by August Li
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I liked that apartment. It had a lot of windows, and Mom had plants growing in most of them. I remember the smell of the incense she burned. It was cool for a while, but everything she wrote got rejected. Again and again. It hurt her, and she tried to cope. It was just chardonnay and weed at first…. What does this matter?”
“You must have wanted me to ask.” Inky’s weird eyes were wide with concern.
“Why do you think that?”
I’d started walking faster, wanting to get away from him, but he sped up and closed the distance until his shoulder pressed against mine. “It’s what I do… what I am. I’ll become whatever you need most. You must need to talk.”
“Bullshit.” But: “What’s that like? You’re never yourself? Only what other people want you to be?”
“Yeah. And it’s like… well, it’s just what I am.”
“But what do you get out of it?”
Inky looked up at the cloudy sky and smiled. “So much. I get so much. For a while I get to be the center of somebody’s universe. Their air, their sunshine, their sunset in the evenings. All of it. I get to make them think everything is perfect and beautiful, that the world never looked brighter. For a while, every little thing I do, the way I blink, the way I smooth down my shirt when I’m waiting for the bus, all of it is perfect in their eyes. Best thing they’ve ever seen. I scratch my arse and their heart swells. Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“A boyfriend?”
“No.”
He prodded me with his elbow. “Not even for a weekend? A night?”
“I’m not interested.”
“Because you think it would interfere with you looking out for your sister?”
I was getting irritated. Well, more irritated. “Because I’m not interested. It all seems like a waste of time. Messy. What’s the point of this?”
“The point, for me, is coaxing that adoration out of someone. There’s a period—a honeymoon period—where someone’s so infatuated you can do no wrong in their eyes. Sometimes it can last for a year, sometimes only a day or two, but during that time, people give off an energy. It’s thick and sweet and golden. Better than honey. It’s what sustains me.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to depend on anyone like that,” I told him. “After a while, they’re going to find something wrong with you. They’ll try to change you, or they’ll find somebody else who looks better.”
Inky shook his silvery hair around. “You’re not wrong there. It doesn’t last, but I get to keep a little piece. And every one of them is unique. I wouldn’t trade one of them.
“But I do need to be careful. The desires of some people, well, they could shape me into something I don’t want to become. I steer well clear of those who like hurt and humiliation. So you’ll understand if I stay close while we’re in here. Latching on to your need for a confidant will save me from being influenced by those who like people begging in bloody heaps at their feet. There are people in this world who get off on some really fucked-up shite.”
We’d stopped in front of a junk shop, one I’d seen before but never paid much attention to, its windows dirty and full of secondhand lawn mowers and power tools. It surprised me when Inky went inside and met a muscle-bound bastard in a black T-shirt.
“We gonna have a problem again, mate?”
The big guy shook his head and went to push a button. A garage-style door rolled up, exposing a lone hallway, and I followed Inky through a corridor that opened to a bar with a middle-aged woman behind it drying glasses with a cloth. There were some rooms opposite the bar, full of mismatched furniture. Behind it was a jukebox and a few more tables.
So this was the mage bar, Hex. What a shithole. Also empty. Aside from an older guy with a neatly trimmed beard and a sweater vest reading a book in a corner, this place was beat. Inky shook his head. “I guess we’ll have to go downstairs.”
“Why is that bad?” Damn, his tone and body language made me really miss my gun.
He wasn’t normally a guy who was lost for words, and that made me nervous. “Just stay close.”
I nodded as I followed him down a narrow staircase, but I wasn’t going to be intimidated. I didn’t care what kind of special powers these assholes had. I’d fought my way through worse.
When we reached the basement, I changed my mind. In fact, I thought I was going to puke. And it wasn’t the musty smell turning my stomach.
