I finished the first cup fast and poured a second, realizing that I felt a little sleepy. That was the opposite effect coffee was supposed to have. I chalked it up to the long night and the early start and figured the second cup would perk me right up.
But when I’d gotten about halfway through the mug, I was downright drowsy.
The café door opened. I expected the brusque old waitress, and maybe a plate of live octopus or metal shavings drizzled with maple syrup or something equally surprising. Instead, a slim man in a stained white apron, with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and a skull-and-crossbones earring dangling from one ear, walked out and headed confidently toward my table.
My amulet started to glow as he approached.
“Hey, back off,” I blurted as I stood from the table, and the whole world suddenly spun around me. I collapsed to one knee almost without realizing it. “The hell’s going on?” I said, my tongue thick in my mouth.
“Relax, Mr. Wyatt,” the man in the white apron said. “I’m the head chef here. Just wanted to tell you that breakfast is going to be delayed for a few minutes.”
Hearing my name from this complete stranger’s mouth spiked adrenaline through me, and I almost managed to get up. But not quite. “You poisoned me,” I said or tried to say. Except none of my muscles would cooperate the right way, and what came out of my mouth was a garbled mess of sound.
The guy was talking again. “It’s only a sedative. You’ll be fine as soon as—”
That was all I heard before blackness closed in around me.
20
I woke up in a comfortable bed, which was about the last thing I expected.
The first thing I did was sit up too fast. I’d figured I must’ve been tied down, but when it turned out I wasn’t, I bolted upright, and the blood rushed to my head, making my surroundings spin like a carnival ride.
“Take it easy, Seth,” a voice said. “It’ll wear off in a minute.”
I knew that voice, and it only made this whole situation more confusing. “Zorah?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry about all this secrecy,” she said as my vision slowly settled, and I made out a wall with a dresser against it across from the foot of the bed. “But I found out a few important things, and I needed to tell you in private.”
I blinked a few times, clearing away the rest of the bleariness, and turned my head toward the sound of her voice. She was sitting on the edge of an easy chair next to an end table with a lamp on it, the lines of her body tense as she watched me nervously. “So instead of, I don’t know, getting a motel room or going for a walk, you had me drugged,” I said. “Because that’s a totally sane way to have a private conversation.”
“You’re right. It’s not sane,” she said. “But I can’t take any chances that someone will find out I’m helping you. If it gets back to him, he’ll kill me. And it won’t be quick.”
“Gets back to who?” I said. “Cayn?”
She stared at me for so long, I thought she wouldn’t answer. Finally, she said, “Oberon.”
From the way she said the name, in a half-scared whisper, I guessed that must be the mysterious ‘master’ that everyone said the Collectors had, but no one knew anything about. Still, I wanted to make sure. “And he would be …?”
“In charge,” she said abruptly, her tone closing off that particular avenue of conversation.
“Okay, then.” Some of the thickness had drained from my senses, and I was starting to feel normal again. I eased over to the side of the bed and swung my legs slowly down, so I was seated facing her. “Shit, your guy really whammied me,” I said. “I mean the chef or whatever. I’m assuming he works for you.”
“Not exactly. Leonard is … one of mine,” she said carefully.
I knew what that meant. He must’ve sold his soul to her, which explained why my amulet lit up. At least he wasn’t one of Cayn’s. “So, what’d he get out of the bargain?” I said. “Because if it’s that shitty, ridiculous restaurant, you gave him a raw deal.”
“My bargains are confidential,” Zorah said, her eyes flashing with an emotion I couldn’t place.
“Well, I guess it’s nice that your so-called clients can trust you.” That was as far as I planned to get into the whole thing about her being a Collector. I was close to believing her story about somehow being forced into the job, especially considering the way she’d said Oberon’s name, but I wasn’t quite there yet. “Anyway, what did you want to tell me?”
She sighed and bit her lip, then leaned forward and clasped her hands between her legs. “It’s not as much as I wanted to know, at least not yet,” she said. “But I did find out why Cayn wants that watch back so badly … enough to break the rules for it. Which, unfortunately, he has permission to do,” she added bitterly.
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “So even if we stop him, Cayn’s not going down for this.”
“Oh, he will go down. If he fails.” Zorah’s hands broke apart, and she flexed them and stood. “But then you’ll have an even bigger problem because that watch belongs to Oberon.” She shivered slightly and looked away. “He is absolutely furious. He needs it for something, and if Cayn doesn’t get it back, he’s not going to just forget about it. He’ll send something else after you. And whatever it is, it’ll be a lot worse than Cayn.”
Great. As if the multiple vendettas I had going against me weren’t enough, now I had the master of the Collectors on my ass. That didn’t seem like it’d end well for me. “Okay, so what do you recommend I do about this?” I said. “If you say give Oberon the watch back—”
“No! You definitely shouldn’t do that.” She looked straight at me with worried green eyes that reminded me of Princess. “Whatever he wants it for, it’s bad, because Oberon doesn’t do anything good. Ever.” A bitter expression flashed across her face. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure what you should do, other than wait for me to find out more about what’s going on. And not let Cayn get his hands on that watch.”
