“Yeah… that’s true.”
“The limo is about to pull up to the manor’s front gate. Ivy, Tank, you guys in position?”
“We’re here,” Ivy said, “The rubbish bins are clear, but it fucking stinks.”
“Hold tight there, guys,” I said, “Remember my signal. Hopefully it won’t come to me having to use it, but just in case.”
“We’ll wait for it… not like we can do much else out here, anyway.”
The limo started to slow to a crawl, then it made a right turn off the main road and onto a cobbled path. Through the window in the front, tinted to prevent anyone looking in from the outside, I could see a small guard house approaching on the left. There were two men and one woman there, each carrying a sub-machine gun. Another man was checking the ID’s of the car drivers as they rolled through the gate.
I moved close to the window and watched as our limo driver stopped the car, produced a small card, and handed it to the guard at the door, ready to throw magic at all four of them if I needed to. As the moment dragged, the guard having to use his radio, maybe to verify the legitimacy of the card, and our driver, my nerves started to twitch. Instinctively I reached for my ankle, but my knife wasn’t there—Levi had it.
I threw him a sharp look, and Levi understood immediately what it was I wanted. I watched him reach for the knife in his pocket, draw it, and start crawling along the limo to where I was, but then the guard waved our driver through. The limo driver took his card back, then started the car, and pulled it through the gate and along the cobbled path leading to the foot of the manor.
A tense breath escaped my lips. “That was close,” I said.
“It wasn’t close,” Mason said, “You just get too excited. Relax.”
I scowled at him.
“Do you need this?” Levi asked.
I shook my head. “No, keep it for now. Morpheus, we’re through the first checkpoint.”
“And nobody had to die,” Morpheus said, “Good job so far.”
“Let’s not crack the champagne open just yet. We’ve gotta get through the guest list first.”
“Which means you’re up,” Mason said, as the limo rounded a bend and came to a stop.
He opened the limo door, stepped out, and Levi followed, Levi holding the door for me to go through into the night’s cold embrace. I could sense his magic around me, now. I could feel the cold, could see the wispy flurry of light rain, each wet fleck catching a sliver of light and flying with it, but the water wasn’t touching me, the cold didn’t bite and nip at my nose and ears.
“Handy little spell you put on me,” I whispered to him as we walked from the car and up the short set of stone steps to the front door.
“You’re welcome,” he said, letting his hand rest on the small of my back. “You ready?”
“Born ready.”
Up ahead was the second security checkpoint. This time, if any of the suits standing by the door were packing heat, none of them were showing their pieces. That was probably more of an aesthetic choice by the organizer, so guests wouldn’t have to stare at rifles and pistols everywhere they went. Ah, the British; always observing societal decorum, even the shady ones. I didn’t let this lower my guard, though. Maybe they’d be a few seconds slower at shooting us than those with their guns already out, but they still had weapons on them, and it was important to remember that.
Directly in front of the door there was an Asian woman wearing a long, black dress; behind her, a man holding up an umbrella to keep the flurry of rain from so much as touching her poker-straight black hair or her porcelain skin. She regarded me with eyes as sharp as knives, a stare that could kill on its own, without the need for a blade or magic. Her fingertips slid gracefully across the glass-screen of the tablet in her hand, processing the details of the people in front of us before letting them through.
“Demon?” Mason whispered.
I brought my senses to bear on her, opening my psychic receivers to pick up the light of her intelligence. Her brain registered almost immediately, a gently pulsing lightbulb in a dark sea. Around her, the others were candles, their tongues flicking softly as if fanned by a gentle breeze. She was a mage, though what kind of mage I didn’t know.
“Probably a fucking Seer,” I said, under my breath.
“Can you deal with her?”
“It’ll be tricky, but I think so. Keep her talking.”
“Keep her—” his objection was cut short; he was in front of her, now, and he had her full attention. That wasn’t something I envied. Seers had the power to evaporate the phantasms created by Harlequins, to detect Shades using their magic to hide in plain sight, but they couldn’t beat Warlocks at their games, especially when the Warlock played dirty.
“Name?” she asked.
“Mason,” he said, producing his card from inside his jacket pocket, “How you doing?” he asked, grinning.
“Welcome to Wentworth Manor,” she said.
“Thanks, it’s a pleasure. I was really looking forward to this, y’know? I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“The pleasure is ours, Mister Mason,” she looked at the card, then at him, the back at the card. The cards were enchanted, I knew, I had been able to feel the slight hint of magic floating off the cards the moment I’d touched them, but I hadn’t wanted to prod deeper, or to have the magic dispelled. I had a feeling this woman could, using the card, verify if a person was supposed to be at this event or not, and if she went looking for a spell wrapped around it and didn’t find one, then we’d have a big problem. Something wasn’t right, though—she wasn’t immediately letting him in, which meant she wouldn’t let me in either.
I clenched my jaw, swallowed hard, and flexed my fingers at my sides. Magic rushed through me, not a smooth stream like I was used to, but a frothing current that would have made a more inexperienced mage shake. Subtly was key here and trying to hide my magic from notice, considering the woman I was trying to affect was a Seer, was a war unto itself.