The place was mostly empty, and it was dark except for some Christmas lights strung on the bar toward the back. Towards the middle, hundreds of candles outlined an area the size of a basketball court. Smoke billowed out from what looked like fancy metal planters, and it smelled like burnt hair—just nasty. A dozen or so people stood inside the ring, and instead of the velvet robes I’d pictured, most of them wore tight black clothes with fetishy touches like harnesses, collars, and corsets. Whatever. I grew up in Philadelphia, not exactly sheltered, so I was no stranger to the shit some people got off on. There were clubs for stuff like this around the city, but mostly the people who went to them kept to themselves, and they weren’t hurting me—or, in most cases, anyone who didn’t enjoy it—so I didn’t think about them much. They tended to be people with more money and time than sense.
But these assholes had someone—something, I guess?—strapped to a table between them. It was hard to tell from a distance and with the shadows flickering around, but it looked like a young man with really hairy lower legs, furry almost, that ended in what I could only call hooves. A little tail poked up just above his buttcrack. And he was screaming, his voice raspy, crying out in a language I couldn’t understand as the people around him smacked him with whips and burned him with wax from the candles. Worst of all, they were…. A line of guys waited behind him, even some women with strap-ons….
My right hand went to my left armpit. The only thought in my mind was that I was going to waste all these assholes. In my line of work, I’d learned to look the other way a lot of the time. But this—
No gun. I reached into the back of my pants but came up empty again. Fuck! I could smell blood, smell what they were doing, and it crawled inside me like dirty fingers pushing into my nostrils and down my throat. I gagged. I didn’t even realize I’d started walking toward them until Inky’s grip on the back of my coat stopped me. I jerked out of his grasp and spun around to face him. “Get your hands off me!”
His pink eyes, pale and glowy in the darkness, darted over to the gathering. “There’s nothing we can do. I know it’s shite, but we can’t stop them. We’d just get ourselves killed.”
“We can’t just—” The creature choked out a few more sobs, followed by obvious begging—I didn’t need to understand the words to know that. I wanted Blossom. I wanted him here, and I wanted him to kill every last one of these fuckers. I felt dizzy, and Corazón’s spicy stew splashed against the back of my throat, but I managed to choke it back down as Inky took my elbow and guided me to the far side of the room opposite the bar, where he helped me lean against the wall.
Fuck. There was nothing I could do.
And these people might have my sister.
“What are you drinking?” Inky nodded toward the bar.
“I’m not old enough.”
“Bollocks.” He went over, spoke to the bartender and returned with a big glass.
I sipped. Rum and soda, mixed strong. It settled my stomach a little. My nerves, not so much.
“You’ve gotta calm down, Dante,” Inky said. “Your righteous anger’s wiggling in under my skin, and I don’t want to be compelled to do something we’ll both regret.”
I almost spat my drink out. “Righteous anger? I might not be what most people consider a decent human being, but Jesus Christ!”
“I know.” He put his hand between me and the wall to rub my back, and then he guided me behind the bar and toward an arched opening. “Grenade launchers? Really?”
“Wha
t?”
“I told you, I can read people’s desires. You’re pining for a grenade launcher. First time I’ve experienced that.”
“I guess I am.”
“You want to raze this place to the ground, stand triumphantly atop the smoldering remains.”
“It would be the fucking right thing to do,” I said. “When Ros is safe, and when she’s grown up and doesn’t need me anymore….”
“You know, when that day comes, you might discover you have some dreams of your own. Things you want for yourself, if you let go of the anger.”
I shook my head as he led me down another narrow hall and into a little room with yellowed plaster walls, dark wood trim, some bookshelves, and a fireplace in the corner. How the hell did somebody let go of anger in a world like this? I couldn’t imagine wanting anything except to not have to keep getting up when the world punched me in the face. All I wanted was the option to stay down for once instead of stumbling back to my feet and bracing for the next blow.
Two people sat at a table playing some kind of a game with cards I didn’t recognize, several empty glasses between them. One of them, a guy who couldn’t have been much older than me, looked up and smiled. “Incubus. Welcome back.”
The person across from him had short hair, shaved in the back, with a few neon blue synthetic dreadlocks woven in. They wore a loose sweater that slid down to expose a slender shoulder, where I could see part of a tattoo like an ornate picture frame, and they pulled out a chair with a wink at Inky. “Have a seat.”
