Lyle took a different approach than fuming irritation like me, offering Marcus his hand as a greeting. “Good day to you, Marcus.”
All I could do was smile. He’s going to decant him and read his mind.
Marcus snapped his eyes up from Lyle’s hand, his own hands still buried deep in the pockets of his black trench coat that fell just below his knees to his creased gray slacks and polished onyx shoes – the true getup of an Irish attorney. He gave Lyle a mocking grin. “Surely ye don’t offer me yer hand and expect me to grab hold to it, do ya’, shifter? I’m sure ye’d likes to know what be mulling around in this ole’ noggin’ o’ mine.”
Lyle kept his hand out. “I just—”
“Ohhhh, don’t play me for the fool, ole’ boy. I’ve run into a Decanter or two in my day. Those of ya’ who thought it wise to steal me thoughts from me, well I can’t say it ended up well for the lot of them.”
I crossed my arms, trying to hide the fact that I was still in pain. “We don’t owe you anything for this. We didn’t ask for your help and quite frankly don’t need it,” I lied. Marcus working with us might have been at least a base hit with a chance to steal for second against Castella, that was, if we could ever convince him to help us. I just wasn’t willing to pay the price in the end for a deal with a devil like Marcus Driscoll.
“Ye might not have asked for me help, but what’s done is done. The government surely won’t be offering up any refunds. Don’t make matters worse for yerselves and make me employ my debt collectors.” He looked me up and down, not seeming to care that people squeezed between our conversation on their way up and down the sidewalk. “Besides, missy, you looks like you’d be best served to get some services from one of my Druid healers. With a fee and some tea, that nasty ole’ hole there’d be closed right up in no time.”
The pain was getting worse, and without some serious medical attention, it’d only be a matter of time before an infection set it. I could have gone back to the hospital, but I wasn’t willing to give Castella another chance. “What do you need from us?”
Lyle grabbed my arm and whispered, though not quiet enough for Marcus not to hear. “Are you out of your mind? You know what he is. We’ll end up selling our body parts on eBay just to pay him off.”
I knew Lyle was exaggerating, of course, because eBay had disallowed the selling of body parts some years ago when some seller was auctioning off his kidney. That said, Lyle had made his point – one that I was inclined to ignore.
Defeating a summoner like Castella would take more than Lyle and me, and if we didn’t had the luck of the Irish on our sides, Castella would kill us before we ever paid Marcus a dime. “Just know that Lyle and I don’t have the resources that you have.”
“Precisely why I’ve come to ya’. Had ya’ the resources, then ye could have bailed yerselves out. And then where would we be?” He spread his arms out before him as if presenting himself to us, then stuffed them back in his pockets.
“And whatever it is you want, it’s going to take a lot more than a hundred and twenty grand to get us to do it,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have brought me wallet had I not intended to pay,” Marcus replied.
Now to make the offer. “What do you have against Castella Rios?”
Marcus tilted his head to the side and took a step towards me. “Who said this had anything to do with Rios?”
That made me squint at him. “I didn’t say it had anything to do with her. I just wanted to see what you thought of her.”
“Well she be the reason I came to have a talk with ya’,” Marcus said.
“That’s why you bailed us out? To talk to us about Castella?” Lyle said, stepping beside me just in case Marcus made a move.
“Perhaps,” he replied.
I was growing more suspicious of him by the minute, if that was even possible. “How about you tell us what you want, and then we’ll tell you what we want.”
“Something of value to ya’. I’m looking for a summoner’s obelisk.”
I put my hand in my pocket and touched the cold stone that I’d kept with me ever since I’d met Umara some years ago. Finding one was difficult enough. It was certainly worth at least ten times as much as one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and that was if I was being modest.
The obelisk was pink tourmaline of the highest density in its category with a radiance so high that to me, a summoner, it practically hummed. Not only that, but a fairy had to enchant it. Umara had enchanted mine. The obelisk was the only way to take a soul with me from one place to another.
