Cloak & Ghost: Blood Ring

by Moeller, Jonathan

  The Cattleman’s Pride was at the southern edge of the district, and it didn’t quite fit in.

  It occupied an old three-story warehouse of weathered red brick. Unlike most of the businesses and the restaurants in the area, there were absolutely no windows on the ground floor, and the windows on the top two floors were concealed beneath heavy black blinds. Whatever went on in the Cattleman’s Pride, the owners didn’t want anyone to be able to see it from the street. The door was a massive slab of steel, a security camera mounted over it, and a discreet sign posted next to the door said that business hours were from 7 PM to 3 AM. Though I expected that the workers would arrive several hours before that to start preparing food and setting up for the evening. Should I try to sneak in and Mask myself as a worker?

  No, that might not be possible, depending on the level of security. If the club was a syndicate operation, security would know all the employees on sight. Better to attend as a guest. I could Mask myself as part of the standard crowd, and with my Cloak spell, it would be easy to get close to Sulzer. There was a parking ramp a few blocks from the Cattleman’s Pride, and I could stash Riordan’s SUV there and make my way to the club on foot.

  Having settled on a plan, I spent the rest of the day driving to Sulzer’s various properties in Brooklyn, taking a quick look at them. His official Congressional office was a grandiose thing that looked like a courthouse, and I wondered how much taxpayer money had gone into building the damned eyesore. Dozens of people worked there, no doubt cronies he had repaid with cushy jobs. There was a lot of private security, so I bypassed the place for now. I drove past the various other restaurants and retail establishments Sulzer owned. The restaurants were all fast-food places with a distinctly greasy air to them, and the retail stores all looked a bit shabby. Sulzer seemed like a typical corrupt politician and local magnate.

  But those transfers to Expedited Wheels…

  At 7:30 PM, I drove to the parking garage, paid too much to store the SUV there, and headed for the club. In the stairwell, out of sight of any security cameras, I cast the Masking spell. I disguised myself as an overweight middle-aged man in a business suit with thinning hair and a wedding ring. The sort of guy who might stop by the Cattleman’s Pride after a long day to watch the dancers before heading home to his wife and kids. Everyone would ignore a guy like him, which was exactly what I wanted.

  I walked to the club and found a line waiting at the front door. Two scowling bouncers stood guard by the door, dressed in expensive suits. They made no effort to hide the bulge of shoulder holsters beneath their coats, and I suspected they also did work as enforcers for the local criminal bosses. It was a mixture of people in the line – some middle-aged men, but quite a few younger men, and a few younger women who hung on the arms of their dates.

  After a wait of about twenty minutes, I made it to the head of the line. The bouncers gave my Masked appearance a blank look.

  “Cover charge is twenty dollars,” said one of the men.

  Twenty? Jeez.

  I handed over the money, and the bouncers nodded and let me through the steel door.

  At once the music hammered my ears. The main floor of the Cattleman’s Pride was a big room packed with standing-only tables, a long bar lining the right-hand wall. The lights were dim and the air smoky with nicotine, which some people no doubt thought was ambiance, but I just found annoying. Waitresses in tight shorts and tank tops circulated through the room, carrying trays of food and drink. At the far wall was a raised stage, and a half-dozen dancers gyrated around poles.

  Their costumes...well, let’s just say that technically the Cattleman’s Pride wasn’t a strip club, but it only achieved that through the dancers’ strategic use of thongs and tassels. I had to admit it was something of an athletic feat for anyone to dance that energetically in platform heels that high.

  On the left side of the room was an elevated stage with more tables. A velvet rope closed off the stairs, and two more bouncers stood guard there. The tables on the raised stage already had a good crowd, and I saw men in suits laughing and drinking, with women wearing not much clothing circulating among them.

  I spotted Joseph Sulzer sitting against the wall, smoking a cigar, a half-dozen men nodding as he talked. He was overweight, verging on obese, but despite that, he looked dangerous. Unlike the others, he wasn’t drinking, and he ignored both the dancers and the “escorts” nearby, his eyes never stopping their scan of the crowd. I made sure to look away before he saw me. He looked like a dangerous, alert man, and I understood how he had managed to stay ahead of Homeland Security all those years.

