Heart of the Thief

by Katerina Martinez

  Axel took the cup, and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Do you know what I hate?” Asmodius asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “How is it that a lowly gutter mage like that has such an incredible power, and I don’t?”

  “I don’t understand it either.”

  Asmodius stared into the glass, and then knocked it all back in one go. “She is nothing,” he said, “A common thief with pitiful magic and with no guardian. And yet, she has the power to steal from me. Why is that?”

  A pulse of warmth rocked Axel’s body as his father spoke of Guardians. These were pre beings of light and magic, creatures that lived inside of the Tempest—that violent, turbulent realm from which all magic comes. But not all mages could say they had one. In order to get to their Guardians, mages had to plunge into the Tempest itself, brave that hellish landscape, and survive.

  Axel had taken the journey when he was eighteen; Izzy, it seemed, hadn’t taken it at all. He shook his head and drank from his glass. But he only sipped it—he wanted to keep a level head. “I’ve read the same stories you have. Mages with special abilities aren’t uncommon in history.”

  Asmodius turned around and headed for the bar again. “I don’t need a history lesson from you,” he spat, “I want to know how she can do what she does… I want to understand it, learn from it, and then duplicate the power myself the way our ancestors did.”

  “Our ancestors?”

  “What do you know of the drowned queen’s artefacts?”

  “Little more than what you’ve told me. They exist, they’re here in New York, and they’re powerful.”

  “But powerful is an abstract term…” Asmodius poured himself another glass. “What do you know of their power?”

  “I don’t. I’m not sure I’ve heard of even a single artefact that survived the sinking of the Shining City.”

  “That’s because records of what they were and how they worked have all been lost to time. Only she knew how her creations worked, and she shared that secret with no one. But there is a story that did survive the destruction of Ashelor… do you know what it is?”

  Asmodius turned around, only this time he wasn’t just holding a glass—he had a blade in his other hand. It was a serrated dagger with a golden handle, a red ruby attached to the small cross guard. Axel stared at it, his heart rapidly pulsing against his throat, now.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t.”

  “Our ancestors were crafty,” Asmodius said, tapping the side of the blade against his forehead. “They learned not only how to create magical artefacts—a skill that has been lost for centuries—but they also learned how to store a piece of themselves into the artefacts they created. Their reasons for this were numerous. Some believed that so long as pieces of them survived within their artefacts, they could never die. Others believed they could be reincarnated after they did shuffle loose the mortal coil.”

  Asmodius drank from his glass and slowly advanced on Axel, but Axel stood his ground. “The truth, I think, is much less dramatic than that. I believe the truth is simply more akin to a painter signing his name on a finished canvas. A magical flourish, a signature.”

  Axel narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I follow,” he said.

  “Some of our ancestors believed they could siphon the power a mage stored in their artefacts by tapping into these magical signatures. The practice was barbaric. It made them look like leeches, parasites, but they were successful in absorbing some of that mage’s power through it.”

  “And that’s why you want the artefacts… you want to absorb the drowned queen’s power…”

  “Yes, but I also want more than that.”

  “More?”

  “Over the years, the practice of stealing the power from an artefact lead to other breakthroughs in the field. One such breakthrough was the working theory that instead of absorbing only the magic held within an artefact, a mage could take every last drop of another mage’s power and add it to their own… directly.”

  Asmodius placed the tip of his blade against Axel’s heart, and he could’ve sworn it skipped a beat inside of is chest. “How?” was all Axel could think to ask.

  “Do you remember your mission?” Asmodius asked from behind the rim of his glass.

  “I do… when this is over, I am to kill Isabella and her team.” Saying it was enough to make his stomach twist inside out. He’d never killed anyone before, but it was for the good of the family. Of his family. The only family he had. A family that was constantly under threat, not just by the Magistrate, but by other, powerful, rival magical families.

  Asmodius twisted the blade so now the handle was resting against Axel’s chest. “I don’t want you to kill her,” he said, “What I want you to do… is take this knife, and cut her heart out of her chest.”

  Axel’s entire body temperature plummeted like he’d just jumped into an ice lake. He swallowed hard. “Cut… her heart out?” he asked.

  “I want you to cut out her heart and bring it to me.”

  His heart was hammering so hard it made his vision wobble. Slowly, trying to get his trembling hand under control, he took the knife. It was heavy in his grip, so heavy it almost weighed him down. He told himself not to ask, not to pry, not to know. But mages lived to know. Every door needed opening; every rock needed turning over.

  “And what—”

  “—and then I’m going to eat it.”

  Instantly he regretted having asked. He searched his father’s clear eyes hoping to find something like anger or frustration in them. Anything to suggest he was doing this simply to get revenge on the only person who had humiliated him in over ten years. But there was only a cold disconnect in his eyes; distance, apathy.

  “Once I have her power,” Asmodius said, “All of our enemies will fall. They will know they are not safe even in their most heavily protected places. They will all run from us, and then we will finally be at peace. I can count on you, can’t I? For the good of our family.”

