The Red King

by Jenn Stark

  “Why’s that?” Nikki asked, while I gritted my teeth behind my own mask. Exactly how many Connecteds were working in the morgue today? “From what I could tell, the count didn’t have much use for Greaves and Marrow. And he already knew that they’d been stuffed into wine barrels.”

  “Killing is one thing. Any fool can kill another human. But that these two supposedly low-level magicians were targeted by the butcher raises three issues. The first, the butcher is not only targeting children—perhaps isn’t targeting them at all. The second, Greaves and Marrow were clearly far more advanced than we thought they were for the butcher to make them his target. And three, the butcher is taunting us with his invincibility.” As he spoke, the prelate tilted his head, his dark eyes gazing at me through the mask. “I understand that you were brought here to solve this problem, Justice Wilde. It would seem we need your assistance more than ever. And soon.”

  “With respect, we’d barely gotten off the plane when these magicians were murdered—” Nikki pointed out tartly, not missing the censure in the prelate’s words.

  “Of course, of course. Not a criticism, merely an observation. But we are now up to three murdered magicians, as well as the assassins and Count Valetti’s man. The two most popular events of Carnevale are over the next few days. It would seem time is short for us to stop more bloodshed.”

  The calliope music changed, and the prelate glanced up, murmuring his apologies as he moved off to rain on someone else’s parade. I scanned the crowd in his wake, seeing the profusion of blue-white Connected magic, and…I frowned. Golden circuitry too? Were there more Council members here than Kreios?

  “Well, he’s a barrel of laughs,” Nikki muttered. We were on the move as well, naturally shifting to the edge of the crowd, closer to the illusionary menagerie of animals. There were already far too many people crammed together outside the Palazzo Mystere, thronging the streets of Venice for Carnevale. This courtyard, with all its sparkling lights, raucous music, and riotous colors, seemed far too oppressive on top of that, the Spectacle its own affront against us.

  “He’s not wrong,” I shrugged. “We haven’t done our jobs yet.”

  “Dollface, we’ve been here three days. You’ve barely had time to get over jet lag, let alone solve a crime that’s befuddling what’re supposedly the greatest magicians on the planet. There’s more we have to learn about all this.”

  “Yeah, maybe—”

  “Justice Wilde!”

  The voice was so small, so pathetic, that I instinctively looked down, expecting there to be a child at my feet. There was a diminutive figure, all right, but it wasn’t a kid. “Budin?”

  “What in the—” Nikki began, but the man crouching behind the potted plant hissed at us.

  “Don’t look at me!” he cried. He was no longer wearing his jester costume, but instead was in a nondescript black tricorn hat, bauta mask, and black cloak. The very simplicity of his outfit conspired to make him stand out. That and the fact he was crouching in the foliage. “They’re all around me. They know. I’m in danger, and you have to save me!”

  His words were too close to Balestri’s, and I stiffened. “You’re going to have to stand up, Budin, or this isn’t going to work. You’re safe now.”

  I added that last bit almost as an afterthought, but it seemed to have a galvanizing effect. “Oh, thank God.” Budin stood and threw his arms around me, hugging me tight.

  “Whoa, whoa, now, you’re okay, you’re okay.” As I looked down at him, my third eye engaged, and I noticed the complete change in his circuitry. “Well, not completely okay. What are you on, Budin? Have you been drugged?”

  “I took it,” he said, pulling back, his eyes flaring wide behind his mask. “I had to know—I couldn’t let them creep up on me unaware! And it happened exactly how the Black Elixir said it would.”

  I snapped my gaze to Nikki, and she looked hard all around us. “There’s an empty tent down to the left. I’ll get food or whatever. You got him?”

  “I got him.”

  Budin whimpered and clung to me as we turned.

  “Dude, pull it together and walk like an adult,” I ordered as Nikki strode away toward the buffet. “We’re going to sit down away from all the people, and you’re going to tell me what you saw.”

  “No.” Budin straightened suddenly as if he’d been shocked. His head swiveled on his neck, his gaze darted everywhere. “If they see me with you, they’ll know. They’ll know! I have to hide. But you must know what I have learned.”