  I made my way to an unoccupied table and leaned against it. It was a bit sticky. Ew.

  A trick of the Mask spell let me arrange my disguise so it looked like I was watching the dancers, but my full attention was on Sulzer’s little party. I spotted a briefcase on the table next to him, some documents spread out around it. That would be my target, I thought, along with the phone I saw sitting on top of the papers. As soon as I saw a good opening, I would Cloak and make my way onto the stage, grab the papers, and get out of there.

  Sulzer laughed and gestured with his cigar, and suddenly his eyes fell on me. I had the distinct feeling he was looking right at me, maybe that even he recognized me. But that was impossible. I had made my Mask spell random. I hadn’t based it on anyone...

  “Hi! How are you doing tonight?” said a woman’s voice with a distinct Brooklyn accent.

  I turned my head.

  Of course. Sulzer hadn’t been looking at me. He had been ogling the waitress.

  One of the waitresses came up to my table, smiling a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. She wore very short, very tight denim shorts that displayed toned, smooth pale legs, and her black tank top with its red beer company logo looked like it had been painted on. Her long blond hair hung around her shoulders, and she had big brown eyes in a sharp-featured face adorned with a good deal of eyeshadow and makeup. The name tag pinned to the left strap of her tank top read MARIANNA, and even without her high-heeled sandals, she would have been three or four inches taller than me.

  Which, irrationally, annoyed me. I know, I know. I’m not insecure about my height, I’m just really annoyed how everyone is taller than I am.

  “Thanks, but I don’t want anything,” I said. “I’m just here to watch the show.”

  Her smile turned apologetic. “Manager says you have to buy something. Otherwise, I have to talk to security, and talking to security always ruins my night.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll have a diet soda and some onion rings.” I thrust a ten-dollar bill in her direction. “Keep the change.”

  Her thin-lipped smile thinned just a little. Given how much this place overcharged, there wouldn’t be much money left over. But Marianna the waitress smiled and swayed off through the crowd. I watched Sulzer’s party. It looked like a table had been set for dinner. When he and his guests sat down to eat, I decided, I would Cloak and grab both the papers and his phone. Either I would find something incriminating, or they would lead me to something incriminating, and that would be that.

  “Here you go,” said Marianna about five minutes later, returning with a glass of ice, a can of diet soda, and a little cardboard tray of onion rings that smelled like grease. “You just yell if you need anything else, got it?”

  “Got it,” I said, and Marianna disappeared again.

  Ordering the onion rings had been a mistake. The smell of the grease threatened to set off my nausea, and I was grateful that the smell of cigarette smoke helped suppress it. Given the general standards of cleanliness in the club, there was no way I was eating anything here, or drinking out of any of the glasses, so I opened the diet soda and sipped from the can as I pretended to watch the gyrating dancers. Or, at least, my Masking spell did. I kept my eyes on the stage with Sulzer’s private fundraiser. Several waitresses and busboys set up plates and silverware, and a moment later five waitresses carrying massive round trays loaded with fo
od headed up to the stage, Marianna among them. I watched as the waitresses set up the plates, and Sulzer and his cronies got up and headed to the table.

  And as they did, Marianna ducked for a moment next to the end table holding Sulzer’s briefcase and phone.

  It happened so quickly, and she did it so smoothly that if I hadn’t been looking right at her, I wouldn’t have seen it. Neither Sulzer or any of his guests saw it, else they would have reacted with alarm. Had Marianna taken anything from the table?

  No. Marianna had put a second phone down next to Sulzer’s, one slightly bulkier and thicker…

  Wait. It was a regular phone, but it was in a bulky case.

  Specifically, a mirroring case.

