“All right,” Blaze spat when the amber eyes burned into him. “I confess.”
“Yeah, and he owes me a set of combat dice,” I added helpfully.
Titus groaned as he closed his palm over the glowing sigil, freeing everyone to move again. There was a thump as one of the goons fell over when his body unlocked. “Blaze Eiloch,” the Enforcer said, and the name appeared in glowing white script in the air. Titus passed a hand over the floating words, and they burst into tiny flames that sprinkled ash on the floor as it burned out. “You are prohibited from gambling for five years. Now, give … Mr. Wyatt his winnings.”
“Thanks,” I said as I walked past the agitated Enforcer and approached Blaze with a hand out. “Maybe try something a little less dumb than the eleven of hearts,” I said with a grin. “You know, in five years when you’re allowed to play again.”
The half-demon’s eyes narrowed. He snapped his fingers, and the dice appeared on my palm in a little puff of smoke. They were nice and heavy, definitely ivory. And I could feel the magic coming off them in warm little pulses.
I nodded and pocketed the dice, then turned and strode for the door. “I guess you’ll have to open that up for me,” I said to the bouncer. “Oh, hey, Titus. What do you nice Enforcer type people do about bouncers who take bribes and try to beat up honest patrons?”
“I don’t take bribes, you little shit,” the bouncer growled.
Titus made a sound that was close to a laugh. “If I see any honest patrons, I will be sure to protect them from injustice,” he said. “You, however, are a scoundrel.”
“Scoundrel? I like that. Maybe I’ll put it on my business cards.” I stopped by the door and glanced back at the bouncer. “Any day now, Tiny.”
It took him a minute of grumbling, but he finally jammed the Null baton into the center depression, and the door swung open.
“Good evening, gentleman. And Titus,” I said as I walked out.
The Mandolin was still crowded on the other side of the door. I slipped into the crowds and hurried for the exit, figuring that Titus wouldn’t stick around long now that he’d gotten his conviction and the rest of the assholes would probably come after me. Once I got outside, I’d use the watch and put a little distance between them and me, just until I figured out how to handle the latest vendetta I’d managed to tangle myself up in. I had a pretty long list of those already.
But the second I stepped through the door, the bouncer who was still outside whacked me with his Null baton, shorting out my magic. I was on the ground with an aching gut before I knew it, and then Bouncer Number Two dragged me into the alley beside the bar.
Where Blaze and the rest of the goons were just coming out of the back to meet me.
4
The second bouncer forced me to my knees, and Blaze loomed over me with deep red sparks flashing in his furious eyes. “I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry,” he said. “Cayn needs that watch back. And as for the ban, I’ll just take my payment for that out of your ass.” He grinned and cracked his knuckles.
“Hey, the ban is your own damned fault,” I said as I processed his words. So, this asshole was working for Cayn. I was a little pissed off that the Collector hadn’t come to me himself demanding the watch, or at least tried to play me for it. He would’ve lost again, but I would’ve respected him for the effort.
Now I just hated the cowardly bastard and his little thug squad here.
“I think I’ll file an appeal, and you can be my witness,” Blaze said, and then smashed my jaw with a fist. “Unless you’d rather die. That can be arranged, too.”
Damn that half-blooded hellspawn. I was right in the middle of my second evening nap. Now I’ll have to kill him.
I spat blood on the ground and chuckled at the whispered voice in my head.
“Is there something funny about what I just said?” Blaze drew a fist back for another blow.
“Well, here’s the thing.” I raised my head to look at him. “You just made Princess angry.”
He hesitated with a questioning look on his face, right before tendrils of white mist radiated from my chest and formed a large, dense shape beside me. As it started to solidify, a low, warning growl filled the alley.
Blaze took a half-step back and stared at the emerging form. “Not possible,” he whispered and glared at the bouncer behind me. “Didn’t you Null him?”
“Yeah, he did,” I said as I sprang to my feet, wiping a little blood from my mouth. “But Princess does what she wants.”