  Axel’s jaw clenched. He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “For the good of the family.”

  Asmodius nodded, turned, and headed back to his desk. “Don’t fail tonight. Dismissed.”

  Nodding again, Axel left the room, making sure to knock back the drink he’d been holding in his other hand almost the entire time. He handed it to one of the guards standing just on the other side of the door, then went striding down the hall becoming suddenly even more aware of the weight of the dagger in his hand.

  He stared at it, watched the way the light bounced off its sharpest and most polished edges. The surface of the ruby on the handle glistened as the light touched it, but inside, its heart was deep red—the color of blood.

  Having nowhere to sheath it, he hurried to his room with the dagger behind his back. Irrationally, it felt to him like he’d already done the deed, like the dagger was already covered with blood—her blood. It felt like a murder weapon, one he was eager to stash before anybody found it.

  He’d already accepted his father’s mission the first time it had been put to him. Isabella was to be killed after the mission was over—she already knew too much about the family, and she was a risk to its safety. He hadn’t known who she was then; to him, she’d been someone who had stolen from his father, and by extension, from him, too.

  He thought he could kill her, if it came down to it. She was dangerous, and he knew that. But he didn’t hate her… certainly not enough to carve out her heart. And yet, if he didn’t do it, what would that mean for him?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mighty, wrought iron fences encircled the graveyard where I’d find my final pick for this heist. They towered above us, their tips sharp and pointing toward the full moon hanging above us like flowers to the sun. Even from the sidewalk, the smell of newly turned earth and freshly cut grass was strong. But as I got a little closer to the entrance, another smell emerged like a phantom guardian.

  Something a little more… deathly.

 
; “Are you sure we’re gonna find him here?” Axel asked.

  We were walking together, the only two people on this quiet road. A moment ago, it felt like, there’d been plenty of foot and car traffic around us despite the late hour. Now it was like everyone had scattered, leaving me to wonder where the hell everyone had gone.

  “This is the last of three graveyards I know he patrols,” I said.

  “Patrols?”

  “He’s a Necromancer. It’s what he does.”

  I wasn’t even touching him, but I could feel how tense Axel was. I glanced over at him and braved the question. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine,” he said, not looking at me.

  “Look, I know for a fact Necromancers don’t freak you out because you have at least one of them on your staff. Is it the graveyard?”

  “I’m fine. You just keep your mind on task.”

  I couldn’t help but notice something was different about him, but I also didn’t know what it was. He’d left us each to our own devices after we’d been brought back to the mansion. RJ and Danvers had been given their own rooms and been told not to leave. Dinner was provided, so were clean clothes.

  Where he’d been during that time, I didn’t know, but he was more uptight than what he’d been all day.

  The entrance to the graveyard lied up ahead. The closer I got to it, the stronger that feeling of dread, that strange deathly smell, got. It was like a warning—no, not a warning; it was a ward. I stopped in my tracks and grabbed hold of Axel’s arm.

  “So,” I ventured, “Are your magic shields up yet?”

  “No,” he said, “Why would they be?”

  A bolt of arching blue lightning whizzed past my ear, forcing the hairs on the nape of my neck to stand on their ends. I pulled Axel to the ground with me and lay flat on the floor. “That’s why,” I yelled.

  “Who the hell is shooting at us?”

  “That would be my good friend, Karim—our Necromancer.”

  “Wait, the Necromancer is shooting at us? Why would he be doing that?”

  “No reason… except he hates me right now, and he’s probably gonna try and kill us.”

  Another zap of light sailed over our heads and went slamming into a nearby streetlight, smashing the bulb in a hail of sparks. Axel covered his head with his hands. “And you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?”

  “I wanted to, but then you’d have tried to talk me out of it.”

  I hurriedly got to my feet and dragged Axel with me toward the graveyard’s entrance. The gate was shut, but the locks weren’t there. A little push, and it would open.

  “I told you not to come looking for me!” Karim yelled from somewhere inside the graveyard. Another bolt of lightning shot out from the darkness. This time Axel deflected it with his hand, sending its energy smashing into the sidewalk.

  “I just wanna talk,” I called out, “Cover me while I figure this ward out.”

  Axel nodded and kept his eyes peeled for more panicked fire from inside the graveyard. Karim was many things, had many useful qualities, but he was about as good in a firefight as a blind racoon trying to work a slingshot.

  The ward he’d set up at the gates, on the other hand, was ironclad. It wasn’t something I couldn’t crack, it had been speaking to me ever since I’d first sensed it—whispering the gestures I’d need to show for it to unlock—but this wasn’t any normal ward. Karim had taken steps to shore up its power, and while the series of hand gestures I needed were forming in my mind as the seconds ticked on, the image would never be complete.

  I needed to do something else in order to break this ward—I needed to get close enough to him. Considering that we were on this side of the barrier and he was on the other, getting close to him was out of the question. Lucky for me, the ward was only here to encourage humans to stay well away from the area and to warn him should mages cross the barrier while Karim was at work.

  I doubted if the ward would remain once Karim was done.

