by Carmen Caine
“Oh, don’t play so innocent,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “A girl like you—”
“Like me?” I repeated. I don’t usually suffer from a hair-trigger temper around guys like that, but I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. Nor did I want to breathe his rank stench any longer. In a flash, I'd unsheathed my knife and pressed it against his neck, digging it into his flesh. "Repeat that again," I demanded. "And louder this time."
The bubble zipped open, letting Lucian, Strix, and Tabitha inside before shutting out the surrounding noise once again.
I dropped my knife and settled back, glancing up at Lucian as he commandeered the seat next to mine. A gleam of wicked humor touched his eyes as he observed, “I see the two of you are getting along splendidly. But let’s get down to business, shall we?”
As Strix and Tabitha sat on the remaining barstools, Samuel agreed, “Right. I have to say that I was rather surprised to receive your call this morning, Rowle.”
Yeah. I found it shocking, too. About as shocking as me agreeing with Samuel on something.
“Business is business,” Lucian replied with a gracious nod. “I’m in need of nanos. I know you’ve quite the collection. And right now, I’m willing to pay double.”
Greed lit Samuel’s eyes as he winked one of them like a used car salesman. He practically drooled in response. “Then I’m your man, Lord Rowle. And may I say, it’s a pleasure to be back in your good graces once again.”
I wanted to pinch my nose. He was so oily. So greasy. So slimy, inside and out.
I tossed a quick glance at Strix, but he was just as hard to read this time as Tabitha.
Reaching under the table, Samuel pulled out a metal briefcase and unclasping the locks, lifted the lid, revealing two round, silver tubes about six inches long. Each container had a digital display embedded on the top and three buttons on the side. Red. Green. Blue. “There’s 4 million nanoparticles in each batch. Clean. Ready to be spelled.”
I eyed the containers, curious. So, inside these containers were the mysterious, elusive nanos that Ricky thought I could manipulate. I hoped he was right.
“There’s an element of unpredictability with nanos,” Lucian stated. “A demonstration of their viability is required.”
Samuel blinked, but then a conspiratorial smile spread over his wide lips. “Absolutely,” he agreed, removing the containers from the briefcase and setting them on the tables. “Who shall we find?”
Lucian didn’t hesitate. “Yourself,” he replied with cool detachment.
That made Samuel glower. “You know it’s painful!” he snarled.
Lucian didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He just drew his lips into a thin line of impatience.
“Fine,” the hawk-nosed warlock spat. “But I’ll have my finger on the deactivation button.” He stretched his hand out to the containers.
“That’s not necessary,” Lucian inserted, calmly swiping the containers from under his grasp. “My reflexes are amazingly quick.”
Yeah, he possessed vampire-like speed, but something told me this time, his reflexes were going to be as slow as molasses.
Samuel apparently thought so, too. His face looked green. “Those things can be dangerous,” he grumbled.
But Lucian wasn’t listening. He’d hit the plus signs on each digital display, setting both to ‘1’.
“Let me see your palms,” Strix ordered then, speaking for the first time.
A fine bead of sweat sprang on Samuel’s brow, but apparently, even he obeyed a Nether Reach keeper. Slowly, he extended his hands, wincing as Strix dropped a small piece of what looked like tissue paper onto his sweaty palms.
Mana-infused film and Nether Reach mana at that. It smelled heavenly. I recognized it as the same stuff Strix had used to extract my mana-signature before.
One flash of light later, Strix held a spark of the warlock’s mana on the tip of his finger.
Interesting extraction technique.
This time, Lucian pressed the blue buttons on each of the containers. Small trays zipped out. In a barely discernible rumble, Lucian murmured a few words and waved his finger over the trays. Something on each tray sparkled in response.
It had to be a nano. I wanted to shift to specter vision to see what I could learn about it, but with Strix sitting across from me, I knew I couldn’t chance it.
“You take it from here, Strix,” Lucian said then, sliding the containers across the table towards the keeper.
