Blood of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 2)

by Shannon Mayer

  “Because she had found out what he planned,” Dinah said. “She never told us. Whatever she found was in a thick leather-bound book she stole from your father.”

  I closed my eyes, my mind reeling with the new information. “Why are you telling me all this now? Why tonight? Why not years ago when Bianca was killed? Or any time in between?”

  Eleanor sighed. “Because we promised her we would look out for you as best we could. She could not show you that she cared, but she did. And she was afraid for you, Phoenix. Whatever was in that book terrified her.”

  With my eyes still closed, I let the memory of the night I’d found Bianca’s body surface to the front of my mind.

  The smell of blood was the first thing I picked up on as I hurried toward Bianca’s room. The coppery scent mingled with a sharp tang of abnormal magic lay thick on the air, not unlike when I did one of my jobs. I pressed my back against the wall and slid sideways with both guns up, ready to draw down on whomever had caused the bloodshed. At eighteen, I thought I was invincible. In fact, I was sure of it.

  Bianca’s door was open a crack, and through it, I could see her bed, the soft pink frills around the edges, the duvet half slumped off the side.

  I wanted to call out to her, but I stuffed that instinct as Zee had taught me. I pressed my ear to the door and listened for any movement, waiting for the telltale sign of an intruder. Wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top, I was hardly in my gear for taking on a bad guy. But I was sure I’d heard Bea scream, and a scream at two in the morning was not a good sign. We were the only ones home this weekend. The men had gone to Miami for some big business meeting.

  The light flickered in the room—someone moving around.

  I stepped in front of the double doors and blew them open with a single kick. I stood in the doorway, my guns out, and searched the room. There was no one there . . . except Bianca on the floor. I did my due diligence and swept the room, checked the closet and the bathroom before dropping to Bianca’s side. She wore a light blue nightgown that had been hiked up over her hips and showed off her long legs. Rape?

  “Bea?” I rolled her over, carefully, and her body flopped. Sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling, and the single gunshot in the side of her head was not needed for me to know she was dead. I’d known the second I’d touched her body. I’d seen death enough times to know it at a distance. She held a matte black Beretta in her right hand.

  “She left you a note.”

  The voice made me spin on my heels, guns up once more as I searched the room. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Eleanor, and she left you a note.” The voice was trembling, as if she were afraid.

  I frowned, the sound seemed to be coming from . . . the gun in Bianca’s hand. “What are you?”

  “I am a gun,” Eleanor said.

  “So am I,” came a second, and distinctly different, voice. I peered under the bed to see a second gun as if it had fallen from Bianca’s hands. Next to the second gun was a piece of paper. The note.

  I laid down one of my own guns and reached in for both the note and the Beretta.

  I spread the note out first.

  Phoenix. I am no doubt dead. Please, hide my body. Father can’t ever know where it is. And then when the time is right, you must run from him. Run as fast and as far as you can and never look back. Zee will help you. I’m sure of it. He loved your mother.

  I sucked in a sharp gasp. I’d always suspected Zee was in love with my mom. I’d seen the way he looked at her pictures. I’d seen the way she’d watch him leave the room. I dropped my eyes to the note once more.

  Take Eleanor and Dinah. They are good guns, and their magic will help you survive. Trust them.

  Bea

  No “I love you,” no “goodbye.” Just the details. That was my family through and through, no time for little niceties. I tucked my guns into the back of my shorts and carefully reached for Eleanor.

  “She wants me to take you both,” I said, feeling stupid for talking to a pair of guns. Never mind the fact they could only be talking to me if they had some sort of magic of their own, which never ended well. I grimaced as I slid my hands over their grips.

  “We know. She told us we were to go to you,” Eleanor said. “Now, we have to hide the body.”

  I nodded, stood, and looked around the room. “I’ve got to get a few things. I’ll be right back.”

  I left Bianca and her talking guns there. How the hell had I never known they spoke? I ran back to my room, stripped off my shorts and pulled on a pair of jeans and boots, then slid on my thigh holsters as well as my shoulder holsters.