“Trust me, that’s not in the cards,” I said, thinking about the other function of the watch, the lock part. And how a luck pendant might be useful in getting a random device, like a roulette wheel, to land on certain numbers in sequence. Say, to open a combination lock.
The idea that started to form in my mind was not a pleasant one.
“Hey, Zorah,” I said carefully as I considered how to frame this. She was obviously reluctant to say anything about Oberon, but maybe if I mentioned the other pieces of this potential puzzle, she’d draw the same conclusions I just had. “Do you know a guy named Joad Baylor?”
Frown lines creased her brow. “Not personally,” she said. “I hear he’s rich and kind of a prick, but that’s all I know. Why?”
“Kind of a prick. That’s an understatement.” I shook my head. “Him and I have never been friends, but right now we’re downright enemies. He wants to keep me from playing in the Four Skulls tournament because he seems convinced I’m the only one who could beat him. I think he tried to get an Enforcer to detain me the other day. And right before I went to sign up for the tournament, he definitely tried to kill me.”
Her mouth fell open. “Couldn’t you report him to someone?”
“I probably could, but I’m not sure they’d do anything. It’s Joad’s word against mine, he’s richer than me, and the Enforcers don’t like me. One in particular,” I said, still wondering why Titus held such a grudge … and what Elias knew about it. Because the old man obviously knew something he wasn’t telling me. “Anyway, for some reason, Joad is hell-bent on getting this year’s tournament prize, which is a luck pendant.”
If that rang any bells for Zorah, it didn’t show in her face. “Why does he want it so badly?” she said.
“I have no idea. But there’s something else that I didn’t think about in connection with Joad and the tournament, until just now,” I said as I glanced at my coat sleeve pulled over the watch. “I had Golar check out the roulette watch, and he says it has a s
econdary function. It’s some kind of lock. And now I’m thinking, random spins plus luck might equal hitting a certain combination.
Zorah blanched the instant her mind put it together. She started moving slowly toward the bed. “You think he wants to unlock the watch,” she said.
“Maybe.” I gave a deliberately casual shrug. “Or maybe he’s working for someone else who wants to unlock the watch.”
“Oberon,” she whispered, turning and sinking down to perch beside me.
Yeah. That’s what I’d been thinking.
“Does your boss ever hire contractors to do his dirty work?” I said. “I mean, if that’s something you can tell me.”
She shuddered and closed her eyes. “Usually he just forces whoever he wants to do his bidding, on pain of death,” she said, her lips barely moving. “But with humans, he’s found it more … productive to appeal to their greedy nature, their lust for power. That’s why he bargains for their souls. It’s rare for him to strike a deal directly with a human, but it has happened.” She looked at me with deep concern. “If you’re right about this, Oberon could be planning something far worse than I thought.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What did you think he was planning?”
“Oh, just the usual,” she said with a wan smile. “Death and destruction, things like that.”
“Great. So now you think he’s got something worse than death and destruction in mind?” I said. “Well, I guess that means we’ll just have to stop him, or at least stop Cayn and Joad. Right?”
“Right,” she said uncertainly, but then she pulled herself together a little. “I’ll see if I can find anything out about this tournament prize and about Joad,” she said. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take.”
“Let’s say it won’t take longer than two days because that’s when the tournament is happening,” I said.
She winced at that, and a resolute expression came over her. “All right. Two days,” she said and started to stand. Then she looked at me and settled back down. “I don’t usually do this, but I really like you. And if you’re not busy, well, there’s a bed right here …” She trailed off and blushed slightly. “I mean, since we’re going to work together and all, I thought maybe we could have a little fun.”
For a second I wondered if I was really going to sleep with a Collector. But I did believe her story about being forced to work for Oberon, and she was trying to rebel against him. And I was definitely interested in her. “I think you’re right,” I said as I slid my jacket off. “It’d be a shame to waste this perfectly good bed.”
She flashed a quick smile, leaned over and kissed me. I groaned as she tugged at my shirt and drew back to take it off. But when she caught sight of the tattoo on my chest, she froze and stared at me.
As if she’d seen a ghost.
“What is it?” I said, glancing from the likeness of Princess back to her shocked features. “Do you know her?”
Zorah recovered instantly and laughed, and it sounded perfectly normal. “Your tattoo has a gender?” she said. “No, I can’t say I’m acquainted with any tigers. Is, uh, she someone you know?”
“Kind of,” I said slowly. I knew I hadn’t imagined the stunned look on her face, the flash of recognition in her eyes. She’d played it off smoothly enough, but it had been there. She knew something.
Then she was unbuttoning my jeans and slipping her hand down them, and I decided that my questions could wait a little while.
21
Later that night, I was once again headed to the Dregs, this time in response to Golar’s summons. He’d actually used his raven to send me a written message asking me to come to the shop, and the damned bird wouldn’t go away until I gave it a cookie. Luckily, the ‘talking’ raven couldn’t immediately tell the difference between a cookie and the crumpled napkin I’d found in my pocket from one restaurant or another.
