She sparked the lighter and inhaled, drawing the tip of flame into the cigarette.
“I know it is,” I said. “And I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious. Lorelai was attacked this morning. She’s going to survive, but she nearly died.”
The cigarette fell out of Jessica’s mouth. It landed lit side down on her pants, then bounced to the floor in a shower of sparks and ashes.
“Fuck,” she grunted as she swatted the smoldering patch on her pants. She reached down to pluck the cigarette from the floor. It had gone out, and she relit it before continuing. Her hands shook ever so slightly. “How the hell did anything get close enough to Lorelai to hurt her? Shouldn’t that be impossible?”
“We think it was warded,” said Chase.
Both Jessica and I turned to look at him at the same time.
“And who the fuck are you?” asked Jessica.
“Relax, Jess. This is Chase. He’s a friend.”
“Your friend is an expert on magical wards now? He looks like the only thing he’s an expert on is League of Legends.”
“Ranking top four percent of LoL players doesn’t make me ignorant of everything else,” Chase fired back.
Jessica glowered at him. She took a drag of her cigarette, then got up to open her balcony door as she exhaled a cloud of smoke away from us. She leaned against the wall and took another puff before returning her attention to Chase with considerably softer eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Lorelai is a friend. If you know anything about her, you should understand how shocking it is to hear she was hurt.”
“I get it,” said Chase. “No hard feelings.”
“Lorelai said you could put me in touch with the Conclave,” I said. “Is that true?”
Jessica frowned. “It’s not as easy as me simply making a phone call, but I could probably put something together. Are you really sure you want to do that?”
“No,” I admitted. “But what other choice do I have? From what I’ve been reading about the amulet that was stolen from Norman Weathersby a few days ago, we’re all in trouble if no one stops whoever took it from accessing its full power.”
“What makes you think they don’t already have that power?” asked Jessica.
Chase jumped in and explained everything we’d learned about Archmage Carolus and his grimoire. He did an admirable job of laying out the information we’d uncovered as though he’d been studying these artifacts and their history for the last several years instead of only a few hours. For the first time, he seemed like less of a liability and more of an asset. Something that would only make it harder for me to cut him loose before I went to see the Conclave.
“This is bad.” Jessica dropped the corpse of her cigarette into an old beer bottle where it fizzled out with a sharp hiss. “You’re probably right to ask the Conclave for help. Whether they’ll give it to you or not is another matter entirely, but I don’t see how you can do this on your own.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I replied.
“There’s a problem though.”
“What kind of problem?” asked Chase.
“My contact isn’t actually in the Conclave directly,” she explained. “I can talk to him about getting you a meet with his boss, but you’re not going to like who it is.”
“I can’t afford to care right now, Jess. Just set it up.”
“Wait,” interrupted Chase. “Who is it?”
“Kalev Eskola.”
“Why can’t anything ever be easy?” I said as I leaned back on the couch and covered my face with my hands.
Of course Chase wanted to know more. “Who’s Kalev Eskola?”
Jessica stepped up to fill him in. “He’s the head of the Estonian mafia in Vancouver, one of the oldest vampires on the continent, and a well known gambler who likes to bet with the only currency that matters to him.”
“Uh, and what’s that exactly?” asked Chase. “And did you say vampires?”
“He likes to make people gamble with their lives,” I answered. “And yeah, he’s a vampire. I really don’t know why you keep acting surprised when you find out shit like this exists. Remember the conversation we had last night about all the magical creatures you thought were just stories?”
“To be fair, it’s a lot to absorb all at once.”
I heard the sound of the fridge opening, and Jessica came back with three beers in hand. She gave one to each of us, cracked the cap off hers, and handed the opener to Chase.
“It was hard for me at first too,” she said. “The easiest way to think about it is that every story you’ve ever heard about a magical creature or freaky myth has at least some basis in reality. Most TV shows dealing with that kind of thing are at least co-written by fae who can take human form.”
“Like X-files and Supernatural?” asked Chase.
“A friend of mine writes for Supernatural,” said Jessica. “Did you know they film that around here? Half the extras are fae. Most of them think its hilarious how their kind are portrayed on the show.”
“How do you know so much about this?” asked Chase. “Are you a mage like Alex?”
Jessica smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m nothing like Alex. I’m just sensitive. The only reason I know what I do about the fae is that I had the dumb luck to open a bar in a town that’s crawling with them. I ran that place for nearly three years before I realized most of my customers weren’t entirely normal.”
