Wicked Misery (Miss Misery)

by Martin, Tracey

  Finally, after gods only knew how many minutes of pondering scenarios, my bladder reminded me why I’d gone to the restroom in the first place.

  “You fall in?” Jim asked as I shuffled to the pool table.

  I threw him a distracted smile, my attention focused on the bar’s other patrons.

  Steph moseyed up to me while Jim contemplated his shot. “Got an interesting note?”

  “You could say that. Someone claims to know what I am. Hell, I don’t know what I am.”

  When Steph went to shoot, I wandered to the bar. Maybe if I was alone, my note-writer would approach. If nothing else, I’d be in a better position to assess the emotions of everyone in this place. One by one, I probed the crowd for signs of unusual interest in me, but although that was enlightening in an icky kind of way, I didn’t discover anything suspicious.

  Hardly surprising. My note-writer, if he or she were here, might be feeling very satisfied with themselves about now. In that case, I turned my attention to anyone who looked my way a lot, but all that accidental eye contact merely resulted in guys hitting on me.

  Confused, donor-less and increasingly nervous, I left the bar around eleven. Jim and Steph dropped me off, and as I watched Jim’s car speed away, I wondered if sleep would be wise.

  Chapter Three

  Usually, I kept a stock of three to four vials of blood on hand, but lately business had been good. Excellent more like. I blamed it on the bad economy. In the midst of a recession, it seemed more important than ever that you landed that job, that your kid got into the right college or that Mister or Miss Perfectly Rich proposed. Then, once all those poor people got what they Had To Have, it dawned on them what they’d done to get it—traded their souls to a pred. Agreed at some indefinable point in their future to become an addict for the sake of money, ego or the hint of security. It had to suck. If they were lucky, they heard about me next and came crawling with cash or a sob story, hoping to get their souls back.

  I was like the auctioneer selling off foreclosures. While the rest of the world went to hell and the poorhouse, I made a killing. That was capitalism for you.

  I adjusted the protective charm attached to my anklet, and stared out the window. Like any sensible human, I tried to make as few trips into Shadowtown as necessary. Unfortunately, Monday’s burglary had ruined my plan to swap for two souls at one pass and made me eager to get rid of the lone blood vial I had left. I’d have to return when I had a replacement soul for J.G.

  The very air dimmed as the train rolled into the Shadowtown station, and it wasn’t because of the setting sun. The humans on board unconsciously huddled closer, pressed their noses into their books or e-readers or fiddled with their music players. A mother tightened her grip around her infant.

  Only a young magus with a crown of black feathers around her head didn’t react. At least not outwardly. Magi and preds hated each other, but if she were silently cursing Shadowtown, I had no way of knowing. I couldn’t sense emotions from any of the magical races, pred or magi. The humans, though, blasted me with their tangy fear as they tried to make themselves invisible and prayed for the train to move again.

  I wasn’t the only human to get off the train—my business wouldn’t be booming, after all, if the preds weren’t also reaping the profits—but I was the only one not bothering to hide my face. Two preds got off the train as well—a large, red-eyed fury whose back and shoulder spines poked through his T-shirt, and a gray, leathery-skinned goblin. The woman sitting by the train door pulled her knees in close as they passed.

  I sipped on the spark of her horror, like mango sorbet, until the train began moving again. Then I made a mental to note to buy sorbet on the way home.

  Whether it was from the preds’ magic or just the aura of despair that permeated the neighborhood, Shadowtown really did exist in shadows. Grim buildings lined the streets, their dark windows stretching too tall and too thin and hiding whatever foulness peeked out from inside. Concrete stairs rolled away from heavy doors. What color survived was muted, as though its vibrancy had been drained. It was like viewing some old, grainy noir film. Any moment I’d expect to see green- or brown-scaled dragons darting across the street with kittens in their teeth, swarms of imps buzzing about my head or garbage strewn across the pavement and blowing in a cold wind.

  But nope. The streets were clean, immaculate even. The buildings were ornately decorated and in excellent repair. The few cars parked along the curbs were expensive.