I swirled the stone around in my hand, feeling its coolness change to warmth as my palm heated it. I couldn’t just give my obelisk away. What was a Leprechaun going to do with it anyway? He couldn’t even use it. “Is there something else I can get you instead?”
“Something else? I require payment in one way only. It won’t be a lost to ya’, to get me something that ye never had.”
“Every summoner worth anything has an obelisk,” I replied.
“Methinks yer wires might be a wee bit crossed, missy. I don’t want your obelisk. I need another one, the one that belongs to Rios.”
I nearly choked. Castella’s obelisk must have been worth a small fortune. The more an obelisk was used, the simpler it was to store souls. I wouldn’t be surprised if Castella’s obelisk had been used so often that it could hold multiple souls. Holding one was a feat itself, but to add more to that, well that was a summoner’s nerd moment where I could literally freak out and no one else would know why, except for me.
Knowing the value of Castella’s stone, Lyle said, “There’s no way that bailing us out of jail could even come close to what we could get for her gem.”
Marcus laughed. “Ah, laddie, there be the problem with poor people. Always thinking in terms of money.” He pointed at Lyle, jabbing his finger in the air and looking down his finger with one eye closed. “But,” he said, losing his smile, “money does speak rather loud when it’s all said and done. I’d like to make the two of ya’ an offer. Rio’s obelisk for a wad a cash that may just set the likes of ya’ afloat for the rest of yer sorry little lives.”
“I’m not dumb enough to make a deal with a Leprechaun, not without knowing what I’m getting myself into.” I hadn’t meant to be so forthright, but the morphine had more than worn off.
Marcus fixed the hem of his coat. “Were I a tender-hearted man, I might be inclined to take offense. As I said before, whether ye want to help or not is up to you. But ye owe me, for what I did for the two of ya’. Gold is far from free, and the same is true for bailing ya’ out of the slammer. So ye can either go along with what I’m askin’ of ya’, or ye can say no and I’ll be out of ya’ hair.”
I didn’t want to push it, but he and I both knew I was right. Leprechauns never came out on the bottom. He was backing us into a corner, figuring that since he paid our bail that we owed him a favor in return. And since that favor had to do with Castella, I didn’t think he had any interest in helping us solve our problem with her. “I just want to make sure that I don’t end up losing more than I have to.”
“I’m offering ya’ freedom in more ways than one. Financial freedom. And a guarantee that the charges against ya’ are both dropped and erased. What more could either of ya’ ask for at a crossroads like the one you’re facing?”
Lyle wasn’t ready to commit. “The charges against us are going to be dropped anyway. They don’t have a case. There’s no evidence – nothing that links us to the crimes and no motives. I don’t see how getting Castella’s obelisk benefits us at all. We’d be better off getting the gem, selling it to a paranormal fence, and paying you back the bail money.”
There was a long moment where Marcus simply nodded, his hair brushing across his face as the January winds blew by. “Wisdom diminishes with every flip of the tongue. Mr. Finnegan, ye should take lesson from Rebekah here. She keeps her plans to herself, unlike you. Bear in mind that what I’m offering ya’ benefits all
three of us…or else I might not have been so generous, and both of ye might still be upstairs in that building behind ya’.
“The DA has already approached me to lead the prosecution,” Marcus said. “They know that I leave no stone unturned. Even when all the stones are upturned, I create a few more stones of me own.”
Marcus waved his hand before our eyes. Golden dust appeared and sparkled before coming together to form a steel scimitar suspended vertically in midair. It looked exactly like the one my summon had used on the werewolf. On the hilt, blue flashes radiated, highlighting fingerprints – fingerprints that Marcus had created, each of them probably belonging to me. He’s going to frame me.
I backed up, looking around at the passersby, wondering if they saw what we saw. None of them did, every man or woman either entering the sheriff’s department or leaving out the double doors. A few of them gave me a disgusted look when I backed into them.
With a wave of his hand, the sword dispersed into gold dust before vanishing completely. “Relax, Ms. Scarlet. No one can see it but the three of us. If ye want to keep it that way, I think it would only be wise to go along with what I’m asking of ya’.”
