Phoenix Blood (Old School Book 1)

by Jenny Schwartz

  Now, she wondered… “How could your grandfather have caged a phoenix, let alone caught one? What sort of magic did he have? And if he had magic, why didn’t you know about magic when I mentioned my finder’s talent?”

  Marcus scrubbed his hands over his face.

  The gesture dislodged her hand from his arm. She felt…cold at the loss. She retreated back to the driver’s seat and bumped her head against Karma.

  The bird hopped down onto her knee. Its long tail stuck out the open driver’s door. The cool spring wind played with the feathers, ruffling them. Sadie stroked its crest of yellow feathers, but the bird ignored her, watching Marcus. Sadie put her hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, resting her wrist on the curve of it.

  “Grandfather didn’t have magic. Nor did he catch the phoenix. He bought it at an exorbitant price from a fantastical creatures trader fifty years ago. When he died, I read his journal.” Marcus sighed deeply, but he seemed better. His shoulders straightened and his eyes opened fully. “Magic is rare, or rather, the ability to use it is rare. Grandfather learned of magic’s existence. He couldn’t make himself magical, but he discovered a potion that enabled a man to make himself immune to magic. Grandfather drank that potion every week. It’s raw ingredient, much transformed, was phoenix blood.”

  “So he was an addict, too?”

  “Far from it. The book that contained the potion warned against drinking raw phoenix blood because of its addictive properties. Grandfather was scrupulous in protecting himself.” Marcus stretched out a hand.

  For a moment, Sadie thought he reached to her.

  But Karma hopped onto his hand and he carried the bird to his lap. It perched on his knee and rubbed its beak against his hand.

  In profile, his face was bleak.

  Sadie told her own heart to settle down. It had no business jumping into her throat at the thought of Marcus reaching for her. “So how did you end up addicted to raw phoenix blood?”

  “Grandfather gave it to me.” There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. It was eerily neutral. “He did it to control me. When I try to go more than a week without phoenix blood…” He gestured at himself.

  “What does it feel like?” she asked, unable to deal with the information that his own grandfather had addicted Marcus to this torture.

  “As if my arteries and veins are burning. It flares up and subsides.”

  “Kind of the opposite of cold turkey?” she offered with a painful attempt at humor.

  His mouth twitched. “Except I won’t survive it.”

  She froze.

  He turned and looked at her. “I’m dying, Sadie. That’s why I want to make things right. Pay my debts. I’ll escort you safely to Los Angeles, but we need to hurry.” He paused. “Now, will you please drive?”

  She fumbled with the key. He’d turned off the ignition before falling out of the truck. The engine roared to life. She swung the door shut. Marcus buckled his seatbelt and she did the same. She was acting automatically, too stunned to think. I’m probably not safe to drive. But she ignored the voice of sanity.

  They were on the I-40 and miles away before she had anything coherent to say. “I can make my own way to LA. You need a healer.”

  “A healer can’t help me.”

  “I’ll find one who can,” she said fiercely.

  “If you can, I’ll go see them,” he promised too easily.

  “You don’t believe I can.” Five motorbikes were roaring past them. She concentrated on staying in her lane as a suicidal biker maneuvered at high-speed between her and a big rig. The big rig blasted its air horn.

  “I’ve searched for nine years, Sadie.” He sounded resigned, even kind, as if he comforted her.

  “What about a phoenix? Have you hunted for—”

  “No.” He totally shut her down.

  “If your grandfather bought a phoenix, it must be possible. And you have money.”

  “Money isn’t the problem.” He shifted in his seat, his long legs stretched then relaxed. Karma chirruped. “I won’t enslave another creature.”

  Sadie’s breath caught. “Karma! She’s a phoenix.” It explained so much: the oddness of Marcus travelling with such an exotic pet, his refusal to part from it, the—“But I’m wearing the amulet and all I see is an ordinary bird. The amulet is meant to see through glamour.”

  “I expect it can. Phoenixes must have some defenses for them to vanish into the realm of myth. I suspect they don’t use a glamour, but actually take the form of the bird they’re pretending to be.”