  As for the imps, it was too early for them to come out.

  To those who didn’t know better, Shadowtown appeared to be one of the nicest areas in Boston. I could only assume pred neighborhoods in other cities were the same.

  And, consider it another hazard of urban life, but preds always lived in cities. Not because they enjoyed the nightlife, but because they needed access to a constant stream of human suffering to survive, which made densely populated urban areas the natural choice. Boston was no exception. In fact, this city was the pred hotspot for northern New England. Sure, Worcester and Portland had pred neighborhoods, but nothing like Shadowtown.

  So who knew? Preds were nocturnal. Maybe I was wrong and they did also enjoy Boston’s nightlife.

  I stepped over the outstretched arm of a ghoul and climbed the steps to a shop called Charmed, I’m Sure. Bells over the door jingled. What drew humans to shops like this one were the fifty or so colorful charm containers hanging on black leather ropes behind the counter. Each container was capable of holding one spell—or curse—probably made to order. Got a wish or a dream too expensive, or just too evil or illegal, for the magi to fulfill? This was one of those places you came. So long as you didn’t mind potentially selling your soul to get it.

  “Evening. What do you have for me?” Sylla said. The sylph must have been able to sense my unhappiness because she didn’t even glance over. Her silky, snow-white hair cascaded over her shoulder as she marked a page in her book.

  “A trade for Christina Perkins.” I pulled the vial out of my pocket.

  “Perkins, Perkins…” She opened files on her computer.

  Addicts, or blood contracts to turn people into addicts, were treated like currency by preds, who needed the addicts to live. But like any currency, some souls were worth more than others. Preds gained in power and reputation by trading up their addicts, so to speak. Powerful preds could be discerning about who they addicted, choosing humans who were valuable for more than their souls—those who had wealth, influence or useful skills that could be exploited. Most preds, however, had to take what they could get. Sylla’s dealings with me, and the humans who came to her shop, allowed her to create those “cheaper” contracts which she would then sell to the preds who were unable to find or enslave addicts on their own.

  The monitor’s glow highlighted Sylla’s smooth, flawless skin and gave the impression that she was made of plastic. The image of a waifish, white-haired Barbie doll popped to mind, and I bit down a smirk. In general, I found not pissing off people more badass than me a good rule to live by. My gift might make me more immune to a pred’s power than the average human, but I had no desire to figure out exactly how far that immunity would carry me.

  “All right, found her,” Sylla said. “Let me see what you brought.”

  I handed over the vial. She uncapped it with long, delicate fingers and sniffed the blood. The action made me queasy, so I pretended to be fascinated by a particularly gaudy charm container. Not that I was fooling her. She’d been sipping on my unease like a fine wine since I walked through the door.

  “Christina Perkins.” Sylla set the vial on the counter and peeled off the label. I stuck it in my pocket, proof of the done deal. “Standard fee for the switch?”

  “Of course.” The nice thing about doing business with Sylla—if anything about doing business with preds could be called nice—was that she knew me and trusted me not to screw her over. If only I could say the same in return.

  Sylla produced an obsidian bowl
from under the counter, then opened a locked cabinet and took out an insulated canister. Knowing what was coming, I backed up a couple steps. Sylla sprinkled a tiny, red, seedlike object from the canister into the bowl—a salamander egg. Then she lit a match and dropped it in on top of the egg, which instantly burst.

  The bowl came alive in fire as the salamander danced into existence. The red-and-orange lizard jumped and arced into the air, all snappy teeth and glowing eyes. Sylla poured Christina Perkins’s blood onto the fire, and the flaming creature leapt up and swallowed the drops. With a dousing of bespelled water, the salamander extinguished, taking Christina Perkins’s blood with it.

  “And who does this blood belong to?” Sylla asked, whipping out a new label. I slid the ID over the counter so she could copy the information. “A male? How wonderful. I should waive part of the fee, but I won’t since it’s your friends’ fault I want males.”

  “My friends? What are you talking about?”

  “The murders. Didn’t you hear that the police discovered yet another body today?”