  It was a highly specific hacking tool, and one massively illegal for anyone but Homeland Security and the Inquisition to use. When placed within a meter of another phone, a mirroring case hacked the targeted phone, installed a hidden surveillance app in secret, and then mirrored the contents of the phone. So long as the connection remained active, you could see everything that was happening on the phone, though you couldn’t control it remotely. I had used them a few times on jobs for Morvilind, and civilian use of a mirroring case carried a massive fine.

  What was Marianna doing with one?

  I was pretty sure she wasn’t actually a waitress.

  I wondered who she was working for. An Elven noble? Another crime lord? Maybe she was an Inquisition agent.

  But a new plan formed in my mind. If I got that mirroring case away from Marianna, it would do half my work for me. I could monitor Sulzer’s activity for a few days, and if he used that phone for any illegal business, that could lead me to the evidence I needed.

  Of course, that assumed Marianna managed to get that mirroring case away from the stage without Sulzer or his goons noticing. A guy like Sulzer would recognize a mirroring case at once, and I’m sure his goons and most of his guests would. I had to admire Marianna’s cool as she put out plates of food and glasses of beer with a big smile on her face. She had to know that if anyone realized that she was spying on Sulzer, they might kill her.

  But Sulzer and his friends must have been hungry because they started eating and drinking at once. Marianna stepped back, still smiling, holding one of the huge round trays before her.

  It made for the perfect shield as her left hand darted back, plucked up the phone in its mirroring case, and slipped it into the back pocket of her shorts. No one noticed. The bulky phone was obvious in her tight shorts, but most of the waitresses had phones in their back pockets anyway.

  And all I had to do was relieve Marianna of her phone, and then I could spy on Sulzer at my leisure.

  I took one last swig of diet soda, pushed away from the table, and headed across the floor to the men’s room. I definitely didn’t want to use any of the toilets in this building, but that was all right.

  I stepped through the door, dropped my Masking spell, cast the Cloak spell, and slipped back onto the floor before the door swung all the way closed. To anyone who had been watching me, it would have looked like I (or my Masked disguise) had just gone into the men’s room. I could stay Cloaked while walking around for about eleven minutes, but that would be long enough to pick Marianna’s pocket.

  I spotted Marianna heading across the floor, the tray tucked under her arm, the phone still visible in her back pocket. She disappeared through the kitchen doors, and I followed as fast as I could. Which wasn’t fast. Ever try moving across a crowded room while invisible? It’s harder than you might think because people can’t see you and you have to make sure you don’t walk into anyone. But I managed it, and I followed another waitress through the kitchen door. The kitchen was big, hot, and none too clean, and a small army of cooks labored over a row of deep fryers and grills.

  Yeah. The Cattleman’s Pride wasn’t big on health food.

  I spotted Marianna near the alley door.

  “Hey!” she called to one of the other waitresses. “I’m taking my break. Be back in fifteen.” The other woman nodded.

  Marianna opened the alley door and slipped out.

  I jogged across the kitchen and darted through the alley door before it slammed shut.

  The alley behind the Cattleman’s Pride was even more disgusting than the club itself. An overflowing dumpster sat against one wall, and I saw a pair of rats dart underneath it. The only light came from a halogen bulb mounted in a steel cage over the door.

  Marianna walked down the alley at a brisk pace. I realized she wasn’t coming back. She had been there to mirror Sulzer’s phone, and now that the mission was accomplished, she was getting the hell out of there.

  Smart. That was the way to do it.

  I felt almost bad that I had to steal the phone from her.

  Wrapped in the Cloak spell, I followed her unseen.

  ***

  Chapter 3: Valikarion

  When Caina Amalas saw the Inquisition agent come into the Cattleman’s Pride, she knew the job was about to get complicated.

  She saw the silver glow of the Mask spell as the agent walked through the door. The ordeal in the Shadowlands hadn’t given Caina the ability to see through Mask spells, but she saw the silver glow of illusion magic easily enough. Human wizards were not allowed to know illusion spells, at least not legally, which meant that the man wrapped in the silver glow was an Inquisitor, probably even a Knight of the Inquisition.