  There was no subterfuge in my actions. I had to make Bianca’s body disappear, and fast. If she thought Father would do something with her body, I had no doubt she had reason to want to have her remains hidden. Funny that I could trust her so completely now that she was dead.

  Back in her room, I wrapped her body in one of the pink sheets as tightly as I could, pinning her limbs so they wouldn’t flop.

  “Don’t forget us,” Dinah said.

  “I won’t.” I grabbed her from the ground first and put her into the right holster on my thigh, then scooped up Eleanor and put her in my left.

  “At least she knows where we belong,” Dinah grumbled. I didn’t react. I had a body to deal with. I tried not to think about who it was because a funny tightening in my throat was happening. Grief was spilling up through me.

  I shoved it down with a vengeance. This was a job, just another job.

  I lifted Bianca up and over my shoulder with a grunt, then did a slow turn of the room. There was a blood stain on the floor, and a few books on the dresser, but otherwise there was nothing that stood out to me. I checked the hall and then hurried out of the house, the body of my sister hanging from my shoulder.

  “I don’t remember any thick leather book.” I opened my eyes and escaped the memory. “Books on the dresser, yes. But nothing leather.”

  “It was small,” Eleanor said. “And . . . I think it contained the details of the deal your father made, amongst other things.”

  Holy fucking shitballs. “The deal . . . he made with Bazixal?” That was the demon’s name, the demon who’d given my father the power he wanted in exchange for a soul. His soul, to be exact.

  “Yes,” Eleanor said. “And that deal had your name in it.”

  Chapter Ten

  Eleanor and Dinah were quiet now that they’d spilled the beans, letting me sit on the crappy bed in a crappy little hotel in Seattle while my brain worked through their words. The deal my father made with a literal devil had my name on it. That was not something I’d been thinking about when the day started sixteen hours before. The news did nothing to slow my adrenaline or my thoughts.

  I gritted my teeth a moment as my thoughts flew in multiple directions. “Again, Eleanor, why now? Why not at some point in all your years with me would you not have said something?”

  A heavy sigh slid from her. “Because we thought you were safe, far from your father. You didn’t want to go back, and we understood that. We didn’t like being left out in the barn, but we just hibernated, so it was no big deal. Bianca wanted you to be safe.” She paused. “You aren’t safe now, and knowledge is power.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face. “Pretty fucking smart for a gun.”

  “I wasn’t always a gun,” she said softly.

  My guts twisted. “That is a discussion I would like to have. But not right now.”

  “Agreed,” Dinah and Eleanor said in unison.

  I slowed things down. “Dinah, you said in the limo that Mancini was the cause of Bianca’s death. And now Eleanor, you are saying that my father’s third guardian made her pull the trigger. Which is it?”

  “Both,” Eleanor said. “Mancini is tied to your father’s deal with Bazixal. We don’t know all the details, Phoenix. We only know the players. They are both players in this.”

  I stood and began to pace the room. A surplus of energy and adrena
line flowed through me. “I have to save my son. No matter what is coming for me. No matter what it says in that little book, I have to save my son.”

  “Yes,” Dinah said. “We want to save Bear, too.”

  I scooped them both up and slid them into their holsters. I opened the bag of money and pulled out a few hundred dollars and stuffed it into my pockets. “We’re going to hunt up information on Genzo and the Ikimono myst. Surely, someone has heard rumors of it on the street.”

  The girls said nothing more, subdued after their big reveal. I put my ear to the door between my and Simon’s room. The steady sound of snoring filtered through to me. Good enough. I didn’t want company on this jaunt.

  I just wanted to kill something.

  I strode out of the motel and onto the quiet night street, turned and headed toward Daniel’s apartment building. Boy, was he going to get a nice late-night surprise. The thought almost brought a smile to my lips.