  “You mean the so-called serial murders?” Disturbing as it was, I hadn’t paid too much attention to the three women who’d been found sexually assaulted and beaten to death. I hoped that between my gift, which allowed me to sense evil intentions, and my background in self-defense training, I could take care of myself. Ignoring the crimes entirely, however, wasn’t possible as the victims’ faces had been splashed all over the news, along with much speculation.

  Sylla narrowed her silver eyes at me. “Those women were our addicts. As of this morning, there are now four people who belonged to the sylphs who are dead by sex. Not a coincidence. We’re not so dumb.”

  “All of the dead women were vanity addicts?” If that was true, someone was doing a damn good job of covering it up. Gryphons, no doubt. They were in charge of any magic-related crimes, and although murder wasn’t necessarily magical, four dead vanity addicts was the kind of weird stuff that the Gryphons would investigate.

  “All four. Ask your master and his horned friends.”

  My stomach did something odd. Knotted up and dropped to my feet, perhaps. “He’s not my master.”

  Sylla laughed. “But you’d like him to be, wouldn’t you?”

  I slapped her commission on the counter and pocketed the ID. “I’m no one’s addict and never will be.”

  I could hear her tinkling laugh as I slammed the door. Wonderful. Now I was going to do what I promised myself I wouldn’t. I was going to seek out Lucen.

  It was just curiosity. I wanted to know what the hell satyrs had to do with dead vanity addicts. It had nothing to do with personal weakness. Oh no.

  At this time of the evening, Shadowtown was coming alive. And so were the ghouls, the husks of former addicts whose misery had fed their pred masters so well that there was almost nothing left of them. They seeped into the streets, as gray and disturbing as gargoyles. Most preds didn’t let their addicts turn into ghouls. Not, I suspected, out of some secret sympathy for humanity, but simply because preds were fastidious and didn’t want the ghouls littering their streets. For that, it was hard to blame them. Personal hygiene was just one of the many things ghouls had forgotten about.

  The few around this evening scarcely noticed me. Humans, like hygiene, held little interest for them. Some turned their hollow faces and pleading eyes on the goblins or harpies who strolled ahead of me. A couple crawled on hands and knees toward them, while others curled into balls and looked as though they wanted to melt into the concrete.

  Once my heart had ached for these wretches, just like it had for addicts. But over the years, I’d grown a nice, thick—necessary—callus.

  “Were you going to walk right by without saying hello?” asked a male voice.

  I started, suddenly aware that I was passing The Lair. A few feet below me on the left, the bar’s neon lights flickered on. A satyr stood in the doorway, his two horns jutting through thick blond waves. Blue-green eyes gleamed with the mischief so typical of his race.

  Lucen. I steeled myself. Here went nothing.

  Despite Sylla’s taunts that Lucen was my master or my friend, the truth was far less simple. So far less that even I didn’t understand it.

  The day we’d met had been the worst day of my life—my eighteenth birthday, the day the Gryphons told me that I’d never join their ranks. I’d fled from school so none of my friends would see me cry, and there had been Lucen, waiting for me when I got off the subway. He’d yanked me close, his sweet cinnamon-sugar scent sending my heart racing. “When are you most emotionally satisfied?” he’d asked. “When you’re happy, or when you’re savoring the richness of your own misery?”

  He could tell what the Gryphons couldn’t—my gift was developing fine. Just evilly.

  I ran from him at the first chance. Yet every time I turned around that evening, he seemed to be there, scaring the crap out of me but also whispering sense into my ears. I’d been in a bad place emotionally, and while Lucen might have been relishing every ounce of my anguish, he’d also kept me from doing something stupid. Like throwing myself in the Charles River.

  Even at eighteen I hadn’t been totally naïve. After all, I’d finished the Gryphon pre-training provided by the Academy, so I knew Lucen wasn’t helping me out of the goodness of his heart. He hung around me to feed off my despair and because my gift, which was actively morphing from normal to freakish, fascinated him. That much he’d told me at the time. Still, if it weren’t for him, I might not have survived the night.

