least. For a long moment, I forgot about where I was, and if someone would have attacked me then, they’d have caught me completely by surprise. I just couldn’t stop staring at the dancers. My God, they were good. Hell, I could never bend like that! Did they even have bones in their bodies? Seriously, they were crazy good. I might have been internally drooling with envy. And, look, there were their clothes! On the floor, but they were there, which meant at some point they’d had them on and then taken them off. And I’d missed that.
Obviously not important, but a girl could be curious.
When Logan cleared his throat, it felt like he sucker punched me. The whole room fell out of focus for a second and then tilted back in place. I called to my thoughts to get in order because strippers were not going to help me with the Egyptian runes and searched the room one more time. The catwalk we were standing on was a foot higher than the rest of the room, and it went all the way to the end of it. To the left, the dance floors where the strippers danced were separate, narrow but long, reaching almost all the way to the guests sitting in round leather couches. The bar was on the right. Then, at the head of the room across from us, was one leather seat two steps above the rest of the room, where only one man sat, smoking a cigar, legs crossed, arms relaxed to the sides as he watched the strippers.
That would be Oliver Thame.
He was on the skinny side, his grey hair combed back to perfection. The fingers of his left hand were covered with golden rings, and he had a stud in his left ear—probably diamond. He wore a silver suit that matched his hair and a black shirt underneath. His smooth skin looked like it would smell really nice if I were to get close and personal with him, which I hoped wouldn’t happen. Also, he had water drops floating in the air around him, about fifteen of them. They were as big as the stud in his ear, and they floated constantly. Very distracting. He kept them as a show of power. You could bet that any Nix who could keep half his focus on those floating drops of water while also doing something else constantly was a very powerful elemental spirit.
The Asian and his friend left us in front of the stairs and stepped aside. There was no need to tell us that they’d stay there to watch us, in case we wanted trouble.
With his head high, Logan walked up to Thame and stopped in front of a low table with a really expensive-looking bottle of whiskey, a bucket of ice, and an ashtray. I stopped just a little behind him. My chakris were in my hand, two of them, and I couldn’t care less if someone noticed. We were surrounded by Nixes, so it was only fair that we could protect ourselves.
“Mr. Haines, pleasure to meet ya,” Oliver Thame said, smoking his cigar, a small smile on his thin lips. He blew out smoke, and three of the water drops floating around his shoulders rushed to it. They moved in circles around the smoke in precise circles until it disappeared. That was pretty cool. Asshole.
We could hear him perfectly because there weren’t any speakers at this side of the room, and it was a bit quieter here. Almost like we were separated from the rest.
“Mr. Thame, likewise. Thank you for seeing us,” Logan said.
Then Thame looked at me. His eyes were big and dark, filled with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I kept his stare as well as I could, but it wasn’t a fair fight at all. He had two eyes and I, only one.
“Not the best company you have with you,” Thame said, and I almost flipped him off. I was going to give him a piece of my mind, but Logan didn’t give me a chance.
“My company is none of your business.” His tone was low, definitely a bit threatening. What do you know. This guy was full of surprises.
And he was going to get us killed.
But… “Certainly, certainly,” Thame said and leaned closer to the table to put out his cigar. Wow. He didn’t kill us. I couldn’t tell you how surprised I was. “Just an observation. I don’t like having the authorities at my door any more than the next guy.” His way of saying that I was wanted. Maybe he was checking to make sure Logan knew?
“Could have fooled me,” I said and made a point of looking behind us at the strippers. Last time I checked, you needed a license for a strip club, and I was pretty sure he didn’t have one for what was going on up here.
Logan looked back at me with a raised brow. He pr
obably just wanted me to continue to piss Thame off. If he could do it, I could, too.
Thame was not pleased. “Jora Richardson sent you,” he said, never even offering us a seat. “How is Jora? It’s been a while since I heard from him.”
“He’s well. He sent me here on business and said to come to you if I needed help.” Logan then looked at me again and mouthed phone. Right. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and gave it to him. “We’ve come across these runes that we believe are…” Logan tried to open the phone. “We believe are…” For the third time, he turned to me. What the hell?
“Do you mind giving me your password?”
Oh, shit. I had a password on my phone. Of course. Laughing awkwardly, I quickly typed the four digits to unlock the phone. There wasn’t enough light for anyone to notice my red cheeks.
Logan turned back to Thame and offered him the phone. “We believe these are Egyptian runes and whoever used them has the person I am after.”
“One of the high priests, I believe,” said Thame as he took the phone. So he knew about the kidnappings. Of course he did. He probably also knew why Logan was after Nana. Or maybe it was Jora Richardson who wanted the revenge? My confusion just hit level fifty, and the meeting wasn’t even over.
“We need to understand those runes in order to find the person responsible,” Logan said, never changing his tone of voice. He was good at this, I’d give him that. If he was afraid, or if he felt threatened in any way, it was impossible to tell.
Thame looked at my phone and nodded his head in wonder. “The guy who took Tanana Kaur, Gwendolyn Love and almost killed Cornelius Graneheart.”
So Graneheart was alive. That was a relief.
“Yes. Can you help me decipher the runes?” Logan said, all business-like.
Thame suddenly handed him back my phone. “Well, I don’t know shit about runes. I’m a Nix,” he said with a sneaky smile, waving his hand around, and again, those little droplets of water swirled around his fingers. Thame paused a long second, which made me believe that he was testing Logan to see what he’d say. And Logan didn’t give in, not at all. If it had been me, I’d have said something by then, but not Sparkle. He stood his ground and waited.