  “Shapeshift? Is that even possible?” She risked a quick glance at Karma.

  Marcus shook some sunflower seeds from a bag into the palm of his hand. The bird watched the proceedings intently. “Grandfather kept Karma’s parent shackled with ensorcelled silver jesses. She was a remarkable bird. Phoenix. She resembled a golden eagle and acted like one, too. She ate raw meat and tore at Grandfather’s hands if he wasn’t careful.”

  Karma delicately took a sunflower seed from his palm and crunched it.

  “Phoenixes are meant to be reborn in fire,” Sadie said.

  “They die in fire, I think. Karma’s mom laid one egg about a month before she died. Grandfather was delighted to think he’d have a second phoenix to bleed or trade.”

  “But if he’d had the phoenix fifty years, how could he think the egg would be fertilized?”

  “He couldn’t know. He hoped. Perhaps phoenixes are parthenogenic. Very occasionally that happens with domesticated birds.” The birds reproduced without a sexual partner. “At any rate, when Grandfather died a week ago, Dad sent a helicopter for me. I was in New York. I flew back and walked into Grandfather’s house. Dad didn’t want to go into the old man’s study—he’d always been barred from it, and I think he was glad of that. Whereas I had things I needed to learn. I went in to where the phoenix was held. She was gone. An explosion had destroyed her cage and burned all trace of her. Only the egg remained, and as I watched, it cracked and Karma emerged.”

  “A week ago?” Sadie was finding it nearly impossible to follow the conversation and drive. She started looking for the next exit. It was near enough to lunch time. They could stop and talk properly while they ate. “Karma doesn’t look like a nestling.”

  “She grew magically fast.”

  “Huh.”

  Karma chirruped.

  Sadie studied the highway ahead. There was a turn-off and her travelling ways were paying off. She knew a quiet spot. “Does Karma understand what we’re saying?”

  “I doubt it. She’s a baby and a different species.” Marcus’s voice deepened as she took the off-ramp. “Where are you going?”

  “Lunch,” she said briskly.

  They grabbed burgers, a salad for her, and coffees, and she drove down a couple of country roads till they reached an abandoned schoolhouse. Built around 1900 a sign described it as a museum, but it was closed and grass grew over the small carpark. Sadie parked with a view across green countryside. A line of willows and poplars in the distance indicated a stream.

  It was idyllic.

  Marcus opened the passenger door and Karma flew out to investigate the surroundings. Her glorious golden tail trailed over the grass before she flew up into the branches of an oak tree.

  Sadie hadn’t much appetite, so she ignored her burger to nibble at her salad. She’d hated Marcus for so long. The things he’d said to her—the things he’d said about her—had destroyed something in her. Trust. Hope. But when she’d teased him into naming the bird, he’d called the phoenix “Karma”. It seemed as if he regretted everything he’d done. He spoke of righting wrongs…before he died.

  Even the salad was difficult to eat, sticking in her throat. She swallowed what felt like a jagged lump.

  Beside her, Marcus steadily ate his burger and sipped an iced coffee. He seemed better than he’d been.

  As much as he’d hurt her, she would never have wished on him anything as horrific as the blood burning in his veins
.

  She put away her salad. “You could bleed Karma to feed your addiction.”

  “No!” He turned on her savagely. His eyes flickered with red.

  She shrank back so fast that her elbow bumped on the driver’s door handle.

  “I’m sorry.” He recoiled. “Sorry.” He got out of the truck.

  She watched him walk away, not toward Karma or the schoolhouse, but into the deep shade of a pine tree. She found it so hard to process. He expected to die, soon, in agony, and he accepted it.

  Yesterday, she’d met Millie Trembly who’d been dying of lung cancer. Sadie had felt sorry for her, had felt genuine sympathy, but Marcus’s imminent death hurt her. She breathed raggedly.

  To heck with it.

  She jumped out of the truck, aware that she was leaving its warded safety, aware too that Marcus wanted privacy, but she needed to go to him.

