Heart of the Thief

by Katerina Martinez

  My heart was pounding. Beads of sweat had started forming all over my forehead, my neck, my chest. I formed a spell in my mind and reached out to the Tempest. I wanted my hand to ignite and set douchebag number one on fire, or at least get him to let me go. But instead of finding the Tempest, there was static.

  The pictures all around me flashed more violently. Arcs of vicious lightning ripping across them, creating bursts of light that pierced the room. The Tempest was right there, but it wasn’t answering me. It couldn’t, because Asmodius was blocking it. That son of a bitch.

  He yanked my hand out from his guard’s grip. His touch was warm, and firm, but his hand wasn’t soft like I’d expected. It was hard and calloused. A builder’s hand. I tried to pull it away from him, but his grip was like a vice.

  Already I could feel the heat coming off the sword. Shifting arcs of light danced around it, as if the whole thing were electrified. I swallowed hard and looked away. The light from the sword was burning my eyes.

  “I admire your determination to hold onto your morals,” Asmodius said, “Even if they are paper thin.”

  I said nothing. I had to conserve all of my energy for what was about to happen. I didn’t know how much it would hurt, if there’d be a blinding burst of pain the instant before dying, if there’d be no pain at all. Was I really ready to die for my morals?

  His body tensed as he lifted the sword, aiming not for my throat—but for my wrist. He wasn’t going to kill me, he was going to cut off my damn hand!

  “Wait!” I yelled, “God dammit, fine. I’ll do the job.”

  Asmodius took a deep breath, then relaxed. The sword in his hand burst apart, leaving a glittering cloud of red light hanging in the air. “Very well,” he said, sliding his hand into mine. “Then in that case, we have a deal.”

  I pulled my fingers away from his as soon as we were done shaking. “Just for the record, I’m not happy about this.”

  “I don’t care how happy you are. What I care about is the success of this job.”

  “Yeah, about that. You still haven’t told me what it is. As a policy, I don’t usually commit to anything before I know what I’m getting into.”

  “Ah, yes, but these were extraneous circumstances, and you’ve already agreed, so…”

  “So…?”

  His lips curled into a grin. “You’ll be delivering to me the contents of Eliphas von Stein’s personal vault. All of them.”

  My chest tightened. “Wait a second, I’m going to what?” I blurted out. “You want me to steal from the Magistrate?”

  “Take her to her room,” he said to his guards. “My son will be along to deliver the details shortly. Until then, make yourself at home… and don’t try to escape. That won’t end well for you.”

  The entire room fell out of focus. I almost hadn’t heard what he’d just said, but the words slowly came swimming back to me, like an echo. He wanted me to crack open the vault belonging to New York’s most powerful mage; its Magister, the head of the Magistrate. Was it too late to ask him to take the hand?

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was escorted to my room at gunpoint, which probably summed up how I’d spend the rest of my time in Asmodius’ mansion. The guards leading me through the mansion guided me down corridors, down flights of stairs, up others, until I didn’t know which was up anymore. Or at least, that had been the idea.

  The guards had clearly been instructed to try and disorient me, to make sure I’d have a hard time finding my way out of the building if I chose to escape. I wasn’t sure if that had been the boss’ idea, or just their superior officer’s idea, but it’d been a pretty stupid one. Like I wouldn’t notice going past the same old portraits twice.

  Still, I didn’t mind being shown around the place. The mansion was huge, and stunning, with deep black carpets to contrast against the white marble walls and pillars. The entire place was beautifully lit by lights held in solid gold fixtures. There were only a handful of dark corners and blind spots in the entire house… and I knew where they all were.

  We finally reached a door to what would become my bedroom. The lead guard turned the handle and pushed it open to reveal a bedroom like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was easily as big, or maybe even bigger, than my entire apartment, and at least twice as fancy.

  Walking over to the window, New York loomed high in the distance, the skyscrapers of Manhattan Island standing like shadows behind the nearby trees. The clouds still clung to the buildings, and the rain and lightning hadn’t let up, but that only seemed to add to the beauty of it all.

  “Is this seriously my room?” I asked.

  “Yes,” one of the guards said. “Don’t try to leave.” He shut the door, terminating any possible conversation before it started.

  I was being set up in relative luxury, and all I’d had to do was accept a job from the city’s most notorious crime lord. A shudder moved through me. I’d suddenly started to feel a little dirty, like I’d cut part of myself out in order to make that deal. But it was either that or lose a hand. At least this way I had a chance at making it out of this.

  All I had to do to achieve that goal was steal from the city’s most powerful and prominent mage. I mean, what the hell was Asmodius thinking throwing me into the deep end like that? I didn’t doubt my ability to crack Eliphas’ magic wards, but I wasn’t a thief. I was a finder. I found things people had lost, or things that had been stolen from them first.

  Taking this job went against everything I believed in and came with the added hazard of possible death, but I guessed it was my own fault I was here. I’d put myself on Asmodius’ radar by outsmarting him.