  I figured Lucen might leave me alone once my mood improved, but he never had. He merely hung out in the shadowy corners of my life, tempting me silently. For all I knew, he’d been using his alleged kindness to wear me down. He could be playing a game, one in which his long lifespan gave him a major advantage.

  Lucen winked at me and held open the bar’s door. I took a deep breath. Information. That was all I wanted. And by that I meant information about the murders, not information about whether he really had goatlike legs tucked into those jeans.

  I climbed down the three steps, expecting the usual flirtations that required me to take a cold shower when I got home. Instead, Lucen stared over me at two sylphs on the sidewalk. The female of the pair elbowed the male and they drifted away.

  Had they been watching me or him? I didn’t like this, and I definitely needed information.

  I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the bar’s dim light. It was way too early for a crowd of satyrs to arrive, and the human thrill-seekers who came to Shadowtown for drinks probably weren’t as eager to flaunt their stupidity on a weeknight.

  The place was classy in an old Bostonian kind of way—dark, polished wood tables, warm lighting, tasteful decorations. There were no charms here, no overt magic to lure in potential addicts.

  Although I knew Lucen had a few addicts, I tried not to think about them. Since Lucen didn’t sell anything but drinks, he either had to buy his addict contracts from someone like Sylla, or he snagged his addicts the old-fashioned way—luring them in with his magic until they became dependent on it. For a satyr, that meant sex.

  I tried not to think about that too.

  Alas, it wasn’t easy. Like all satyrs, Lucen glowed with sexuality. Even the satyrs who weren’t traditionally attractive secreted some kind of pheromone that snared humans like peanut butter drew mice. Then snap. Down came the trap to break the human will.

  “Want a beer, little siren?” Lucen slipped behind the bar and tossed his towel at the sink.

  “No thanks.” Alcohol lowered inhibitions. I never accepted alcohol from a pred, especially a satyr. “Got coffee? I closed a deal with Sylla.”

  “Yeah, I suspected you were working. You never come to see me.” He pouted as he flipped the cap off a Devil’s Red—a satyr microbrew—and took a huge swallow. Only in Shadowtown could a bartender reasonably hope to get away with drinking on the job. Of course, The Lair was Lucen’s place. God knew what else he got away with.

>   I climbed onto a stool. “I stay away from Shadowtown with good reason.”

  “Terrible reasons. You’re stubborn. You know I’d always be happy to have you here.”

  I rolled my eyes, not rising to the bait or the double entendre. “Sylla mentioned something about the four murdered women in the news all being vanity addicts. Is that true?”

  The flirtatious expression slipped from Lucen’s face. Scowling, he poured my coffee and handed me the mug. I waited until he set it on the bar before reaching for it, not wanting to take the chance of accidentally touching his hand. “What did she say to you?”

  “That, and that I should ask you about it. What am I missing?”

  “Nothing you should be expected to know. You could say we don’t get along.”

  “You and Sylla?”

  “Satyrs and sylphs. Well, to be even more open, any of us. Have you ever noticed which races spend the most time in this place?”

  Since I did my damnedest not to spend time in Shadowtown, it required some heavy thinking. “Other satyrs, naturally. Then, I guess, harpies and humans? And I think I’ve seen a fury or two over the years. Sometimes a goblin.” But no sylphs. Definitely no magi. Funny how I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Right. You see, little siren, we have a loose sort of alliance with the harpies. We’ve got their backs and they’ve got ours. But none of us, truly, get along very well. We put on a happy face of being united when staring down a common enemy, but that’s all that unites us.”

  “A common enemy—humanity?”

  “And the magi.”

  “Ah.” I felt like I’d been let in on some big secret, only it wasn’t as cool as I thought it should be. “So…?”

  “So.” He stretched, no doubt making a point of showing off the impressive pecs he hid under his tight black T-shirt. I averted my gaze into the coffee mug. “So, a few of their addicts show up dead with evidence of sexual assault, and the sylphs can’t wait to start screaming that my people are somehow responsible for stealing and using up their addicts.”