How sickening was it that this low-down Leprechaun was doing what he did best – making his own luck? That was the thing that bothered me. It wasn’t luck, not the way he puppetted deals. To think that he would have planted a sword at the scene, fully stocked with fingerprints and blood and all, really got under my skin.
“All you want is the obelisk?” I twisted my lips, not believing there wasn’t more. He agreed, of course, to which I clarified. “Castella’s obelisk for our freedom and a boat load of cash?” Why did it feel like I was flicking coins into an empty wishing well? There had to be something I was missing, some question I’d left unasked.
One thing that’s true about Leprechauns is that they aren’t liars, per se. They always tell the truth. Withholding information isn’t lying necessarily. It certainly isn’t being transparent either.
A Leprechaun’s “honesty” (and I use that word very loosely, so if you ever decide to quote me, be sure that you take note of it) wasn’t coerced by magical restraints that compelled them to tell the truth. It was more of the Leprechaun Code of Chivalry that Umara had mentioned to me a few times before.
So there Marcus stood, hands in his black trench coat, half-smile never even attempting to leave his face. He had us both, Lyle and me. We either said yes to him, or yes to life in prison.
I knew what I would do though. I didn’t have to know what truth he was withholding to beat him at his little game. I just had to find my own truth to withhold. “All you want is the obelisk and we’re free to go?” I wanted to leave this as open-ended as possible, affording myself dozens of possibilities for this agreement if he accepted.
But as Leprechaun attorneys go, he put the clamps on that idea almost faster than I could ask the question. “Oh, missy, think ye can have the last laugh on the likes of me, eh?”
Here he comes with those blasted stipulations, I sighed.
“I want Castella Rio’s obelisk,” he said emphasizing the parts of the demands that I had casually omitted. He then commenced to add clauses that I hadn’t even considered. As he spoke, a visual scroll appeared, words etching into the papyrus. “The obelisk is to be placed in my hand with the fairy enchantment still intact, unless I specify otherwise. Failure to adhere to the conditions of the—”
“We get it,” Lyle interrupted. “I can’t listen to this juris-jargon.”
“But ye will, laddie, for my sake and yours.” He rambled on about this condition and that one, most of which I tuned out as the words burned into the conjured image of the scroll. It wasn’t that I didn’t need to understand the stipulations, because I did. I just couldn’t get past the dreaded truth that I was linking arms with Marcus.
No matter how close I’d ever get to beating him, he’d wiggle his way out of it by some minute clause or some statement that negated that clause – all attorney rigmarole to make the average Rebekah’s head spin.
With that in mind, there was one thing about working with a Leprechaun that had me at hello. If we did beat him, we got what all Leprechaun hunters desired most: three wishes. I interrupted his discourse. “Agreed.”
Marcus’s speech slowed over the last few words. He locked eyes with me. “Are ye for sure at what ya’ be saying yes to, missy? An obelisk with the fairy enchantment intact.”
“Agreed,” I nodded. What else could I do? Life in prison wasn’t nearly as appealing. At least I could buy myself some time if I went along with this little farce.
“We should really talk this through,” Lyle mentioned, grabbing my elbow softly.
I didn’t look at him. “Agreed,” I said again to Marcus.
“Very well, Ms. Scarlet. And don’t you come lookin’ for me. I’ll find you once I know the obelisk is fit to be turned over to my possession.” With his hands sunk in his pockets, Marcus turned and started up Salisbury Street, never looking back.
Chapter
SIX
On the way back to the apartment, Lyle let me know every reason why trusting a Leprechaun was a bad idea. Most noncompliant Leprechaun clients either died or lost a limb or sacrificed a friendship (both figuratively and literally, might I add), and they reeked of evil aura – something that mattered little me, but a great deal to Lyle, since decanting had a side effect of absorbing in auras, both good and bad.