With a deft twist of his fingers, Strix pinched the mana spark in two, dropping half into one tray and half onto the other before pressing the blue button himself. This time, the trays retreated. “It’ll take about ten seconds to prime,” he said, handing the containers back to Lucian.
Lucian nodded.
I held my breath.
Samuel turned a deeper shade of green.
And then, Lucian hit the green button and the digital displays reset to ‘0’.
Almost immediately, Samuel jerked to his feet, gasping in obvious pain, clutching his stomach as his thumb and then his belly began to glow like someone had switched a flashlight on from the inside.
Yeah, just as I’d thought. Lucian wasn’t too quick to press that red ‘deactivation’ button.
When he finally did, Samuel relaxed at once.
Nifty. Blue primed the suckers. Green let them loose, and Red apparently deactivated them from chomping on their victim’s innards. Useful stuff to know.
Removing an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket, Lucian slid it across the table, murmuring, “Thanks, Samuel. You may leave.”
The greasy warlock didn’t need to be told twice. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he scowled back at Lucian and after snatching his envelope, stomped out of the bubble. I watched his head bobbing away through the dancing crowd with remarkable speed.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to have any problem reprogramming those little suckers to go after Samuel. They’d teach him to call me ‘babe’.
As Lucian’s deep baritone began to rumble a low incantation once again, I turned my attention back to the table, alarmed.
What the heck? Were they priming the nanos already? I couldn’t let them, not until I’d switched Tabitha’s purple-pink swirled vials with the gray snot sliding down my hidden turmeric bottle. But as I watched Tabitha remove the mana vials from her silver-sequined clutch, I couldn’t think of one possible way to stop them.
Feeling caught in a dream, I watched Strix hold the vials up in the dim bar lighting. The purple-pink contents glowed just like the neon tubing décor. “I’ll prime 4 million with mana from each vial,” he was saying. “I’ve little mana to spare. With what I can, it’ll take a good 12 hours before they’re primed.”
Twelve hours? Twelve hours to get myself off the hit list? Crud. I eyed the vials grimly. I had to slow them down. And fast.
“We’re not priming them here, are we?” I began, smiling as if I didn’t care.
“There’s no time to waste,” Strix replied. He cocked a brow. “Unless you have some information you’d like to share?”
Right. Don’t talk to the Nether Reach keeper, Cassidy. I couldn’t chance another detour in the next twelve hours. I’d wasted enough time. “Wish I did,” was all I said.
It was fairly torturous, watching them go about their business of priming the nanos and knowing I couldn’t stop them. The only thing I could do was dream up a contingency plan to deal with this new last-second wrinkle.
So, in 12 hours, I’d have 4 million of the impervious mana-sniffing, molecule-sized bloodhounds yapping after me, along with the 4 million confusing my mana with dear ‘ol Dad’s. That meant I had 12 hours to not only replace the mana in the vials, but to re-prime all 8 million to look for Samuel instead. And yeah, I really wasn’t going to have a problem watching him deal with all 8 million of the little suckers. I hoped they got in some large bites before Lucian hit that red button.
I just had to pull it all off.
Crud. Thing
s really were off-kilter for me today.
Lucian’s murmuring seized. Spell complete. Almost as if in a dream, I watched him hand Strix the nano-containers. Strix took only a few seconds to prime them, popping the tops of the mana vials with ease and removing the tiniest amount to drop into the tray.
I couldn’t smell anything, but then, I supposed it wasn’t all that unusual failing to detect your own scent.
“We’re done here,” Lucian announced. “They’ll only need one cell to find the trail. And then …”
And then … yeah, I’d seen the ‘and then’ already with just two of the little suckers burrowing into Samuel’s flesh. Soon, I was going to have 8 million chomping at me for a tasty bite. Heck, why was I staying? Maybe a plane ticket to Timbuktu was the best way out of this one—unless nanos could traverse the ocean. But then with Lucian’s sorcery involved, they probably wouldn’t need to. They’d probably just catch the next flight out to Timbuktu and take up the trail upon landing.