The magic moved through the psychic bridge I had created between me and her, and crashed into her like a wave. I watched her eyes loll, then she staggered slightly, having to reach out to the man holding the umbrella to right herself. She shook her head, blinked hard several times, and then stared at the card once more, squinting at it as if she couldn’t quite read the words.
“You know,” Mason said, “I thought I’d read somewhere this place had over one hundred rooms. Is that true?”
“It’s… I think there are…”
“Something wrong?” Mason asked.
“N-no,” she said, her words staggering.” Nothing’s wrong. Go right through.”
I stepped up behind him and handed her my two invitations, preparing to hit her with another psychic blow if I had to.
“Miss—” she started to say, but then she held her other hand to her head and simply waved me along without giving me so much as a second look, the headache clearly overwhelming her.
Levi linked his arm with mine again and we moved past the security checkpoint at the front of the house, then through the large, wooden, double doors beyond and into the mansion proper. “What the fuck did you do to her?” he asked.
“Fucked her up,” I said, grinning. “She’s gonna have cluster headaches for a week, if she’s lucky.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“That’s not bad advice to follow in general, but I’d only do stuff like that to someone who I thought deserved it.”
“I don’t know… I could probably go into the deserves it category. I’ve been known to be a bit of a shit sometimes.”
“Well, then… we’ll just have to play it by ear.”
Beyond the front doors, we were greeted immediately with soft, flowing music, floating through the air like audible silk. In the back of an enormous, gorgeous, brightly lit room with light marble floors, golden fixtures, and a huge chandelier, I spotted a four-piece orchestra playing delicately along. There were waiters serving
drinks from silver platters, ridiculous portraits of people I had no way of recognizing hanging from walls, and blood-red carpet rolling up and along the grand-staircase in the center of the room.
It was the kind of place I would have admired, if I wasn’t more concerned with the sheer number of demons in the room.
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but I hadn’t been expecting to encounter as many demons in a single space. That there were demons in London, sure—I had met two of them already—this room, though, was bursting with them. Everywhere I looked, there was something pretending to be a man or a woman, carrying a brain so powerful I couldn’t stop from noticing it. It was like walking into a dark room and then, all at once, fifty spotlights bloom and shine their lights on you. Blinding, didn’t even begin to describe it. I had to concentrate and dull my senses down to try and drown out the noise, but that in itself was a problem. To use my powers my psychic senses needed to be open, and the static was going to make it even harder to work so much as a droplet of magic into the world, not without great personal cost—definitely not without drawing blood.
Mason plucked a glass of champagne up from a platter as it went past and picked one up for me, too. He handed it over. “Chin-chin,” he said, smiling.
That he hadn’t offered one to Levi didn’t go unnoticed. “You always drink this much when you’re on a mission?” I asked, keeping my voice low. There was no telling who was listening.
“No, but I’m kinda on vacation.”
“Kinda?” Levi asked.
Mason shrugged. “I’m in a different country—that counts as a vacation.”
“It doesn’t,” I said, sipping the champagne if only to maintain appearances, “Now, keep your head down and your comments to yourself. We don’t want to attract attention.”
“Should we go looking for the book?” Levi asked.
I shook my head. “That thing will be sealed up right now, it won’t come out until the auction starts. We’re gonna have to just wait.”
“All the more reason to drink,” Mason said, raising his glass as if to cheers.
I rolled my eyes. “Mace, you’re starting to—”
“Eyes up,” Morpheus’ voice came through the comms, interrupting.
“What is it?” I whispered, my lips barely moving.
“Coming down the stairs. That’s him.”
“Him? Wait, you can see into this place?”
“I told you I had access to the camera grid. The guy coming down the stairs is him, Hailey; Giovanni.”
I turned my eyes on the grand staircase with its blood-red carpet and saw, descending it a man who resembled a broken shard of a mirror. He was thin, sharp, and tall, with white hair parted neatly to one side, and the kind of smile that would turn a normal person’s stomach upside down and inside out; like the smile of a corpse. He stopped when he reached the middle of the stairs, one hand resting on a cane, the other resting on the stone banister at his side.
A murmur trembled through the room as people turned to look at him. A moment later, the orchestra fell silent. Then the man, Giovanni, pulled his hand from the banister, raised it, and smiled even more widely, though it wasn’t so much a smile, but more like a wild animal bearing its teeth. With my senses dulled as they were it was impossible to tell if he was a demon or a mage, though at a guess, I would have said mage. A demon’s primary programming is to release other demons, so if he was a demon and already had the book, why would he be selling it?
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he started, his voice thin and frail, though he didn’t look like he was too far into his forties, “Be welcome in my home.”
A round of applause circled the room, stopping after only a handful of seconds. Giovanni raised his voice again to speak.
“Tonight, is a special occasion,” he croaked, “Many valuable items will be auctioned to those whose desire for them burns the brightest, and the auction shall commence shortly. However, we also have the pleasure of playing host to a very special guest; a man whose attention tonight means our humble society is group something right in the eyes of our community at large, a man who single-handedly was responsible for making sure so many of our demon friends could be here tonight, please, if you will, join me in a toast.”