There was a flash of light from the rapidly forming shape, and the goons made various panicked noises as the remains of the fog unraveled from my very solid, extremely furious, massive white tiger. Normally I’d have to summon Princess from the tiger tattoo on my chest, but she could summon herself when my life was threatened, even when she was sleeping like she had been when Blaze offered to kill me.
She was not happy about that. Cats loved their naps, even big cats.
Princess yowled and lunged at the half-demon, and the two of us went to work.
I took on Bouncer Two behind me. While Princess clamped her jaws around Blaze’s arm and swiped her claws at one of his associates, I fed the big guy a set of knuckles and followed up with a knee to his groin. Hey, if they were gonna fight dirty and come at me five to one, I’d give them dirt right back. He dropped with a liquid howl, and I broke his nose for him.
Meanwhile, Princess whipped Blaze through the air and smashed him against the brick wall of the alley, and then pounced on Bouncer One with her teeth aimed at his face. I pivoted and ran for the half-demon, who was struggling to his feet with blood dripping from his arm.
“This isn’t over,” he growled and chanted a short string of Latin words. Then he snapped his fingers.
He and the two non-bouncers promptly dissolved in black smoke.
I sighed and walked over to Princess, who was playing with the howling bouncer she’d pinned beneath her weight. And by playing, I mean only slicing him to ribbons instead of tearing his throat out. “You’d better let him go. He’s not the one who made the threat, and I’d rather not spend the rest of the night explaining a couple of dead bouncers to the enforcers.”
Princess turned her glittering green eyes on me. Do I have to?
“Yes, you do,” I said. “I promise I’ll get you some fresh meat that tastes way better than him.”
The bouncer made a funny gurgling sound when I said that. His buddy had already turned tail and run off.
Fine. Princess leaned down and snarled in her prey’s face, and then climbed off him reluctantly.
He moved surprisingly fast for a guy who was bleeding in two dozen places and probably had at least one broken bone.
“Well, that was fun,” I sighed as I watched the bouncer stagger-sprint away, and turned back to Princess. She’d settled on her haunches and was busy licking the blood from her paws. “Did you hear the rest of what these assholes said? Apparently, they’re working for Cayn.”
The Collector? Her voice in my head was mildly surprised. Collectors are not allowed to hire muscle unless a bargain has been broken.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t break any damned bargain. I didn’t even make one with him. I’m not stupid enough to give my soul away,” I said. “But he wants the watch back. That’s what they came for.”
Perhaps you should pay a visit to Golar, then.
I sighed again. Golar was the resident magic historian, a warlock with a particular gift for identifying the origins and abilities of magical items. He ran a pawn shop in the Dregs, the southwest corner of the UV. Nobody liked going to the Dregs for anything, but if you needed information on an item, you had to see Golar.
I’d already brought the watch to him once. He showed me the basic functions and told me it’d take a full day to really dig into it and figure out its origins, and I hadn’t wanted to part with it for that long. But maybe I’d have to if I wanted to know why Cayn was so damned anxious to get it back.
“All righ
t,” I finally said. “I wanted him to identify the dice, anyway.”
Princess looked at me. What dice?
“Damn, you really were sleeping hard, weren’t you?” I took the dice from my pocket and held them toward her. “I won them off the half-blooded hellspawn you were just chewing on.”
She stretched her head forward, sniffed at them, then wrinkled her nose and sneezed. Sulfur. You should really have those sterilized, she said. Well, they seem powerful.
I shrugged and put them back. “You done licking yourself?”
I suppose. Princess stretched languidly and then started purring when I stroked her head and scratched between her powerful shoulders. You’re welcome, she said. You really must stop having your life threatened while I’m napping, Seth.
“Yeah, I’ll try to work my death threats in around your sleep schedule,” I said with a grin. “So that leaves me with what, a twenty-minute window when assholes are allowed to try and kill me?”
Something like that. She smiled, even though it looked like a snarl with the amount of fang in her expression.