Chase popped the lid from his beer then passed me the opener. I looked down at the cold beer in my hand, trying to decide if drinking before nine o’clock in the morning was a terrible idea or the best way to numb myself against the disaster I was about to walk into.
“Might as well relax,” said Jessica when she saw me hesitate. “You’re not getting in to meet with my guy until after sundown. You two can crash here and rest up as long as you want. It’ll take me a while to get in touch with Niilo to see if I can even get you in the front door.”
I flicked the cap off the bottle and took a long pull. Walking into Kalev Eskola’s domain was about the last thing I felt like doing that night, but if it was a way to get the Conclave’s help, then it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
“Maybe we should go back to my place,” suggested Chase.
“Better to stay here,” said Jessica. “You don’t know who’s looking for you, and this place is safe for a while. Either of you can crash on my bed if you want. You’re going to want some sleep before you go see Eskola tonight.”
“Jessica is right,” I said. “Your place is off limits until we know the artifact has been neutralized. Too many people are dead because of this already, and I won’t add your name to that list.”
“Fine,” said Chase as he unzipped his bag and removed his laptop. “Can I at least get your wifi password?”
“The network is Hail Satan, and the password is ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, no spaces.”
“Really?” asked Chase with a raised eyebrow.
“Judge me for my taste in music and I will rip your throat out.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he replied with his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender.
I downed half my beer and got up from the couch. “I’m going to try to sleep for a bit. Wake me when you’ve set a meet.”
“Sure,” said Jessica. “Just don’t hold me accountable for murdering your pal here in the meantime.”
Chase’s retort faded to background noise as I grabbed my backpack and went into Jessica’s bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and dug through my bag, hunting for the second Oxy I’d taken from Chase’s place. I dry-swallowed it and sat there a moment staring at the wall, trying to come to terms with the broken and bloody version of Lorelai I’d just seen. Had I known things were going to escalate to this point, I’d have walked right out of Weathersby’s shop without a second thought. Even now, I wasn’t entirely sure why my self-preservation instincts hadn’t kicked in.
I peeled back the covers and crawled into the stil
l warm pocket Jessica had left behind, inhaling the comforting smell of shampoo and perfume that lingered on the pillow. I’d spent too many nights alone over the years, and lying there in my friend’s bed made me consider that for the first time in my life, I had people in my life I didn’t want to leave behind. Conflicted as I was over my relationship with Lorelai, seeing her bloody and broken like that had hurt more than I’d expected. Whatever we’d shared during our temporary mind-meld had given me the briefest glimpse into her true nature, and I still couldn’t shake the innocence I’d seen at the core of her being.
I didn’t want to put Chase or Jessica in the same kind of danger, but running wasn’t going to stop anything. The veil between magic and mundane is thin and delicate. The events of the last few days were set pieces for something bigger that would almost definitely bleed into the regular world. The only way to keep anyone safe was to get the Conclave to step in before things got any worse. Since no one else seemed to realize what was going on, I didn’t see how I had any choice but to meet with Eskola in order to convince him of the Conclave’s need to intervene.
Unlike my last attempt at getting to sleep, I felt myself drift away only a few minutes after lying down. A snug euphoria enveloped me as opiates dissolved and slipped into my bloodstream. It wasn’t enough to completely drown out the persistent gnawing of fear and doubt, but the silky wash of chemical induced numbness swept them deep into the darkness where their nagging was so quiet I could almost forget it was there.
Chapter Eighteen
The sky had darkened considerably by the time I eventually woke up. I rolled over to check the blinking green numbers on Jessica’s bedside clock. It was after four in the afternoon, and I couldn’t believe I’d been out for so long. My body felt much recovered from the rest though. Although my face was still tender and raw from the beating I’d taken at Xiang Wei’s office, I felt better than I had since first walking into Norman Weathersby’s shop two days ago. It wasn’t a hundred percent, but it was as close as I’d get without a few days in a sensory deprivation tank.
I drew back the covers and slipped my legs over the edge of the bed. The room spun when I sat up too fast, forcing me to close my eyes and wait for it to pass. Sleeping during the day always left me groggy and irritated. My body had needed the rest, but my brain was clearly pissed at me for not letting it languish in dreamland. If I could have flopped back down, rolled over, and hid from the world beneath the heavy blanket, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately for me, I’d decided to chase after some shadowy mage with diabolical ambitions to take over the world.