  The shade of the pine tree felt chilly after the warmth of the truck’s cabin. Karma flew over, then away, skimming over the rough grass and bushes, circling and returning, obviously bonded with Marcus.

  “What do you intend to do with Karma?” Sadie couldn’t force out the last words, when you die.

  “I’m taking her home to where the trader Grandfather bought her mother from said he captured her. It was in Grandfather’s journal. I hope there’ll be other phoenixes there who’ll find Karma. Who’ll help her.” His chest heaved. “And even if there aren’t, it’s an area she should be able to survive in.”

  Sunlight flashed on the bird’s black body and golden tail as it streamed behind her in flight.

  “Excuse me.” He walked away, but returned with Karma’s food and water bowls, filling both and setting them at the edge of the pine’s shadow.

  Sadie edged into the warm sunshine, rubbing her arms.

  The phoenix settled down to a meal with the comfortable coziness of a domestic bantam.

  “Is taking me to LA going to endanger getting Karma home?”

  Marcus studied her for a long moment. “You said your friend wants the amulet to study fantastical creatures?”

  With a pang of shock and hurt, Sadie recognized his suspicions. But then, why would he think she would show him any loyalty? Still… “I won’t tell Naomi about phoenixes. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t be around to keep Karma safe, so I have to be sure.” He offered his own near death as a part-apology for his suspicious question.

  Sadie felt cold despite the sunshine.

  “Karma’s mom was captured near Taos. I suspect she lived in the San Juan Mountains. I’m taking Karma to Taos.”

  “That’s not a big detour from our route to LA. I could go with you?” She wanted to go with him.

  Karma, herself, stopped eating and peered up at Marcus. A bee flew past, close enough for Sadie to hear its buzzing hum.

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  Karma returned to her meal.

  Sadie didn’t know what to say or do. “Our burgers are getting cold.”

  He walked to her, crossing from shadow to sunlight. “We’d better eat them, then.” He didn’t touch her, he didn’t say anything more. But he smiled.

  A lifetime ago Sadie had fallen in love with a confident, wealthy and idealistic young man who’d had the world at his feet and dreams aplenty. That man was gone, but the life-worn, reserved and powerful man beside her was even more attractive.

  Marcus would keep her safe from the Stag mercenaries, but perhaps Sadie’s finder’s talent wasn’t completely to be trusted after all. Because who was to keep her heart safe from him?

  Marcus hadn’t told Sadie he was dying in an effort to win her sympathy. He didn’t want sympathy. He’d told her because she needed to understand. He could make her safe, but there was an urgency to all that they did. He didn’t know how long he’d last with his unfed addiction.

  His grandfather had said Marcus needed the phoenix blood every month, and Marcus had tried, when he’d first become addicted, to challenge that ruling, but after five weeks without the blood, he’d nearly died. And the fire burning in his veins then had been less than what wracked him, now.

  It was four weeks since he’d had his last dose of raw blood from Karma’s mom. His grandfather had, when it suited him, shipped Marcus vials. However, he’d wanted Marcus back in Boston, so there’d been no fresh supplies. Marcus had been on his way to Boston via New York when his dad had phoned with news of the Senator’s death.

  The Senator. Neither Marcus nor his dad liked to acknowledge the closer, familial connection. Old Chester Aurelius had been a bastard. He’d treated his only son like dirt and had ignored Marcus completely—until Marcus had made the fatal mistake of confiding his newly discovered magic talent to the Senator.

  Hell. He’d paid and paid for that moment of naivety.

  “I’ll drive,” he said to Sadie as they reached the truck.

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. The fever in his blood had cooled enough that he could drive. It spiked, but so far those spikes could be brought back under control. “I’ll let you know if we need to swap.”

  “Okay.” She climbed into the passenger seat.

  He put away Karma’s food and water bowls. The phoenix settled on the back seat and closed her eyes, content to sleep. He closed the rear door quietly and got in the driver’s seat. He’d eaten his burger and he finished his coffee in two gulps, while Sadie unwrapped her burger.

  He felt a faint reluctance to leave the quiet schoolhouse. Its yard was green and overgrown—forgotten—and that made for peace. As did, far more profoundly, Sadie’s tentative offer of friendship.