  A knock at my door startled me out of my thoughts. I walked over to it, one hand instinctively moving to where my dagger should’ve been as I reached for the handle with the other. Dammit. They’d taken it as well as my phone, my wallet, and my keys. I knew I could throw magic around if I needed to—nothing in the room was actively stopping me—but for now, at least, I wanted to be a good houseguest.

  At least until I’d had a little time to consider my options.

  Taking a deep breath in through the nose to calm myself, I opened the door, and there he was. Immediately the scent of his cologne breezed past me, whipped around, and took hold of me. It was him; the guy who’d caught me in the alley.

  He had a lazy, socialite’s smile; the kind of smile he’d probably been trained to put on for his father’s guests all his life. It was charming, disarming, and about as fake as the rest of him. Everything about him reeked of entitlement and wealth. The tailored black shirt and suspenders, the pentagram cufflinks, even the cologne itself, all of it.

  And yet… holy hell, those eyes. They were clear blue and strikingly beautiful, just like his fathers’, and they went perfectly his jet-black hair he kept swept to one side. I hated it. He’d captured me, he’d blindfolded me, he’d tied me up, and then he’d had me stunned by a Necromancer. Why’d he have to be good looking, too?

  It was entirely unfair.

  “Yes?” I asked, after enough time had passed to make his presence a little awkward.

  “My father asked me to come and talk to you,” he said, his voice cool and detached. “I understand you’ll be working with us.”

  “You understand right, though I’m probably more of a prisoner than a colleague.”

  “Prisoner is a harsh term. May I come in?”

  I stepped aside. “It’s your house.”

  He hung back for a second, then he slowly moved into the bedroom. One of the guards shut the door behind him, yanking it out of my hand. “Rude…” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, turning around to look at me. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Axel… Axel Barlow.”

  “Izzy,” I offered, a little reluctantly.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Then you have me at a disadvantage, but I guess that’s what you were going for with the whole kidnapping thing?”

  “Not really. Bringing you i
n wasn’t my idea.”

  “I find that hard to believe considering who your father is. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  He narrowed his eyes like he was analyzing me, scanning me for vulnerabilities. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and flicked my blue hair across my shoulder. “So?” I asked, “What exactly did your father want you to come and talk to me about?”

  A pause. “You’ve been hired to do a job,” he said, “You know what that job is?”

  “I know it’s bullshit.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh, because what you want me to do is a suicide mission.”

  “If it was, I doubt you’d be standing here right now.”

  “You can say whatever you want. Better people than me have tried to get at his treasures and been killed for it.”

  “So, you know of Eliphas’ treasures?”

  “Everyone’s heard of them. The gold, the artifacts, the priceless heirlooms. Nobody’s ever seen this vault, no one’s so much as glimpsed one of these artifacts he’s supposedly got stored in there, but everyone talks about it like they’re real.”

  “You don’t believe the stories.”

  “I believe he has a vault. I believe he keeps a bunch of stuff in there—probably really personal stuff. But does he have priceless heirlooms and magical artifacts of indeterminate power squirreled away? I haven’t seen a lick of proof to back that up.”

  Axel reached into his pocket and flicked a gold coin at me. It glinted against the light in the room as it sailed across the air, ringing softly with every spin. I plucked it from its path and examined it in my hand. It was heavy, and cold to the touch. On one side was a pentagram with a bunch of Latin words written around it.

  The only word I recognized was Magus, which was kind of the formal word for mage. I flipped the coin over and saw, behind the pentagram, an etching of a round dome with a flame inside of it. There were magic sigils all around the dome, a series of tiny, almost random shapes which meant something to mages who could read them. In the heart of the fire was another, much smaller symbol—the magic sigil for power.

  I swallowed hard, then turned my eyes up at Axel. “This is—”

  “—real, I can assure you.”

  “It can’t be real. These coins were all lost a thousand years ago.”

  “When the shining city drowned, yes. My mother told me the story when I was a child… do you know it?”

  “There isn’t a mage alive that hasn’t heard of Ashelor.”

  “What do you know of it?”

  I shrugged. “Only that it was the seat of power for the whole world. An empress ruled there. She had a weird name I can’t remember, but she was supposed to be awesome.”

  “Qyhena Ophine. They called her the First Queen, although she was hardly the first.”

  “Nobody calls her that anymore. Now she’s the Drowned Queen.”

  “She died with her followers, that’s true, but not before building a utopian city for mages; a city hidden from humans and thus free from strife, squalor, and crime. It was a place where mages could focus on what was truly important—unlocking the mysteries of the universe.”

  I’d almost forgotten I was holding a coin in my hand until a it gave off a little zap that made me almost drop it. A chill broke through me, making every hair on my arm stand at attention for an instant. I shook my head and tossed the coin back at him. Axel caught the coin and slid it back into his pocket.

  “So, you’re telling me this coin comes from Ashelor?” I asked.

  “This coin proves not all of the Queen’s gold drowned with her city. Some of it made it out—a lot of it, in fact. What you’re holding in your hand right now is worth more money than you’ll probably ever see in your entire life.”

  “How did you get it?”