I returned the smile as I thought about how lucky I was to have Princess around. I’d gotten her through a fortunate accident a few years ago when I played my first demon, a fact I wasn’t aware of until he started a fire-and-brimstone tantrum halfway through the game. I’d already taken him for the original wager, and he was desperate to keep going. That was when he offered to bet the tiger.
At the time I had no idea Princess was magic. All I saw was a weakened, clearly abused animal in a cage, and I was furious enough to play for her even though I had no idea what I’d do with a white tiger once I’d won. Which I did. When the game was over, and the demon was forced to pay up, he’d pressed a searing palm to my chest and left the tiger tattooed there.
That was when the whole unraveling-into-mist thing happened, and I heard Princess’s voice in my head for the first time, just two whispered words: Thank you.
She’d been my guardian ever since. And come to think of it, Princess wasn’t exactly unknown in the UV, and plenty of people knew I had her … so why had Blaze been so surprised? That didn’t make sense. At the least, Cayn should’ve known about her and warned him.
I did mention that I was done, Princess said, pulling me from my thoughts. Now, if you don’t mind …?
“All right. Go back to sleep,” I said. I’d have to puzzle out that little mystery later.
She blurred into fog and curled toward me, settling on my chest. Going back into the tattoo would, unfortunately, tire her out more since she’d had to use her own magic. I’d have summoned her back myself, but the effects of the Null baton wouldn’t wear off for another twenty minutes or so.
I’d just have to hope I didn’t get jumped by any more bastards working for Cayn on the way to the pawn shop.
5
I was a few blocks away from the Dregs when I ran into a familiar, not unwelcome face headed toward me. Arden Grant was five and a half feet of curvy, blonde fun at the tables and in the bedroom. We hooked up pretty frequently, but I hadn’t seen her in the UV since a few days before my semi-famous game against Cayn.
She seemed happy to see me, judging from the way she wrapped herself around me and practically sucked my face off while the other people on the sidewalk parted around us like the Red Sea and made disapproving noises.
“Hi, Seth,” Arden said when she let go and stepped back. “I hear you actually beat a Collector. At cards, I mean. Can I see the watch?”
“Nice to see you too, Arden.” I chuckled and glanced around before I pulled my sleeve up. “There it is.”
She cooed and poked at the watch a few times, and then flashed a grin at me. “Elias says you can smoke out like a demon with that thing. Is it demonic? I hope not, because my cousin had a demonic item once, and it killed her.”
“It’s not demonic. I think.” I tugged my sleeve back down, looking again to see if anyone was paying attention. The shit that went down with Blaze was making me paranoid. But there was actually a good chance Arden might know something about it or be able to find out. She had a talent for finding information. “Hey, Arden,” I said. “What do you know about Cayn?”
“That’s the Collector you beat, right? Not much,” she said with a little shrug. “Why, do you need to find him?”
“No, but he’s trying to find me.” I gave her the quick and dirty version of what happened at the Mandolin, and her eyes got bigger the more I talked.
She frowned when I finished. “Isn’t that against their rules?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “Listen, do you think you can find out what his deal is? I’d rather not have to keep looking over my shoulder, wondering when’s the next time I’m gonna get dragged into an alley and jumped by a bunch of assholes.”
“I’ll look into it for you.” She smiled and batted her eyes at me. “Hey, I’m headed up to the Chute. Big blackjack game tonight,” she said. “Wanna join me?”
“Can’t right this second, but I can meet up with you there in a little while,” I said. “First I have to go to the Dregs.”
“Ugh. Why?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“To see Golar. He might be able to help me figure out why Cayn wants this damned thing back so bad,” I said, glancing down at my covered wrist. “What are you doing after that?”
“Hopefully, I’m going over to your place with you,” she said as her smile turned seductive. “I’ve been gone too long, and I missed you.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “You have been gone a while, haven’t you? What were you up to, anyway?”