  I dashed toward the gate, crossing the ward’s threshold, and pushed it open. The gate screamed on its hinges, protesting the hard shove I’d given it. Axel ducked as another streak of magic hurtled toward him. It whizzed past him and smashed into the side of a car, shattering one of its windows and triggering the alarm.

  I slammed the car with an electric jolt strong enough to overload its circuits and silence the alarm, then I found cover behind the grave digger’s shed.

  “He seems friendly,” Axel said, frowning and breathing heavily.

  “Yeah, he’s a real hoot,” I said. I peered around the corner, checking the graveyard for any sign of him. A soft layer of mist surrounded the many tombstones closest to the entrance. Behind them, a withered, black tree rose out of the ground, its crooked branches making it look like a dead man’s hand trying to crawl its way out of death.

  “Any sign of him?” Axel asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Look, man,” I called out, “We can fight all you want, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to step through this gate, and I’m happy to wait for you all night.”

  “I find that highly unlikely,” came Karim’s voice. He sounded a little calmer now, his British accent now coming through. That was both a good and a bad thing. Calm people are easier to negotiate with. Calm Necromancers are usually up to something.

  “Which part? The part about you having to come through the gate, or the part about me waiting all night?”

  “Both. You see, I don’t need to step through that gate if I want to leave this graveyard. While there may not appear to be anymore exits, I can assure you there are. I’m also one of the poor, unfortunate souls you’ve chosen to afflict with the burden of knowing you. So much so, that I know you won’t last all night. You’ll get bored.”

  Damn. He’s right.

  “Is he right?” Axel asked.

  “Uh, no,” I said, glancing at him, “Totally, not. Just let me do the talking.”

  I peered around the corner again, and this time a blast of magic came at me so fast I almost couldn’t turn away from it fast enough. Luckily, the corner of the undertaker’s shack was there to absorb the hit instead of my face. And by absorb, I mean a chunk of it splintered into a million pieces like it had been hit with a large bullet.

  His accuracy had improved, though. That was something.

  “Alright,” I said, “If you’re gonna insist on fighting me, I’ll give you a fight.”

  Axel grabbed my arm just as I was about to move out of hiding. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “Negotiating. What do you think?”

  “You can’t go out there. He has us pinned. If you go around that corner, he’s going to light you up like a Christmas tree.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think I can’t defend myself against him?”

  “I think you’re not taking full advantage of your resources, and that’s going to be a problem considering the mission you’ve been hired to do.” There was something in his voice, then… a sharpness to it. And his eyes. The tension on his face was palpable, impossible to ignore. It was like I wasn’t talking to the same guy from earlier.

  I frowned at him. “I think you’re underestimating me again,” I yanked my arm out of his hand, “And that’s gonna be a problem for you.”

  Still frowning, I turned the corner with my hands ready for the fight I’d just promised Karim. I opened my mouth to speak, but something lunged toward me. It was little more than a dark blur at first, but as my eyes widened, I saw the slack-jawed thing barreling toward me, its arms extended, its teeth gnashing, its eyes yellow.

  Immediately I regretted coming around the corner. I turned around and pushed into Axel again. “Nope,” I said, “That’s a fucking zombie.”

  “A what?” he yelped.

  “A zombie. Fucking run!”

  Axel spun around and ran around the undertaker’s shed. I followed him, listening to the way the zombie came sprinting behind us. It wasn’t a slow, shamblin
g creature like the ones you see on TV. That thing was fast, a corpse that probably hadn’t spent more than a week or so underground. Even though I couldn’t see it anymore, I could still picture its dirt-caked skin, its yellow teeth, its blackened fingers.

  I could hear Karim belly-laughing from somewhere in the graveyard. “Weren’t expecting that, were you, you daft bint?” he cackled.

  “A zombie?” I yelled back, “Really? Who throws a zombie at another mage?”

  “Someone who wants to be left the hell alone. Now, do us all a favor and bugger off before Chester rips your arms off and eats them.”

  “I bet Chester’s a real hit with the ladies,” I grumbled.

  “Do you have a plan here?” Axel asked, “Because we can’t keep running around this shack forever.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You aren’t working fast enough.”

  Axel broke away from the grave digger’s shed and started moving away from it, waving his arms and yelling to catch Chester’s attention. The zombie turned to look at him, cocked his head, and started sprinting toward Axel. I could’ve shot it in the back then and there, but a bit of movement caught my eye between the tombstones and the tree.

  Besides, it looked like Axel had things under control.

  I ran toward the source of the movement, my arms pumping hard, my legs working overtime. It was him, Karim. I caught him slinking around the tree like a cartoon burglar—he was about to make a break for one of the mausoleums closest to him. Before he’d made it even three steps out, I’d already fired a spell at him.

  He turned at the last second and put his hands up, his tall, lanky form looking more like a praying mantis than an actual human being. The spell struck him in the forearm with enough force to send him crashing to the floor. Arcs of lightning whipped around his body, causing him to violently convulse like he’d just been hit with a taser.