We made our way to the bus stop since neither of us had our cars, being that we’d both been slapped with the iron rings. I could have called my half-sister detective Andrea Mainiero to come do us a favor, but we hadn’t talked in years, and I didn’t want to be the little sister who only called when she wanted something.
The passengers were mostly civil on the bus. There was this one guy though, a bushy-haired man across from me wearing a faded red tie and wide-legged slacks. He kept nodding off and snoring so loudly that he sounded like he’d swallowed a lawnmower with the blade still running.
Lyle sat next to me, his elbows perched on the back of the seat in front of us as he rustled his golden hair from time to time. I could tell something was bothering him. “What’s wrong with—”
“To hell with Leprechauns.”
That shocked me a little. I hadn’t heard Lyle talk like that much in the past, and when he did, it came from the depths of his heart. I couldn’t blame him though. I felt pretty much the same way. No matter what we’d gotten ourselves into, Marcus was intent on digging us deeper. “Let’s try not to think about him right now,” I suggested. “We have enough on our plate.”
“Too bad we won’t live long enough to eat any of it,” he muttered, in a voice so soft that only I could hear him. No reason to get these nosey passengers involved in paranormal affairs.
Just then my phone buzzed in my back pocket. Digging it out before it stopped ringing forced me into some daring acrobatics. When I finally held it in front of me, all that read on the iPhone face was that I’d missed a call from Boyd. After dialing his number twice and getting his voicemail, I figured he was trying to call me, so I waited. As expected, it rang.
“Hey, babe,” I said.
Lyle rolled his eyes, being more candid than usual after our recent encounters. I made a weird face at him to try to win his affection. It didn’t work.
“Heya’,” Boyd said. “I’ve been tryin’ to reach you. Where ya’ been?”
By “tryin’ to reach you,” I figured he must have been trying my hospital room, because my phone showed no other missed calls. “That so?” I crossed my leg over the other and leaned forward in my seat.
“They let you out of the hospital yet?”
“Kinda’. Got into a little trouble afterwards.”
“With those two renta-cops, eh? If they did anything to ya’, anything, you can file a complaint, ya’ know. Don’t let those hot heads in blue with the Raleigh PD mush ya’ around like that.”
He was always taking up for me, flexi
ng his muscle whenever he could. I let him…not just because he needed it, but because I needed it. I wanted to feel like a girl – to let someone would stand up for me. Sure, I was more than capable of standing up for myself, but it felt good to be looked after.
Boyd wasn’t a paranormal like Lyle or me, so whenever he did flex, it was a bit laughable, knowing that he wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance against the craziness that I’d seen. Regardless, I let him feel like a man, because well…every now and then, it made me feel like a woman. “If I were in any real danger, you know I would’ve called you right away,” I lied.
“You better believe it. And without question I would’ve been right there. I’m sick of the cops thinkin’ they can do whatever they want when they want. Any plans tonight?” He switched off the macho to his version of Romeo. I liked the macho better. At least it was a little more romantic. The Romeo tended to lack the Shakespearean appeal. “We ought to get up and grab a bite and a movie or something…that is…if you’re up for it. I know you just got out of the hosp—”
“I’m fine.” I interrupted him. “What time were you thinking?”
“Say around…” I heard him pressing buttons on his phone, probably checking his calendar. “Eight o’clock sound okay? Wait. Better make it eight thirty. I’ve got a meeting with some business guys later tonight. Coupla’ beers before the Hurricanes’ game. But I told’em I couldn’t make the game – only the beers, I swear.”
“I believe you,” I said. “Besides, I have a few things to do tonight anyway. Eight thirty works better.”
“Pwerfect’,” he said in his thick Boston. “See ya’ tonight. Love ya’.”
“Love you too.” He’d already hung up before he heard me. I just stared at the screen.
Lyle was holding in a laugh, to which he received a swift backhand to the gut. The backhand ended up working against me, because the laughter spewed out of him at that point. In between chuckles, he found a way to say, “I know you pretend to be into him, but how fake can you be?”
Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1 Page 4