  Half an hour later, I reached the front entry of the apartment buildings and hit Danny-boy’s buzzer. A sleepy grunt answered.

  “Phoenix. I need information,” I said.

  Now this is the messed-up part. He buzzed me in. I didn’t think Stockholm syndrome worked that fast, but apparently, I was wrong. Regardless, it worked in my favor.

  “No,” I said into the speaker. “Come down. I want you to show me around Seattle.”

  “Sure thing!” He was so eager, he could have been a golden retriever. Shit, it was a surprise the guy hadn’t been offed already. I moved back to stand in the shadows beside the door. No need to advertise I was there.

  He hit the doors at full speed, rattling them as he all but flew out. His big eye was wide as he searched the area for me. “Phoenix?” he stage whispered and I shook my head. Yeah, he was lucky to be alive, that was for sure.

  “Here.” I stepped out of the shadows. “Walk with me.”

  He bobbed his head, far too eager to help. Unless there was something in it for him. I narrowed my eyes. “Who did you talk to?”

  Daniel swallowed hard, and his eye got wide again. “I didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “Ah, but you forget, I read people for a living.” I fell back into my old routine with the ease of sliding on a favorite pair of jeans. “Which means I can read you like an open book, Danny-boy. And what I see is that you’ve talked to someone, and they told you to call them if I came back. Which means you made a phone call, didn’t you? What did they offer you? Money? Your feet between a beautiful pair of tits?”

  He shook his head. “No. I just . . . I just never thought I’d get to take part in a quest or something and here you are. Taking me on a quest.”

  I stared hard at him, not sure if maybe I was reading him wrong.

  “How long before they get here?” Eleanor asked. “Can you question and kill him in time?”

  I tipped my head and watched Daniel react to her words. Watched his pulse speed up and watched his eye start to fill with tears.

  “Shit, he’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “Damn it. That’s quite the target he’s got on the middle of his head,” Dinah grumbled. “I was hoping to help him out with that.”

  He spread his big hands wide. “Seriously, I can help. I can. What do you need?”

  I motioned for him to follow me down the street. His scent was thick on my nose and I wished the wind would blow the other way. The smell was overwhelming and it made my skin crawl.

  “Where do the junkies hang out in Seattle?” I asked the question and watched him for a reaction. He frowned and rubbed under his nose.

  “The bus stop at 3rd and Pike is a bad one. It’s a super weird place for them to hang, but the abnormals like it, and so do the human junkies. They group up there, talking about a special bus coming for them. But it doesn’t compare to the Jungle.” He glanced at me. “Is that all you need? Just information?”

  “The Jungle? Tell me about it.” That sounded like a lead worth chasing.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t name it. It’s a tract of land on the west side of Beacon Hill. It’s, well, ugly is the nicest word I can think of. There are homeless of all kinds there, and it’s dangerous. A maze of trees and bushes that is super thick, and that I think is partly where it got its name from.”

  “And the other part?” I glanced at him, watching his face for clues. He frowned before he answered.

  “The animals that live there.”

  “You mean abnormals?”

  His shoulders hunched. “Some abnormals, yes. Those that don’t want to be part of society. The ones that don’t try to fit in.”

  I knew the type he meant. The ones who liked being pegged as monsters.

  I looked away from him, thinking, wondering how far I could trust him. “You want to work for me?”

  Dinah snorted. “Oh, that’s a bad fucking idea.”

  I slapped my hand over her holster and turned my eyes on Daniel. “Temp work, Danny-boy. I’ll pay you well, and just while I’m in Seattle.” I pulled the money out of my pocket and showed him the bills. “But if you get caught by the bad guys, I won’t be coming to rescue you.”

  He swallowed hard. “Seriously?”

  “I need a few things I can’t be seen looking for and I need to find a few people.” What I needed, I was almost positive he couldn’t do for me, but I was banking on him knowing someone who could. Things like IDs and passports, weapons, and information. My old friend Barron had been the one I could go to for all of that before, and he would have known who to contact here in Seattle.