  That was interesting. Caina knew that Joseph Sulzer had been involved in some nasty business, but she didn’t know he had gone far enough to draw the attention of the Inquisition.

  That was also bad. Caina had spent two weeks setting this up, masquerading as a waitress, waiting until she could get close enough to mirror Sulzer’s phone. It had been a lot of boring, difficult work, but she had made more in tips than she would have expected. More importantly, she had been able to get close enough to mirror the phone.

  But she was, technically, only a private investigator, and if the Knight of the Inquisition wanted to take the phone Caina had just mirrored to Sulzer’s, she wouldn’t have much choice but to give it up.

  And that was the best possible outcome.

  Because other Elves could cast the Mask spell. The official news claimed that all the Archons had died in the Mage Fall, but Caina knew better than to believe the official news. She had run into a few shadow agents employed by Elven lords, and they knew how to cast the Cloak spell. For that manner, the official news claimed that all the Elves were the benevolent guardians of mankind, but Caina knew better. Some Elves enjoyed larceny and theft just as much as humans did.

  On the other hand, maybe the Masked Elf was here for another reason. Sulzer had a lot of unsavory friends, and perhaps the Masked Elf was here to investigate one of them.

  It might not be Caina’s problem.

  Except when she slipped the mirrored phone into her pocket, the Masked man went into the men’s room and came out wrapped in the distinctive silver glow of a Cloak spell.

  And he started following Caina.

  That was exceptionally bad. It was strange to see a Cloak spell in use. Caina’s physical eyes couldn’t see the Cloaked Elf, but she saw the rippling silver distortion of the illusion magic. It was an unsettling sight, and even more unsettling since it was heading right towards her.

  Well, hell.

  Best to deal with this quickly and quietly before anyone else got hurt.

  Caina kept a cheery smile on her face as she crossed the main floor and headed to the kitchen. She told the supervisor that she was going to take a cigarette break and stepped into the alley and started walking away.

  One way or another, she was leaving the Cattleman’s Pride tonight.

  And as Caina expected, the Cloaked Elf followed her into the alley.

  She walked at a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow. She felt the crawling tingle on her skin that marked the presence of magic, the crawling tingle that she had felt ever since she had escaped the Baron’s laboratory as a chil
d. Caina couldn’t use magic, but she could both sense it and see it.

  And the Elf following her didn’t know that.

  But right now, she needed an excuse to turn around.

  The phone ought to serve for that.

  Caina drew the cell phone from her pocket and lifted it to her ear.

  “Hey, babe,” she said, keeping her Brooklyn accent in place. “I got it. No, no one saw me.”

  Caina slowed as if listening to the call.

  She felt the Cloaked Elf draw nearer.

  “Uh huh,” said Caina. “Okay, I’ll head to the meeting point. A white van? Okay.”

  She picked up her pace. There was another light bolted over one of the club’s fire doors, and Caina wanted to see who was under the Cloak spell.

  And if this business was going to leave a corpse behind, she wanted a good look at it first.

  She slowed again as she approached the light. The Cloaked Elf remained behind her.

  “What do you mean I have to wait?” said Caina, putting a note of fear into her voice. “For God’s sake. Don’t you know how dangerous this?”

  She stopped and then began to pace, as if agitated. The Cloaked Elf stopped as well. To the vision of the valikarion, the Cloaking spell created a shimmering silver outline. Though the outline was short for an Elf, come to think of it.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” said Caina, taking a step towards the Cloaked Elf. “I’ll wait, I’ll wait. Just hurry up. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to...”

  In mid-sentence, Caina whirled and drove her right fist into the Cloaked Elf’s stomach with all the strength she could muster. She felt the blow connect, heard the sudden explosion of breath from the Elf’s lungs. Before her invisible opponent could react, Caina sidestepped, her reflexes taking over her limbs. She had practiced the methods of unarmed combat over and over until they had become automatic, and she hammered her right heel into the back of the Elf’s right leg. The limb bucked, and the Elf fell backward to the ground, the Cloak spell collapsing as his concentration wavered.