A waiter rushed up the stairs and deposited a glass of champagne in Giovanni’s hand. “To Cerberus,” he said, pointing the glass toward the corner of the room. “It is an honor to have you here.”
The entire congregation spun, glasses raised, and then they sipped from their glasses to a man who stood above the rest, even though he had confined himself to standing in a corner. Cerberus returned the toast by raising a glass of whiskey and sipping from it gingerly, tasting the residue on his lips by running his tongue along them.
I tried to place him, this esteemed guest, but again, I couldn’t. Demon? Mage? I didn’t know. He had an entourage with him of thick, stocky men, but none of them were quite as tall as him. He must have been six-foot-four, six-foot-five, and built like a boxer. With his short, tidy, salt and pepper hair, sharp, grey eyes, and a square jaw, he looked like he could have been a movie-star, taking the lead role in a movie an all-American man, killing all the bad guys, and banging all the girls.
I didn’t want to pay him too much attention, but I also couldn’t look away; there was something about him that was just… magnetic. Then he looked at me, and I ripped my attention away from him as fast as I could, hoping I had avoided his gaze but knowing, feeling in my gut, that I hadn’t. He had seen me, despite the bustle of the people around me, he had seen me and singled me out, because something about me had called to him the same way he had called to me, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he too was a Warlock, and that made him even more dangerous.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I watched them all file up the stairs, demons and mages walking side-by-side. They were monsters, every one of them, not only for what they could do, how they could bend reality itself to perform, sometimes, horrifying supernatural feats, but because they were about to participate in an auction for that damn book and the Gods only knew what else.
But even this wasn’t the most shocking thing about tonight. What hit me, what was giving me reason to pause, was the sheer number of demons present. Back in the US, the demonic infestation is blatant, in your face. The demons want you to know they’re there, they want you to fear them, they feed on it, feast on it. Over here, though, the demons hide in the shadows, only rarely revealing themselves, leaving at best subtle signs of their existence.
How were there so many of them in London, and where was the Hell Hole their essences were locked to?
“Ready to go?” Mason asked.
“I… don’t know,” I said, “That guy—Cerberus—have you ever heard of him?”
Mason shook his head. “No… his name has never come up in any of my circles.”
“You’re sure?”
He tilted his head. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“We have to be careful with him… don’t let him out of your sight.”
“I won’t.”
I turned to Levi. “You either.”
He nodded, and with both men ready, I followed the crowd of monsters filing up the stairs and into the hall where the auction was being held. The space was huge, with rows of seats divided into two areas separated by a purple carpet leading to the podium. Marble columns pockmarked the room, climbing up a vaulted ceiling in the middle of which was another chandelier. The entire far wall was a huge window, overlooking the back garden and London proper across the river, thick, grey clouds floating above it, already spitting onto the world below.
By the time we arrived there were only a few seats left. Levi and I grabbed two seats together, but Mason couldn’t sit next to us and so had to go and find a spot to settle on his own. This was already a problem as I wouldn’t be able to speak to him without using the comms system or magic, neither of which I could do without the risk of being caught.
Luckily, I had an aisle
seat, and Levi sat down next to me. Having to sit next to a strange demon or mage would have made coordinating this whole thing a lot trickier, so I had to thank the Gods for small favors. Mason found his seat, and when he sat down, he craned his head around to look for me. I nodded at him, and he nodded in return, acknowledging my position.
Craning my neck around and scanning the hall, I caught a glimpse of the Warlock, Cerberus. His seat was right at the back, at least three rows away from me, with a commanding view of the auction hall. He probably wanted to be able to see the people he would be competing against, to catch the bids as they went up and know who was making them. I wondered if he was planning on using magic to influence bidders, but that was probably not going to be the case. This auction was being run by questionable characters, but even they would have rules people like Cerberus would be stupid not to follow, the prime rule being ‘don’t use magic on other people’.
That was always the prime rule at gatherings of mages, and I had already broken it.
The moments ticked away as we waited for the event to begin, the murmur of voices dulling to slight whispers now that the shuffling of feet and chairs stopped. It was at this point that the host, Giovanni, made his appearance on stage, sauntering across it, cane in hand, and directing himself at his guests. Being that I was only two rows from the front allowed me to get a much better look at him, and I could see now that he wasn’t as frail as he had seemed from a distance. His movements were smooth and graceful, his attention sharp, his eyes tending to dart around the room like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower.
Giovanni took his place at the auctioneer’s podium, set his cane to rest on its side, and scanned the crowd. “Esteemed guests,” he said, his hoarse voice belying his otherwise elegant appearance, “I would like to welcome you once again to tonight’s auction.” His words were met with a round of applause. As the crowd clapped, I watched a woman move onto the stage holding a scarlet, velvet pillow in her hands. It was the girl from the door, the one I had blasted with my mind. Her movements were sluggish as she set the pillow down on a plinth at the center of the stage. On it, was what looked like a bracelet.
Mages and Masquerades: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Magic Blood: The Warlock Book 2) Page 12