  “I have to know,” I agreed, wishing that Nikki hadn’t disappeared so convincingly into the crowd. “Tell me right here, then. You’re safe.”

  “Safe…” He nodded three, then four times, drawing in a ragged breath. “The drug said that my palazzo wouldn’t be safe, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been threatened. I have cameras, guards, dogs. Only the first proved helpful. But not their fault, not their fault…not when what came…”

  “Focus, Budin,” I said as his words trailed off. “I need you to tell me what you saw.” I glanced around again, taking in the riot of colors. The circuits of energy dashing around the courtyard of the Palazzo Mystere were all rushing at full tilt, it seemed, exactly what you’d expect at a party full of magicians.

  Budin gave a wet cough. “I went into my safe room and took up watch. I could see everything, every room, every window, every door. No one knows that I have built such a modern room in my ancient home. And sure enough, they came.”

  He swiped for me again and missed, so he contented himself with clasping and unclasping his black-clad hands, giving the effect of someone deeply under the influence—but of what? Black Elixir still? I refocused my attention on him, but I couldn’t tell anything in the chaos of his neural circuits.

  “Who came?”

  “Ghosts,” he said, the word almost a keening wail. “They flooded into my home, past my guards, past my dogs, wraiths of shadow and death.”

  “Actual wraiths.” The work of an illusionist? I thought of Balestri again, and the illusion of the Red King speaking through him. Someone was showing off, flexing his magical muscles.

  “Were they carrying anything? Knives? Guns? Anything like that?”

  “No.” He shook his head forcefully. “I should have waited, but I panicked. Sounded the alarm. The men rushed to my aid, dogs baying, but the wraiths disappeared. Of course, there is no longer any sight of them on the camera feeds, but I saw them. I did!”

  “I believe you—”

  Budin reached into his cape and pulled out a small cap in a plastic bag. “And then I found this in the kitchen. I hadn’t even been watching that room but, but…”

  “You were distracted.” I took the bag and studied it. “What’s this from?”

  “It’s a cap from an apothecary’s vial. It’d rolled behind a stoppered bottle of wine. I—I had already poured myself a glass from that wine, and it was sitting on the counter.” He turned at me with enormous eyes. “They poisoned my wine.”

  I was able to hide my grimace of disbelief. “Signore Budin, you can’t know that for sure.”

  “I can,” he said, shaking his head. “And to confirm it, I gave the wine to il Diavolo. He will tell you. He now most certainly knows I am a far greater magician than Signora Chiari.”

  “You gave it to Kreios? To test?”

  “They’re coming,” Budin batted me at the arms, and I turned, finally seeing Nikki heading our way. “You must save me, you must—”

  I heard the strange sound a moment before the flash of silvery light shattered across my vision, and I didn’t breathe, didn’t even think, I merely reacted. With my hands already moving to fend off Budin’s panicked assault, I jerked my wrist upward and felt the sting of the dart as it buried itself in the back of my hand. I flinched, feeling the injection push through fabric and skin and into my bloodstream as Budin froze in front of me.

  “You will save me,” he gasped, his eyes so wid
e, I thought they’d roll back in his head.

  Though he hadn’t been struck, Budin collapsed to the ground in front of me with a bleat of terror even as my own sight swam, my body feeling…strangely slack. Loose. Not right at all. A flower of unyielding darkness blossomed deep inside me, and I felt myself tipping backward—

  Then I was caught in a pair of warm, strong, strangely familiar arms.

  “Now, now, my dear Sara Wilde,” purred the Devil in my ear. “You die on my watch, and there will be hell to pay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When I came to again, I wasn’t in the circus setting of the Palazzo Mystere, I was sitting on a very well-appointed terrace that was quite noticeably not Count Valetti’s. Calliope music still played far too close, and I was by no means alone.

  “Whoa,” I said, sitting back. “Please tell me you didn’t call out the cavalry on my account.”