  No. He shouldn’t overstate it. She didn’t actively hate him, which was more than he deserved.

  He remembered the route back the highway and followed it, sinking into the speed and almost meditative stillness of high-speed travel. The road unrolled before them.

  “May I borrow your phone?” Sadie asked. “I need to call a friend to arrange for someone to pick up the amulet.”

  “In the glovebox. It’s a burn phone, so the Stag mercenaries won’t trace you through it, unless they know to monitor your friend’s phone?”

  “Not Vanessa’s. She’s paranoid about being traced.” With reason. Sadie’s heart hurt to think of what Vanessa had suffered. The Old School had saved Vanessa, but not before she’d endured terror and—but that wasn’t something to think of now. Sadie had to sound positive when she spoke to Vanessa.

  “Hello?” A crisp voice answered, sounding utterly remote.

  “Hi, Van. It’s Sadie.” She was glad she didn’t have to leave a message. What would she have said?

  “Honey.” Vanessa’s voice warmed. “Your name didn’t show. How are you?”

  “I’m good. Safe. But I need some help. I’m a bit busy.” The last sentence was their code for, “someone can hear our conversation”.

  “Anything I can do,” Vanessa’s voice grew more reserved. But she wasn’t exaggerating. Anything she could do, she would, and with millions of dollars at her command, she could arrange most things. She was one of the key nodes in the Old School network, connecting members who needed help. In return, everyone had wanted to help when Vanessa needed it, but only a few had had the skills.

  “I need someone to meet me in LA with a containment box. The box needs to be big enough to hold something fist-sized.” Sadie had never seen a containment box. She had no idea how difficult they were to create or acquire.

  “One containment box. When?” Vanessa asked briskly.

  “Three days from now. Venice Beach. Someone combat-rated.”

  “Oh Sadie!”

  Sadie winced. “I’m fine. I promise, Vanessa. I have a friend with me. He can keep me safe—my talent said so.”

  Vanessa was silent. From her own rescue, she knew how strong Sadie’s talent was. “I have your new phone number. I will call you back.” It was a threat and a promise.

  “Thanks, Van.”

  They disconnected. Sadie
restored the phone to the glovebox. “If we can’t make it to Venice Beach in three days, I’ll change the date. I just wanted someone there.”

  “We’ll make it,” Marcus said.

  And in famous last words, that was the moment roadworks loomed on the horizon.

  Chapter 5

  The motel on the outskirts of Memphis was clean and unremarkable. Marcus went in and booked the room. Sadie would have protested—by the pain lines grooving from his nose to the corners of his mouth, the fever had returned—however, the need for her to hide was paramount. Marcus was in no state to defend her and her self-defense moves would be laughable against Stag mercenaries.

  She’d driven for the last two hours and now she parked close to their door.

  Marcus got out, moving with the stark efficiency of someone combating pain.

  Karma quickly hopped onto his shoulder and flew into the room as soon as he got the door open. The bird seemed to sense how close he was to collapse.

  And what do I do if he does collapse? Sadie’s gaze landed on Karma. Would she bleed the bird? Against Marcus’s wishes?

  “I need a cold shower.” He dropped his backpack by the bed nearest the door and headed single-mindedly for the bathroom.

  She hoped the cold water would help with the burning in his blood, but mundane methods against magical curses tended to have limits. She put her duffel bag on the other bed and walked to the window, staring out at the graffiti-tagged walls of a warehouse.

  From the bathroom came the steady sound of running water.

  Her imagination unhelpfully presented a visual of how Marcus would look naked and wet. She groaned and leaned her forehead against the glass. Finding the amulet had been meant to be simple. She’d set her finder’s talent the simple task of locating a means to see through glamour. She’d expected to mail to Naomi whatever magical object she’d found. Instead, here she was on the run with an old lover, and he was dying.

  Karma chirruped.

  Sadie turned and leaned against the window, staring at the phoenix. “Are you magical? Do you know what Marcus is sacrificing for you?”