But I’d stopped to buy a small pack of crackers on the way to the pawn shop, just in case the bird decided to hold a grudge.
I still didn’t know where Zorah had taken me. When we were done, she’d used a transport spell to bring me from the random bedroom to the alley behind The Wilting Flower, and then she’d hurried off to investigate the possible link between Joad and Oberon before I could question her about the reaction to my tattoo. Which was fine for the time being, but I was going to ask her the next time I saw her.
Meanwhile, I kept a sharp eye out for Joad, Alistair, or anyone who made my amulet glow as I entered the dregs and made my way to Golar’s shop.
I reached the place without incident and walked in, a handful of crackers at the ready. When the raven came pinwheeling out of the gloom, screeching, “Somebody’s here! Somebody’s here!” I held up the treats and waved them a bit.
“Here, bird. Sorry about the napkin,” I said as the raven swooped down and snatched the crackers from my hand. “Hope you didn’t try to eat it.”
“Gimme a fuckin’ cookie!” the raven croaked as it flapped toward the desk at the back. “Somebody’s here, gimme a fuckin’ cookie!”
Well, at least somebody had their priorities straight.
Golar shuffled out from the back of the shop before I reached the desk and glanced at the bird. “It looks like you already have a fucking cookie,” he said as his gaze moved toward me. “Edgar is a fantastic doorbell, but a poor conversationalist.”
So the raven’s name was Edgar. How original. “Hey, Golar,” I said as I stopped on the other side of the desk. “You do know we have these things called phones now, right? Seems like a quick call or text would’ve been easier than sending me a raven.”
“I told you, this is the Dregs,” he said with a shrug. “No Internet, and no cell signal. The Council certainly isn’t going to install a landline for us, either.”
“Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t.” The Council had never been terribly interested in improving the Dregs. “Anyway, what did you want to tell me? You said something about the watch.”
Golar nodded and pulled something from the oversized pocket of his lab-style coat … something that looked a hell of a lot like the roulette watch. In fact, I had to check to make sure I was still wearing it.
“While I had your item, I created a replica in order to run additional tests. It’s crude, of course,” he said as he placed it on the counter. The fake sure as hell didn’t look crude to me. “The replica has none of the functionality of the actual item,” he went on. “But I was able to more closely investigate its properties, and I learned a few things.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You must’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make that,” I said, pulling my sleeve up to visually compare the real thing to the copy. Far as I could see, it was impossible to tell them apart by looking. “Why did you? Not that I’m complaining, I’m just curious.”
“Because you paid me to identify this item, Mr. Wyatt, and I haven’t finished the job yet.” Golar almost looked insulted, like I’d impugned his honor as a businessman or something.
“Oh. Well, in that case, carry on. And thanks,” I said. “By the way, I did find out it used to belong to a guy named Oberon if that’s helpful.”
Golar’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “None speak that name lightly,” he said. “You’re certain of this?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. I guess he’s in charge of the Collectors,” I said, looking carefully at him as I tried to decide how much I should mention about what Zorah told me. Eventually, I settled on, “I hear he’s a giant bag of dicks.”
At that, Golar choked on something, and for a second I wondered if I’d have to pound his back. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” he said when he caught his breath. “What do you know about him?”
I shrugged. “Not much, other than what I just said.”
“That is not surprising. Little is known of him,” Golar said, looking like he was considering how much distance he could put between himself and me. “He is the king of the dark elves, cruel and powerful, with a great lust for conq
uering. And that concerns me in light of what I’ve discovered about your item, knowing it belongs to … him.”
“Belonged. Past tense. It belongs to me now.” I was honestly surprised at Golar’s reluctance to say the guy’s name like he was Voldemort out of those Harry Potter books or something. “So, are you gonna tell me what you found out, or do you need to go somewhere and cry because I said Oberon?”
Golar narrowed his eyes at me. “You should not take this matter lightly, Mr. Wyatt. If the dark elf king chooses to target you …”
“Okay, I got it. He’s a scary badass,” I said. “Now, what about the watch?”
The height-challenged shop owner sighed. “First off, the item has a unique property regarding ownership and removal,” he said. “It appears that if you were to … er, be extinguished while wearing the item, it would cease to function.”
I blinked at him. “Wait, you’re saying that if I die with the watch on, it’s broken?”
“Yes, precisely,” he said.
Okay, that was definitely interesting. I wondered if Cayn knew about that particular little quirk. Maybe he did since Alistair said he didn’t want to kill me. And if it was true … well, it was in my favor. All those assholes out there who’d sold their souls only wanted to beat me down and take the watch. “Anything else I should know?” I said.
Golar’s expression sobered more than usual. “There is,” he said. “The reason that knowing who formerly owned this item concerns me. You’ve mentioned that the Collector is trying to take it back from you?”
“Yeah, Cayn’s doing his level best on that front. He sicced one of those alterhounds you ran into on me last night at Elias’s party,” I said. “From what I hear, Oberon is pissed off and needs the watch for something.”
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