  Sitting, standing, and lounging around the elegant teak furniture of the palazzo rooftop were more of the Arcana Council than I’d seen assembled since the world had caught on fire. The Devil sat nearest to me, all Mediterranean chic with his flowing sun-kissed hair, deeply tanned skin, and an open-necked white shirt over his trademark ragged-hemmed khakis and beach sandals—never mind that it was February. His casual pose was ruined, however, by the tension in his clenched hands. Opposite him but all the way across the terrace was the Magician, dressed impeccably in a four-thousand-dollar ebony suit and what were probably eight-thousand-dollar loafers. Two females rounded out the Council. Death perched on the short terrace wall in a muscle shirt, jeans, and combat boots, her stark white-blonde hair shaved close to her skull on one side, and spiked high on the other. The High Priestess lounged in a nearby chair, regally nonchalant in her toga-styled gown, accessorized by a whole lot of amethyst jewelry. I hadn’t seen her in amethyst before, I realized, my brain tugging hard at the sight of it. What was important about amethyst?

  Then I noticed the other person on the terrace, sitting stock-still in a cushioned teak chair, his back straight, his eyes wide, his hands white-knuckling his mask. Signore Samuele Budin, looking like he was about to pass out. Again.

  “Where’s Nikki?” I asked.

  “Still downstairs at the party,” Armaeus said, his voice clipped. “We were able to get you out without anyone noticing, but she was too far away to not be a distraction. She’s stripped off her gloves and is doing what she can to see who might have blown the dart that struck you.”

  Everything came crashing back in my memory, and it was my turn to stiffen—and by stiffen, I meant propel myself backward and almost over the couch cushions, my headlong reaction stopped only by Kreios’s sudden grip on my shoulders.

  “You’re safe, you’re here,” he snapped. “You’re healed.”

  “Healed?” The thundering of my heart refused to abate, the blood in my arteries jackhammered against my cells. I dragged in a heavy breath as adrenaline jacked and whirled through me, racing around like a crowd of first graders on the last day of school with no way to get out of the building. “What happened?”

  Armaeus moved then, so quickly I couldn’t fully process it. He caught both of my hands and brought them down, pulling the right one slightly forward. I glanced down at it.

  “My hand,” I said dully.

  “You caught a dart intended for Budin,” Armaeus confirmed. “The dart was laced with Nul Magis. It hit your system and…” He gave me a soft but undeniably fascinated smile. “You summoned us. All of us.”

  “I what?”

  “Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was,” the High Priestess said, her tone laced with condescension. “I was dead asleep.”

  I scowled in her direction. “That’s what you wear when you’re sleeping?”

  “Be glad of it,” she said, lifting up one arm bedecked with amethyst bracelets. “You drew upon the healing strength of these stones before I fully appeared on this terrace. You pulled everyone to you, except Kreios, who was helpfully on scene when you were struck.”

  “He g-grabbed me, pulled me with you, brought me here,” stammered Budin, a breath before his mouth slammed shut and his eyes widened, as if he was shocked he’d said anything aloud. He swiveled his head around, taking in the luminaries that surrounded him. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “You didn’t hurt her. Don’t take on karma you didn’t earn.” Death slid off the terrace wall and stood, walking over to Budin, who seemed to shrink into himself at her approach. I didn’t blame him. Death had that effect on people. Though she’d served on the Council since ascending around the start of the Common Era, she’d made it a point to blend in with whatever the current version of badassery was. Right now, when she wasn’t doing her part to shepherd souls into the next life or keeping demons from hurrying that process along for mortals, she was known as Blue, a famed tattoo artist and airbrush virtuoso who was a regular feature on the international auto circuit. Her torn clothing and sleeve of tattoos took nothing away from the harsh, otherworldly beauty of her sharply cut features and pale eyes, but as she got down in Budin’s face, I could practically see the man’s hair turning gray.

  “What you have done, however, is a little on the stupid side. You’re not a cat, Samuele Budin, with nine lives to waste. Regardless of what happens to you on the other side of this one, you need to live this existence to the fullest. That’s not going to be possible if you keep hitting Black Elixir.”

