by Jayne Faith
I shuffled through the photos a second time and flipped them over to see if he’d written anything on them, but there were no notes on the backs. I made a mental note to look through any old social media posts I could find to see if Damien might have mentioned this trip to San Francisco, or if I could discover anything about the man in the photos.
There weren’t any other personal photos in the box. Damien kept only the old family portraits and these pictures even though he wasn’t with the other guy in them anymore.
The rest of the box held a stack of notebooks like the one he’d carried around in a backpack all the time, and these ones appeared to hold similar notes about magic. I put them next to the memory sticks for later perusal.
From the bottom of the empty box I plucked a pen. At first, I thought it had probably ended up in there on accident because it looked like an ordinary ballpoint pen, and the casing had a hairline crack. But when I rotated it, I realized it had words printed on it.
The Fairmont Heritage Hotel on Ghirardelli Square. Damien and his ex must have stayed there during their trip. It would be a familiar place for Damien.
I didn’t know the hotel, but I’d heard of the landmark. It was right in the heart of San Francisco.
My mouth went dry. I pulled out my phone and punched in the address. When it came up in a maps app, I tapped the map, changed to street view, and then moved around the area. I needed water. A pond or a fountain would do, but I didn’t see anything immediately near the hotel. But the famous Pier 45 and Fisherman’s Wharf were only a few blocks away from the square. I tapped the map marker for the pier and then did an image search. I had to be able to picture my destination in detail to use the trick of the in-between. Zooming in, I examined the pictures near the water. There was a huge dock where the retired Navy vessel USS Pampanito served as a museum and memorial. I enlarged the images even more and examined them, taking in the detail. Assuming the photos weren’t too outdated, I should have enough to visualize where I wanted to go.
I paused, staring off into space. Zarella had threatened me, telling me not to interfere. But I thought I could turn Damien. If he was there with his ex, it meant he hadn’t severed all connections with his former life. It was a sentimental move to hide out in a place where the two of them had stayed together. I just needed to remind Damien he didn’t need to do something terrible to prove himself.
Together, Damien and I could protect Evan. Damien knew more than anyone else in the world about doing impossible things with magic. He could find a way to close the rips, to appease the mages and Jacob, without killing my brother. Damien could be the savior of the modern era.
Tucking my phone away, I grabbed one of the pics of Damien and his ex. I left the rest of the memorabilia of Damien’s life scattered on his closet floor and went to the kitchen sink, where I turned my awareness inward to my reaper. Loki, who’d been lounging on the expensive faux-leather sofa, jumped to the floor and trotted over. The realm of the living faded to the grays of the in-between, and Loki appeared beside me. I trailed my fingers in the water, pictured the dock, and waited for the shimmer and shift.
And then I was there standing on the wide dock that was so large its movement on a silent sea was almost imperceptible. A gray-toned form of a huge old ship loomed next to the dock. Not wanting to pop into the realm of the living and startle tourists, I stayed in limbo land and headed inland toward Ghirardelli Square.
Loki loped along beside me, seemingly reinvigorated now that we were moving. We ran down the ghost town sidewalks, avoiding the phantom-like cars with their drivers who were only visible in the living realm.
Pausing in an alley near the square, I released my connection to the in-between and the world around me gained color, noise, and movement. Once again in the realm of the living, Loki and I set off at a slower pace. My big dog, trotting beside me unleashed, drew some looks. The hellhound-doodle was scary-big at first glance, but I knew he would behave. As long as no one looked too closely at the faint red glow in his eyes, we shouldn’t run into any trouble. Hellhounds had come through the Manhattan Rip along with demons, and the otherworldly dogs weren’t allowed to roam free. Actually, as far as most people knew, they’d all been rounded up and killed.
The Fairmont Heritage Hotel came into view and I slowed, suddenly unsure of my next move. Damien had no doubt warded the hotel, if he was indeed in there, but I didn’t have to worry about that. Ever since the reaper had hitched a ride on my soul, I could walk through wards without setting them off.
But Damien likely wouldn’t have stopped at wards. He probably had other precautions in place.
I stopped near the corner of a business high-rise and leaned against the building, trying to look casual. Loki came and sat beside me, casting me questioning looks as if to ask why we’d paused. Tuning into my necro senses, I reached out with my awareness, searching for the active little areas of demonic energy that told me where nearby minor demons were lurking.
The small, bat-like creatures were like rats—you could try to get rid of them, but they found places to hide, and more leaked through small inter-dimensional rips all the time. Kind of ironic that I used to make a living frying the suckers in traps but had come to find them extremely useful.
Ah, there. One was lurking on an apartment building within sight, about a block away. Probably hiding under one of the many awnings. I reached out more firmly, this time with the intent to control. My senses automatically zeroed in on the active point of the creature’s mind. I carefully penetrated into it, trying not to cringe outwardly. I’d done this many dozens of times, but it was still unpleasant.
Taking command of the minor demon, I sent it into flight toward the Fairmont. It was a risk in broad daylight. If someone spotted it, they’d call the local Demon Patrol, and that would definitely tip off Damien.