  But Barron was dead, so that left me needing a replacement. Even if it came in the form of a one-eyed abnormal who had a sidekick complex that needed filling.

  “What do you need?” His eye was far too hopeful and it was only then I saw how young he was. Maybe early twenties. Sometimes with abnormals, it could be hard to tell their age.

  “Anyone you know do good fake IDs?”

  He bobbed his head immediately, surprising me. “Yeah, I got a friend who can do that. Lacey.”

  “Lacey. She got any other tricks besides IDs?” I arched an eyebrow.

  He shrugged. “Probably. She’s got her fingers in a lot of stuff.”

  Which meant she might be able to help me find Talia Lovstark, the code breaker.

  “Take me to her,” I said.

  “Now?” His eye bugged out. “She’s kind of bitchy, and I don’t think she’s going to like being woken up.”

  “Bitchy is fine, I understand that. Now take me to her.” I motioned for him to get moving with my chin.

  He sighed and shook his head, but said nothing. “This way. She’s not far from the bus stop I told you about.”

  Convenient. Then again, the abnormals were predictable that way. There were two kinds outside of levels of strength. Loners like Simon and Zee, and those that clustered together in large groups for protection and companionship. Most of the second kind were harmless, to be fair. The loners were the ones you had to watch out for because they were often more dangerous.

  Daniel led the way to 3rd Ave., and then from there, we hiked almost the length of it before he stepped into an all-night convenience store. I followed him, my eyebrows high. The night clerk didn’t even blink as we strode right through the store to the back and the door that read “Employees Only” stamped in it with fading gold and black letters. Daniel knocked and then let himself in.

  With a frown, and a hand on Eleanor, I followed.

  The door opened into a room that should not have existed at the back of a run-down, all-night convenience store. A narrow hall stretched out in front of us as if it ran a mile or two. Impossible, I knew. But there we were with that magic business again. Myst and magic did strange things on a good day. Never mind in the middle of the night with an abnormal at the helm of the weirdness.

  The walls were covered in thick green velvet curtains that had golden frayed tassels on the ends. More than a hint of mold filled the air and I wrinkled my nose against it. Under the smell o
f rotting things was the absolute reek of abnormal. If I thought Daniel was bad, it was nothing to this Lacey he was taking me to. Which meant she was weak, despite the illusions.

  Daniel’s back was blocking my view of the rest of the hall and I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go first.”

  “She doesn’t like people much. At least she knows me.” He seemed worried. I shrugged.

  “I have a way with abnormals,” I said.

  I stepped around him, and he didn’t protest any further. “Lacey,” I called out, “time to tone it down. I don’t have time for this shit, and if you make me wade through it, I will settle for blowing a hole through your head, and find someone else who can help me.”

  Daniel gave a low moan behind me. “Oh, that’s not going to go well.”

  “Who dares?” came a low, rasping female voice. Like she’d been eating sandpaper for breakfast.

  Time to pull out the big guns. So to speak.

  “The Phoenix. And you can either help me or I can kill you, right now.”

  The walls faded, the velvet was gone and we stood in a room that looked like what it was. A storage room with a bed in one corner and cleaning materials in the other. I shook my head. “You thought she would be able to help?”

  Daniel moved a little closer. “Yes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Lacey, you got more to you than just some blingy shit?”

  “I do.” She slammed into me from the side, her figure nothing more than a blur. A snake then, which meant if I didn’t hang onto her tightly, she’d slip through my fingers and I couldn’t have that.

  I rolled with her, hooking my arm under hers, and snapped my head forward hard. I caught her on the bridge of the nose and blood sprayed all over her face and down the front of her nearly invisible shirt, staining it. I stood and held her there, hooked on my one arm like an oversized and bloody fish. “You done?”

  Lacey nodded. “I had to try. I heard a rumor you were in town. The bounty is worth a few broken bones if you could be taken in.”

  I snorted. “I need some ID for me and one other. Can you do that?”