These two seemed pretty normal, and I calmed down a little bit as I sat next to the one with the dreads and heavy sparkly eyeliner and Inky sat across from me.
The guy with the messy auburn hair took a sip from a tumbler of what smelled like whiskey. “What brings you here?”
“Actually, I hoped to run into you again,” Inky said. “So are you two just business associates or friends?”
The guy smiled at the person across from him. “Very old friends. I didn’t know the two of you had met.”
Inky laughed. He seemed relaxed—he was either enjoying himself or doing a good job faking it. “Only briefly. Saved me from suffering some absolute shite music. I didn’t get your name, though.”
The person next to me stretched out their arm. I noticed several weird clunky digital watches on their wrist as they shook hands with Inky and said, “Jet. Jet Zama. You can call me JZ or Jayz, or whatever, really.”
“You can call me Inky. And this is my friend Dante Mayfield.”
The guy reached across to me. “Emrys Rathburn.” Raf had taught me some things to look for when dealing with clients, body language and shit like that. Emrys smiled and his eyes were warm, but he was definitely sizing me up. I made eye contact and held his gaze so he knew he wasn’t intimidating me. It seemed to work, because he released my hand with a small respectful dip of his head.
“Something we can do for you?” Jet asked.
Inky held up a finger to pause the conversation. “We’re gonna want drinks for this.” He went to the bar and came back with a beer for himself, another whiskey for Emrys, something bright blue that faded to lime green for Jet, and another rum and Coke for me. Then he told them the story of Ros’s disappearance and all the places we’d looked so far. I noticed he left out any mention of Blossom.
Emrys circled the rim of his cup with his fingertip, staring into the amber depths instead of looking at us. “How did this girl and her abilities come to your attention, Inky?”
“We… I met Dante first.”
Emrys wiped his finger daintily on a napkin and looked up at me. “But you never knew your sister had any magical talent. How did you happen to meet an incubus?”
“In the neighborhood,” I mumbled.
“What I want to know is why you’re associated with neo-Nazi human traffickers.” Jet plucked the paper umbrella out of her—his? their?—drink and sucked on the end.
I didn’t say anything. What I did was none of these people’s business. I couldn’t bring attention to Raf and his operation. I wouldn’t. Raf trusted me, and he’d given me a chance when no one else would.
I wondered what Emrys and Jet saw when Inky raked his silvery hair back and pinned it behind his thick horns. He’d looked human to me before Blossom did whatever he did to my eye. Did he look human to them? Did he really look like whatever they wanted to see the most? “Look, we need to know if we can trust you,” Inky said. “What guilds are you affiliated with?”
Emrys sat up a little straighter. “None. I’m a free agent and intend to stay that way. The only contact I have with any of the factions is to do occasional translations. I’m selective, but I have to make a living.”
Inky nodded, seeming satisfied. He turned to Jet.
“I’m a member of Electrosensory Mirage. We’re… more of a collective than a guild. And if there’s something we’re interested in knowing, we already know it. If we don’t, chances are we don’t care. If what you’re trying to ask is whether we’re going to run to Sekhet-Aaru or Wú Cháng with whatever you tell us, the answer is no. I can’t stand any of them. Frankly, I’d like to see them gone from the face of the earth. So… what are you trying to say? How did you guys really meet?”
Inky sighed. “What we think is… it seems like Rosalind accidentally summoned something. That’s what led me to her. Probably also led whoever took her.”
“Summoning is difficult magic,” Emrys said, “even for practiced mages. But you think a nine-year-old girl accomplished it by mistake?”
“Seems that way,” Inky said.
Jet leaned their elbows on the table. “What did she summon?”
“Something… impossible.”
“What?” Jet persisted.
“If you’re willing to help us, you’ll find out,” I said. “Boy, will you find out.”
“It’s certainly interesting,” Emrys said. “I can’t deny being curious. I’d be willing to look into it. I won’t promise more than that until I have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
For the next half an hour, we filled them in on what we’d learned so far.