I steered the demon to the top of the hotel and directed it to make a lazy spiral, peering into each window as it passed. Using my necro vision, I watched through the creature’s eyes.
The shades were drawn over many of the windows, and the top couple of floors yielded nothing useful.
About midway down, the creature passed a window just as a man appeared in it to yank a curtain across.
My breath stilled, and I pushed away from the side of the office building.
I knew that face. It was the dark-eyed guy in Damien’s photos.
Chapter 6
I USED THE minor demon to figure out what floor Damien’s ex was on while I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to tame my spinning thoughts.
I sent out a fierce prayer that Damien was up there with my brother. Or, maybe he’d already handed Evan over to the mages and this was the victory celebration? No. Damien wouldn’t still be hanging out here if he’d given up my brother. He’d be with his family, basking in the glow of their approval and making up for all those lost years as the outcast black sheep of the Stein family. It seemed that not even the prospect of reuniting with an old love would keep him from that. I didn’t think so anyway. Though Damien’s ex was pretty hot.
I had to try to talk Damien out of it. No one else was going to ensure Evan’s safety. Zarella might, for a time, but I didn’t want to rely on him. If Evan was up there, then I was extremely lucky to have found him, and I had to move now to try to convince Damien not to hand Evan over to the Steins. I had no idea what traps Damien might have waiting, or what he’d do to me, but I had to take the chance.
Turning to the reaper within me and the faint whisper of the in-between, I faded from the realm of the living. The glass doors of the Fairmont didn’t exist in limbo land, so I walked right into the hotel lobby. Damien’s ex was on the eighth floor. I passed the elevator and found the stairs. With hellhound-ghost Loki following me and the gray mist puffing up around my legs, I took the stairs two at a time.
On floor eight, I exited the stairwell and took a moment to orient myself.
Damn. The room doors were solid. You never knew what you’d get in the in-between.
Sometimes doors carried over, and sometimes they didn’t.
I navigated though the hallway until I was fairly sure I’d reached the right room. I couldn’t be certain because I was estimating the location from an external view.
Now what? I could wait for housekeeping and then slip in when the door was open. But odds were Damien wasn’t letting anyone in at all.
What were my options? I could pull the fire alarm, but Damien would just vanish with Evan. I needed the element of surprise, but not to the point that Damien would attack or disappear. I went to the door to the right of Damien’s room and released my connection with the in-between. I planned to knock, flash back to limbo land when someone answered, go through the room and out the window, and hopefully find a ledge or something that would allow me to hop over to Damien’s window. Then I could sneak in, pop into the living realm, and . . . well, I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d get Damien to listen to me, but something would come to me.
In the land of the living, I reflexively touched the pouch on my belt that held my chain whip. It was much heavier than my old weapon, but I found the weight reassuring. Plus, the metal made a faint rattle when I walked, which made me feel like a badass Old West cowboy with spurs ready for a shootout.
I took a deep breath and raised my hand to knock on the door. Just before my knuckles made contact, there was some noise on the other side, the handle unlatched with a click, and the door whooshed inward.
My heart jumped into my throat as I recognized Damien’s ex. He was looking back over his shoulder and saying something, one hand on the door and the other holding the ice bucket.
I had a split second to react. I grabbed the end of my whip with one hand, lunged forward and caught the guy in a chokehold with the other arm, and kicked the door closed behind me with my heel. Loki whined in the hallway, put out that he’d been closed off.
Some part of my mind registered that the guy had no magical ability. The rest of my attention was on Damien.
He’d taken a step toward us, but then he stopped and stood calmly with his feet planted wide and his arms at his sides.
“Really, Ella?” Damien tsked softly. “He doesn’t even have any magic. He’s no threat to you.”
My pulse raced and my breath came fast as a new surge of adrenaline coursed through me.
Even from several feet away, I could see the pinpoint lights in Damien’s eyes, like two little star fields trapped there. The eyes of a mage.
I couldn’t see Evan but guessed he was on the bed, which I assumed was to the left of where Damien stood. The TV on the wall to his right was playing on mute.
“Evan?” I called, edging to the right to try to see if he was on the bed. “Are you okay?”
No response.
“We need to talk, Damien,” I said, returning my attention to my former partner. “In fact, I insist. You don’t want me to hurt your friend, do you? I know you still care about him.”
I flicked my wrist, sending earth, air, and fire magic into my chain whip. It made a satisfying metallic noise as it snaked up and around the man I held. In a blink, Damien’s ex was bound from ankles to shoulders with his arms pinned to his sides. Still palming the whip’s handle, I pulsed a little more fire into the metal, just enough to be uncomfortable. The guy winced and let out a cry through clenched teeth. Between the heat and the razor edges of the links, all it would take was one twitch from me to leave him with a hundred slices.
Damien didn’t even glance at him. My heart plummeted.
Shit. This wasn’t going at all the way I’d hoped.
I had a split-second warning when his face twitched. On reflex, I faded to the in-between just as a blob of white mage magic large enough to engulf me hurled through the air. Damien could do a dozen awful things with his newfound magic—paralyze my body, fry my brain, crush me into a tiny pinpoint of matter. I didn’t know what he’d intended with the blast, and I didn’t want to find out.