She gave a little shrug, and then leaned in and kissed me. Damn, she tasted good. “See you tonight,” she said as she walked away.
As I headed for the Dregs again, Princess spoke up in my head. Remind me to schedule a nap for when she comes over.
I grinned. “You’re not jealous, are you?” I said. “Come on, you know I love you.”
She didn’t respond for a minute. I want you to be careful, Seth, she finally said. Collectors can be powerfully influential, and if Cayn is truly breaking the rules to target you, he may try to use anyone. Including your girlfriends.
“I don’t think I have to worry about Arden trying to kick my ass,” I said, running through my hookup list in my head to see if there was anyone I should worry about. Layni, Mist, Emma … nope, nope, and nope. None of the people I actually liked would piss on a Collector if it were on fire. That was a big reason I liked them. But Princess would still worry, so I said, “I promise I’ll be careful.”
Good. And now it’s time for my first late evening nap.
I felt her presence ease back. By then I was in the Dregs, a couple of square blocks of permanent deep night punctuated with street lamps that gave off dirty pools of light and a low-lying yellow fog that never seemed to lift. There’d been a fairly steady stream of people before I hit Hemlock Street, the northern border of the neighborhood, but here there was almost no one out.
The Dregs were where shifting shadows lurked in every alley, where desperate gamblers came looking for ways to settle their debts and ended up paying a price that was almost as steep as the costs of dealing with the Collectors. Still, the Dregs offered a better choice. Broken bones healed eventually, but a damned soul was forever.
Golar’s pawn shop was on the corner of Foxglove and Myrrh. With the amazingly creative name of Golar’s Pawn Shop, the place was a long, narrow brick building that ran half the length of the block, but customers only got to see the front quarter or so of the shop. The rest of it was all storage and workrooms protected with various types of wards and magic seals, where Golar could test items without the risk of cursing himself or exploding.
I walked in the glass front door and entered the murky, cluttered space of the storefront. From somewhere in the gloom to my left, a pair of eyes glittered, and a croaking voice called out, “Somebody’s here! Somebody’s here!”
I ducked just as a flurry of wings burst toward m
y face, and Golar’s talking raven wheeled past me and banked, headed for the counter at the back of the storefront. “Somebody’s here!” the raven croaked again. “Somebody’s here-here-here!”
I laughed and shook my head as I started through the store. It was a talking raven, but the bird could only say two things: ‘somebody’s here’ and ‘fuck you, gimme a cookie.’ Not exactly a marvel of a magical animal.
A door behind the counter opened in response to the raven’s persistent babble, and Golar stepped through. He was a short, stout man with a long black beard and blue runes tattooed all over his bald head, rumored to be part dwarf, although he’d never confirm or deny it. Whatever else he might’ve been, he was definitely a formidable warlock. No one who knew anything ever tried to rob Golar’s shop.
They were still scraping pieces of the last guy who tried it off Pallando Square, three blocks from here.
The raven bobbed up and down excitedly on the edge of the counter when he caught sight of Golar. “Somebody’s here!” he cawed again. “Fuck you, gimme a cookie.”
“Yes, I see that someone’s here, thank you.” Golar fished around in his robes, came out with a piece of biscuit and tossed it to the raven. “Here you go. Stupid bird,” he said.
The raven caught the treat and flapped off with it, disappearing somewhere in the gloom.
“Seth Wyatt, isn’t it?” Golar said as he came up close behind the counter. “The fellow with the interesting watch. What can I do for you?”
“A few things, actually,” I said. “I just got—”
There was a distant, muffled explosion from somewhere in the depths of the building, and something screamed.
Golar didn’t even glance back. “I did warn him not to push that button,” he said mildly.
“All right, then. Anyway.” I wasn’t going to think about who or what Golar had pushing buttons back there. “I just got a pair of combat dice from a half demon, and I wanted to find out how they work. Plus … yeah, about the watch …”
Beginner's Luck_An Urban Fantasy Adventure Page 3