  A grin spread across his lips. “I bought it.”

  “You… what? From who?”

  “From the man who owns the lion’s share of the coins that remain in the world today. If he has them, then he may own more pieces of the shining city.”

  “… and they’ll be in his vault,” I said, finishing his thought. “How do I know that isn’t fake?”

  “You just have to take me at my word that it’s real.”

  “And the word of a kidnapper is worth…?”

  “No more than the word of a common thief, but I expect if you come through with this job, you could become one of the richest people in the world overnight.”

  “And yet, I don’t trust your dad when he says he’ll pay me.”

  “Then you underestimate him, and that’s a dangerous mistake to make.” He walked over to my bedroom door. “We’ll start tomorrow morning.”

  “Start?” I asked, turning around to follow his movements. “Start what?”

  “Preparations. You’re going to need to assemble a team, first. Pick six people you can trust. Criminals, like yourself.”

  I scowled, anger bubbling inside of me like lava, but I bit my lip to stifle the venom that was about to come flying out. “You really expect me to do this job, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I do…” he trailed off, eyeing me up and down with those bedroom eyes of his. I folded my arms across my chest again. “It’s in all our best interests that you come through,” he continued.

  I took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Fine… but I’m not bringing six people into this. I’ll only need three others.”

  Axel didn’t say another word. He simply watched me from the door for another moment, then he opened it and strode out of the room leaving me alone with my thoughts. Ancient cities, drowned queens, huge fortunes? What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  My first sleep at a crime lord’s house was about as successful as it could’ve been. I was used to sleeping in the heart of New York City, the city that never sleeps. No matter what time of night, you weren’t far from the sounds of sirens, yelling, dogs whining out of balconies, or even the asshole in 3B who liked getting choked out during sex. And yet, I could sleep through all that.

  For those nights that were a little more troublesome, there was always my good friend, Amaretto.

  Out here, though? The silence itself was deafening. There were no sirens, and no people. The only ambient sounds were the hooting of owls, or the occasional tapping of the tree against the window outside of my room. The whole place felt alien to me. I’d never known anything besides noise, and now that there wasn’t any, it was that lack of noise that made me feel a little unsafe more than anything else.

  Morning came accompanied by the banging of a fist against my bedroom door. I shot up, my heart hammering a bassline directly into my ears. I must’ve fallen asleep for a little while because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on, until whoever was at the door started pounding on it again.

  Sliding out of bed, I marveled at how I wasn’t in any pain. To this place’s credit, the bed had been incredible. I didn’t exactly live in squalor, but my bed wasn’t nearly as soft or as comfortable as this one had been. I stretched against the sunlight filtering in through the window, letting the person at my door stew in their own frustration for a second longer.

  “You’d better get up, or I’m knocking this down!” came a muffled voice from the other side. Whoever it was clearly didn’t have permission to do that, otherwise they’d have forced their way in by now.

  After taking a second to slip my shoes back on—I had slept in yesterday’s clothes—I walked over to the door, unlocked it, and opened it. “Geez, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I said to the guard with the veiny, red face. “What the hell do you want?”

  “It’s time to leave,” he said, between his teeth. He aimed his rifle at me.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “What, no breakfast?”

  “Move, slowly.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  I shuffled out of the bedroom and moved along the hallway until I reached the staircase leading to the foyer. There, waiting for me, we
re two people I very much recalled having met last night. Delia and Karkov. The crows. That was a good fight, I thought as I made my way down the stairs to them.

  “Beautiful day, no?” I asked.

  Delia’s face was stone. No scowl, no sign of being pleased with herself, either. As if they’d planned it, Delia and Karkov stepped aside in synchronicity, allowing me to move past them and toward the front door.

  “I’d suggest you keep your smart mouth shut,” Delia said, “You’re on the boss’ payroll, now, so you’d better play nice.”

  “Or what? You’ll send me to HR for a disciplinary review?” I pointed a finger at Karkov just as he was about to open his mouth. “I swear, if you call me little girl, we’re gonna have a problem.”

  “… girl talk big,” he said, “Let single win go to her head.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call last night a win. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You could be dead,” Delia put in, “Would that be an improvement over the current situation? Because it can be arranged.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Try it, and then I’ll see you in whatever Hell you get sent to after the boss finds out.”

  Delia scowled at me, her eyes narrowing. “You’d better get moving. I may not be able to kill you, but I can hurt you… and then I can fix you, only to hurt you again. Pretty sure I have the freedom to do that.”

  In a past life I’d learned to pick my battles. Sometimes it was better to keep your mouth shut and let the other person have the last word. It made them feel special, stronger, younger. That’s when people are at their most vulnerable. She could have this one. I’d get the next one.

  I walked between the crows and headed for the door. They fell in line behind me like robots, walking side by side in perfect step. Outside, the sun was bright and hot in the sky. All the clouds and the rain and the wind had gone, but not the cold. The breeze nipped at my nose and my ears like it had teeth. Rubbing my shoulders, I hurried over to the black car parked in the driveway—the one I was sure was meant for me—but the door was locked.