  “I was frightened,” he whispered, staring Death in the eye. We all sat riveted, watching this play out. I didn’t know much about Death, but I realized that I’d rarely seen her interact with a human for more than a passing comment. Now she held Budin’s full attention, his eyes almost glassy with shock. “They were coming for me.”

  “I know,” Death said. “But we’ve figured out that Black Elixir’s so strong because it is made with the blood of demons. That’s why the premonitions worked so well, and that’s why people die so quickly.”

  I stiffened in horror at this revelation, but Budin seemed focused on something entirely different.

  “But I won’t take the fifth hit,” he said, shaking his head to emphasize his sincerity. “I know better. I just needed to see—to see. To protect myself.”

  “Your senate of magicians is supposed to protect you,” Death said. “They didn’t, and I’m sorry about that. But you can’t keep that demon blood inside you. Not as a magician of your strength.”

  Budin blinked at her. “My strength?”

  He looked so forlornly hopeful, my heart lurched sideways. Thank God, Gamon wasn’t here, or I wouldn’t hear the end of it.

  “Yup.” Keeping her gaze hard on him, Death reached behind her, and only then did I see the long, wicked-looking tattoo needle sticking out of the back of her jeans, the tip shiny and cruel in the moonlight. “Your strength. You told Sara you were the strongest of the senate of magicians, and you’re not far off. We need strong magicians. We don’t need demon hybrid magicians.”

  She moved so quickly that I jerked in Armaeus’s hands, only vaguely realizing that it took both the Devil and the Magician to keep me on the cushions. Before Budin could react, Death whipped the tattoo needle around and plunged it into the side of his neck. His scream ended quickly on a garble as Death lifted her other hand, seeming to catch something that shimmered in the night air above Budin’s head.

  Meanwhile, a spout of black goop arced out from Budin’s neck where Death had punctured him, splattering to the floor. I flinched back, and I wasn’t alone. No wonder everyone was standing so far away from the poor guy.

  As the geyser lost strength, Blue tossed the tattoo needle down and caught Budin’s sagging shoulders with her right arm. Laying him down on the couch with a gentleness I wouldn’t have expected, she cupped her left hand back over his eyes, and whispered words I couldn’t hear.

  Budin convulsed, let out a horrified gasp, then slumped on the couch once more…the steady rasp of his breath the
only indication of life. But he was definitely alive.

  Blue straightened. “Humans,” she muttered, and she flicked something at the goop on the floor. It must’ve been a match, because the whole mess of it caught fire and burned with white-hot heat for the space of a heartbeat before evaporating into a thick dark smoke.

  “If that stench remains in this toga, I’m stiffing you with the cleaning bill,” Eshe, the High Priestess, flapped the hem of her toga and wrinkled her nose.

  Death snorted. “What’re you going to do? Fieldwork is messy.”

  “Are you serious with the world’s slowest—dollface.” Nikki Dawes came out onto the terrace, the wave of her focused attention hitting me full force even at twenty paces. She’d lost the mask and hat, but her unadorned face was stark with concern. “You’re fine? You’re…” She blinked, her thoughts clearly catching up with my memories, memories I hadn’t fully been able to process yet. “You’re fine,” she said, more firmly this time. “What was in that dart?”

  Kreios lifted a lazy hand and drew a small barb out of his jacket. “Nul Magis,” he said. “Shot from a high-powered gun, it appears, with a sniper’s level of proficiency. Nobody at the party could have shot the device, because the trajectory didn’t work. In order for it to reach its target, it had to be coming from a position above the courtyard walls.

  I frowned, looking out. “One of the other palazzos?”

  “Given the specific direction, undoubtedly the palazzo directly opposite ours, which is owned by the head of police. This, unfortunately, does not narrow anything down. After the briefest of searches, well before any of this unpleasantness, Simon ascertained that three-fifths of the magicians’ senate here in Venice is in one way or another in collusion with the local constabulary.”

  “But why would anyone want to hurt Budin?”