Lucian looked smugly pleased. In fact, all three of them did. I couldn’t force myself to look enthused. Just couldn’t do it.
And then Strix was saying, “Call me if there’s a problem, but I’ve got snares to check.” He sent a dark look my way, and I knew what he was hunting then. Fallen Ones.
“Not my fault, buddy,” I muttered under my breath.
“12 hours,” Lucian said with a nod. “Then at 10PM, we’ll release them at the sites. Tabitha, take them back to my apartment, will you? They’ll be safe there.”
A break. At long, long last.
Tabitha didn’t reply as she collected both the mana vials and nano-containers, stuffing them all into her silver-sequined clutch.
Lucian’s phone chose that moment to ring, and as he turned to one side, answering it, I faked a yawn.
“Well, I gotta few errands to run,” I addressed Tabitha with a smile. “Do you need me right now? Or can I take a few hours off before the Nano-Release party tonight.”
“Go,” was all she said, the two-letter response clearly the shortest one she could think of.
It didn’t matter.
I left.
I really didn’t care what any of them thought. I had precious little time right now. And the best use of it that I could see would be in waking up my turmeric-detoxing puff of smoke and wringing a few answers out of his little throat. I’d even use turmeric if I had to. I was that desperate.
With my thoughts spinning madly, I stalked out of Lincoln Center and, pushing through New York’s busy streets, headed for the subway. I didn’t pay attention to the throngs of people that surrounded me. Laser-focused on my plan, I threaded my way through the crowded platform. It had to be rush hour. The sheer amount of people almost made me miss my train, I barely stepped inside before the doors whooshed shut behind me.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, followed by a piercing stab of pain, splitting my head from front to back.
Whirling, I saw him. There. On the other side of the glass. Less than a foot away.
The doppelganger.
Harp Strings
This time, the doppelganger didn’t vanish in the crowd. He stood there on the other side of the train door, a dead-ringer for Emilio, classic Roman nose, dark hair and all. He even smirked the exact same way: a superior twist of one lip.
Our eyes met and held for several timeless seconds, but it was hopeless. People packed the car like sardines in a can, and I couldn’t get off before the train took off, whisking me away.
My skin broke out in a cold sweat.
Was he real? A hallucination? Was he really the Mindbreaker … my father?
Cripes, why did this have to happen now? I only had 12 hours to save my butt from a Nether Reach prison.
Alright, Cassidy. Focus.
I took a deep, steadying breath—and then a few more.
The pain in my head had returned, and with each jolt of the subway car, the throbbing increased. It made it all the harder to focus and definitely harder to set this doppelganger aside—but I knew I had to. I only had 12 hours. I had to focus on saving myself above all else—even revenge.
Licking my dry lips, I formulated a workable plan out of sheer brute force. Yeah, it wasn’t the best of plans, but it was certainly the best I could come up with under the circumstances.
Step one: deal with the nanoparticles. For that, I could only think of one way forward: wake up my smoky trouble causer of an imp, and do whatever it took to squeeze more details out of him on that harp string hint.
Step two: filch the vials and nano containers. Well, at least I knew they were with Tabitha and that she was going to be in the apartment right next door. But knowing where they were didn’t mean I could get my hands on them if they were locked in her death grip. I wish I knew more about firedrakes than I did. But then, maybe Ricky might have an idea for that one, too.
Step three: re-prime the nanos to go after Samuel instead of me. Actually, I just might do that one as step number two. I couldn’t chance 8 million bloodthirsty mana-hounds loose, chomping at the bit to slice me from the inside while I tried to execute step number four.
And lastly, step four: crack the vials open and replace the pink-purple swirls with Samuel’s sickly gray gobs—and cross my fingers that people wouldn’t notice the difference too much. Yeah. Right. Maybe Ricky knew how to dye mana a different color. I wasn’t so hopeful on faking the swirls. But then there was the minor problem of actually getting the vials open in the first place …
I winced.