In limbo land, I sprang forward, getting a running start, and then popped back into the land of the living just in time to ram into Damien. The shock of the surprise worked. His magic faltered, and we went crashing to the floor. I flashed back into the in-between, slammed my forearms together to connect the pearlescent markings around them, and reached for the magic flowing through the nearest ley line.
Pulling the magic back with me into the living realm sent a lightning bolt of pain through my head and down my spine. But I held on, sending it out though my fingertips as I gripped Damien’s neck.
In the weeks since he’d disappeared, I’d discovered more about the nature of the silver magic from the in-between, the power that did not belong in the living realm. It was a sort of death magic. It carved away at living souls.
I glanced off to the side. My brother was there on the bed, sitting up and watching us with a glassy expression.
“Evan, get up!” I screamed at him. “Get up and run!”
He just blinked vacantly. It was then that I noticed the medical supplies on the nightstand—syringes and small glass vials.
Fury shot through me, fueling my magic, as my gaze whipped back down to Damien.
“It’s not what you think,” he choked out, his nails scrabbling at my hands as he tried to pry my fingers from his neck. “I’m not drugging him. I’m helping him get clean.”
“Why should I believe you?” I demanded.
I pulled more silver magic, and my head screamed.
“Because I have no reason to lie about that,” he whispered harshly.
Probably true. Damien no longer cared whether I thought he was a good person.
I pulled more power. Dark blotches began to invade my vision.
“I’m leaving, and I’m taking my brother with me,” I said, my voice little more than a growl through the pain.
Damien’s eyes tightened with fear as the death magic continued to flow through him. For a moment I thought he might beg for mercy. Stupid me.
“No,” he said. “You’re not.”
White light blinded me, and the force of mage magic punched me so hard I flew backward through the air.
I had just enough time for the fleeting anticipation of how badly it was going to hurt when my head slammed into the wall or the door. Still surrounded by sheer white, I crashed into a solid surface with such agonizing force, I figured it might kill me.
I wanted to call my brother’s name, but I passed out instead.
Chapter 7
DAMIEN’S BLOW DIDN’T kill me, of course. I had the soul of the reaper Xaphan riding around with me, and it wouldn’t let me die—not easily, anyway. But when I came to, I wished I were dead.
I had no idea how long I’d been lying there in a heap on the hotel room floor. There was insistent knocking at the door, but I couldn’t do more than blink and groan. Then there was snuffling in my face, soft whines, and a wet tongue lapping at my ear.
“Hey, boy,” I whispered to Loki. I had no idea how he’d managed to get inside the room, but at least he hadn’t been hurt.
Tears sprang to my eyes when I tried to roll to my side. My brain felt like it needed to explode through my ears or it’d drive me mad with the pain and pressure. I stayed where I was for several seconds, the sensations in my body too excruciating to even force out a moan. The knocking at the door ceased, to my enormous relief.
I drew a slow breath and cracked my eyelids open. In my periphery, I spotted a smear of maroon. At first I thought it was the strange magic that I sometimes left in a trail, but the sticky sheen and metallic scent told me it was blood.
With deliberate, careful movements, I sat up and touched the side of my head where the pain seemed to radiate the worst. I immediately wished I hadn’t. My hair was matted with blood, and there was a huge goose egg where my skull had hit. Using the wall for support, I rose to my feet and then stood there fighting back nausea brought on by the motion of standing.
I didn’t have to look, I knew the room was empty. Damien, his ex, and my brother were gone. I’d u
sed up my chance to save Evan, and my old partner had nearly killed me for my trouble. I’d probably never be able to find Damien on my own now.
As I shifted my gaze down to my hellhound-doodle, I caught sight of myself in the closet’s mirror doors a couple of feet away.
“Oh, my god,” I said to my reflection. “You look like you got stuffed down a kitchen sink drain with the food grinder turned on.”
I had the beginnings of not one, but two black eyes, my lip was split and had bled all over the lower half of my face, and my hair was a matted disaster.
I looked down at my dog. “I don’t suppose you saw which way Damien went?”
He cocked his head at me and then panted with his tongue out.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” I pushed away from the wall, testing my balance. “It’s not your fault. He probably did that mage thing and just disappeared into thin air. Pretty damn inconvenient for us, huh?”
I stood there breathing slowly and testing each limb, trying to focus on the fact that if not for my reaper giving me the ability to withstand bad injuries and heal quickly from them, I probably would be dead. But it was challenging to summon up much gratitude when it felt like every bone in my body had been beaten until it cracked.
My spirits lifted a little when I spotted my chain whip on the floor. I wasn’t surprised Damien had left it. He was confident he could beat me, and allowing me to keep my prized weapon was just another way of showing it. Moving like an arthritic octogenarian, I bent and picked up the handle, carefully looping the razor-edged chains so I could drop it into the pouch on my belt. I was so focused on the task that when my phone buzzed in my pocket I nearly pitched into the wall again. I pulled it out and answered.
“Hey, Deb,” I said, trying my damnedest to make my voice sound normal. I even tried to force the scowl from my face and replace it with something more pleasant, but it hurt too much to shift my expression.