“Mercedes-driving mages.” Jet shook their head. “There’s a good chance that means Sekhet-Aaru. I won’t pass up a chance to stick it to them if I can. I’ll take a peek. But I’m with Emrys. If it starts to get too dangerous, I can’t guarantee I won’t bounce too.”
“I think the abandoned hair salon is a good place to start,” Emrys said. “Let’s meet there first thing in the morning. Whoever is responsible for this might have left something behind.”
“I’ll see what I can track down on the car,” Jet said. “I don’t care how badass they are, no mage that I know of can conjure a Mercedes. That means there’ll be a trail. If it’s in a computer anywhere or on CCTV, I can find it. The problem will be narrowing the search results.” Jet talked fast when they got excited, and their chatter tapered off to disjointed muttering as they pulled a laptop from a bag on the floor and connected it with a wire to one of their watches.
“This is good news, right?” Inky looked at me with such a pleading expression that I took pity on him and forced a smile.
I’d only have to wait a few more hours, and I was hitting a wall. By now, not even I could pretend I could keep going without a few hours of sleep. Then, hopefully, I’d have some answers. If this turned into another dead end, I didn’t know what I’d do.
Chapter Seventeen
I’D SPENT most of the day sanding the crown molding in the upstairs guestroom, and tomorrow I planned to start ripping up the carpet and maybe even the old tile in the attached bathroom. As soon as everything was finished, I’d move my mother in here where I could keep a closer eye on her in her advanced age. I wanted to make sure she would be happy, that everything would be the way she liked it. I’d decorated it with tropical flowers and provided curio cabinets for her collectibles. I would hire her a nurse, and she would basically have a private suite. I hated thinking of her stubbornl
y living alone with no one to help her as she got older, but….
After what I had seen when I’d followed Dante, I needed any distraction I could get. Every time I stopped working, the images returned and the questions quickly followed. But it had been dark for several hours now, and my stomach was protesting the fact that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. My foot was also objecting to the long day of work. I took a quick shower, slipped into a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and my ankle brace, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
The first thing I did was turn on the espresso maker. Now that machine was one investment I knew I would never regret. Opening the refrigerator, I contemplated what to make for dinner. I enjoyed cooking and wished I had more opportunities to make meals. Aside from the occasional neighborhood barbecue in the summer, it just wasn’t worth taking the time to turn out a nice spread. One of the pitfalls of living alone, but one I had long ago accepted. In my line of work, a family or even a partner was a liability I couldn’t afford. One day soon I’d need to figure out a way to keep my mother from harm and attention, but it would be a pleasant change to have a dinner companion each night.
Eventually I decided to make a fried egg and bacon sandwich with a small salad. I took it into my study, set it on the desk, and checked my phone. No messages, which indicated no fires to put out. That wasn’t unusual. I’d been scrupulous when choosing my people, and that meant they knew their jobs and I could trust them to take care of most things without me. But in this case, it also meant no news about Dante’s sister.
Dante. I had to find out what he was involved with and if I needed to take steps. Though I knew it was a long shot, I opened my laptop and searched for “Magic in Philadelphia.”
I shook my head. Of course I didn’t believe in magic, but what else could explain what I’d seen?
As I ate, I scrolled through pages and pages of magic-supply stores and performers in the city. That led me to dozens more sites referencing the card game Magic: The Gathering. Trying some different combinations of words and terms, I sifted through lists of pagan organizations, New Age bookstores, and online retailers selling things like incense and essential oils. I finished my dinner and my coffee and hadn’t found anything promising, so I went to a cabinet and poured a few fingers of bourbon into a glass before returning to my desk. After another hour of coming up empty, I remembered something Moirin had said about the dark web. It wasn’t an avenue I’d ever had to explore as I had plenty of real-world contacts and preferred face-to-face meetings for a multitude of reasons. I had always assumed accessing the darknet would be difficult, possibly beyond my technical skill, but after reading a few articles and downloading an onion router, I found a series of directories, wikis, and link dumps.