Setting luck aside, a large part of my plan hinged on Ricky. What if he couldn’t help? Or—more likely—what if he’d snuck out of the apartment and gone off on a turmeric hunt … just when I needed him most? I’d never relied on anyone besides myself before, and I preferred to keep it that way. But this time, I didn’t have a choice. I was desperate.
I would’ve paced the train if there had been room. I was most definitely not on top of my game. At each stop, I couldn’t help but look for signs of the doppelganger, but he was long gone. As it was, the best I could do was tap my foot all the way home and fret over Ricky’s whereabouts.
Finally, the subway screeched to a halt at my stop, and I was soon out of the station, running through the city blocks and heading for my apartment building as fast as I could without revealing my Charmed abilities. Or so I hoped. I did hear a lot more ‘Wow, look at her run!’ comments than I should’ve. Minutes later, I dashed through the revolving glass doors and across the marble floors of my building. I didn’t bother hitting the elevator button. I couldn’t risk the delay. Instead, I took the stairs—all twenty-something flights of them.
By the time I bounded into my apartment, the shadows of the late afternoon sun lengthened across my living room. It would be dark soon.
I made for the blender first.
Turns out, I wasted my time worrying about Ricky. My imp was there, asleep and snoozing in a happy puddle of black smoke comfortably woven around the blender blades. I didn’t have any compunction over waking him up. Pouring him out onto the countertop, I poked him with the first utensil I could grab from the top drawer. In this case, a chopstick.
“Wake up, Ricky. You’ve got to wake up. We’ve got an emergency,” I hissed at him from about an inch away.
It seemed an eon later before one eyelid fluttered and gradually lifted. “Whaaaat? Eh, what’s up, guvna?”
Remembering his reaction when I’d mentioned his usefulness, I decided to give that angle a try. Besides, it was the truth.
“I really need you now,” I said. “I’m in a tight spot. A really tight spot. Not sure there’s a way out of this one.”
Apparently, those were magic words to his little imp ears. They perked up immediately, along with the rest of him. “Tight spot? Blimey, you don’t say?” He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice. “Do tell, love. Dish!”
Recalling imps loved to gossip, I relayed the juiciest version of the mornings doings as fast as I could, e
mbellishing here and there as necessary. By the end of my tale, Ricky sat on the countertop, holding his toes in utter delight with his eyes as wide as saucers and his lips parted, hanging onto my every word.
“We’ve got a dozen hours, eh?” he cackled when I’d finished. Jumping to his feet, he rubbed his smoky fingers together in gleeful anticipation, looking every inch the miniature devil he truly was. “Should be enough or my name’s not Richard Thaddeus Mavromoustafakis,” he added, puffing his chest with pride. “Can’t have you nicked and doing porridge now, can we, chum?”
Not if nicked and doing porridge was anything like arrested and doing time. “Cripes, no!” I said, just to hurry things up. As Ricky clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing up and down the length of the countertop, I dove straight to the heart of the matter. “You said I should be able to handle nanos by playing them like a harpist, or something. How?”
He stopped pacing and sent me a cheesy grin. “Yep, harp strings, duck. It’s all vibrations. Play them a tune, that’s all. They’ll dance to a different song. Get a couple and practice.”
“Easier said than done,” I retorted. Fishing Samuel’s mana out of my pocket, I set it down on the countertop.
Ricky flattened his ears and drew back in disgust. “Waste of a good turmeric bottle, that,” he complained, twitching his nostrils at the gray goop sticking to the bottle’s insides.
I had to agree. “This is all I’ve got to work with,” I said. “They’ve already primed the nanos to my mana. And since I’m not too keen on becoming their dinner, how do I get them to go after this instead?” Picking up the bottle, I gave it a little shake. The mana inside made a revolting kind of slurp.
“Should be easy-peasy for you, duck,” he cackled, still eyeing the mana, repulsed. “Whose frequency are we setting them on?”
“Samuel’s,” I replied.
Ricky grinned, showing wide rows of sharp, pointy teeth and, peering down at my devil-spawn accomplice in crime, I couldn’t help but grin in reply. For the first time, I felt I had a prayer.