When I’d blinked away as much of the post-sleep dysphoria as I could, I got up and went into the living room. Chase reclined on the couch, laptop open, fingers moving quickly across the keyboard. He hadn’t even noticed me come in, so I went past him to the small office I’d seen earlier.
“Hey, you,” said Jessica. “Feeling rested?”
“About as much as possible. Any word from your contact?”
“I’ve set a meet with him. He’s promised to do his best to get you in with Eskola.”
Jess and I weren’t what you’d call BFFs, but I’d known her long enough to catch the edge in her voice. It was obvious something about all of this made her uneasy. She wouldn’t come right out and say it, and I wasn’t entirely sure I even wanted to know what it was.
“So where’s the meet?” I asked.
“D.O.I.”
Great. Although it wasn’t written anywhere on the front door or inside the club, D.O.I. stood for Den of Iniquity. It was the kind of place you only went if you had a serious danger fetish. Pretty much everyone in the fae world knew the club was run by Eskola clan vampires, and it wasn’t the kind of place you wandered into without an invitation. I didn’t even know where it was, and I considered myself substantially better informed about that kind of stuff than the average mage on the street.
“And you know where that is?” I asked.
Jessica shook her head. “Not really my scene. Niilo will bring you there, though. He’s going to meet us at the bar when I go open in a few minutes.”
Time to break the news to Chase that he wouldn’t be coming with me. I left Jessica’s study and returned to the living room.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey Alex. Did you talk to Jess? Do we have a meeting with this Eskola guy?”
“She set it all up, but we need to talk about this ‘we’ business.” I sat on the edge of the coffee table. “I can’t let you come with me. You know that right?”
“That’s bullshit, Alex. You need all the help you can get. I’m not going to go back home like a coward while you risk your life trying to stop whoever has the amulet.”
“I can’t be responsible for you,” I said. “You have to trust that I can take care of myself in ways you can’t. It’s better for everyone if you help me by using your research skills to see if you can learn anything more about the grimoire.”
Chase closed the lid of his laptop and set it aside. He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and stared me down.
“I’m not staying behind,” he said. “I’m thirty years old, and I’ve spent most of that time reading comic books and playing video games, wishing I could be the hero. You can’t tell me that magic and vampires are real, that an evil mage is trying to get a spell book that will give him some kind of unholy power, and then expect me to sit back and do nothing. This is my chance to do something real with my life, and I’m not going to do it from behind a computer screen.”
“He’s got a point,” said Jessica from the edge of her office. “You know you wouldn’t stay behind if it was you in his position.”
“What the fuck, Jess? I thought you were on my side?”
“I am on your side,” she fired back. “That’s why I don’t think you should go in there alone. Chase is anything but stupid. If he’s willing to accept the risk, it’s not your decision to make.”
A wide grin spread across Chase’s features, and he blushed a little at Jessica having come to his defense.
“Unbelievable,” I said, looking from one of them to the other.
“Please let me watch your back,” said Chase. “I know you’re afraid of what might happen to me, but Jessica is right. I know the risks, and I accept them completely. You can’t do this alone. Besides, you might be surprised at how helpful I can be. I’m not as useless as you probably think I am.”
“Fine,” I said. “But only because we have to leave, and I don’t want to spend all night arguing with you about this.”
“Woot!” shouted Chase as he leapt up off the couch. “Let’s go kick some vampire ass!”
I let his comment slide, and I went to get what I needed from my backpack. The thing was too bulky to be carrying around a night club, so I grabbed the burner phone, my last bag of Sport Beans, and a minor defense charm on a length of black cord.
“You’re not wearing that hoodie, are you?” asked Jessica when I came back out of her bedroom.
“Not by choice,” I replied. “Don’t suppose you have anything I could borrow?”
“I doubt any of my jackets would fit you, but you’re welcome to look in my closet.”
I’d already peeked at the array of clothing in her closet. After getting over the shock of seeing so much leather and latex, I’d determined that none of the stylish yet impractical jackets would fit me. Jessica was a good five inches taller than I was.
Also, the hoodie was warm and fuzzy on the inside, and I didn’t really want to take it off.
Turning to Chase, I handed him the charm. “Wear this.”
“What does it do?” he asked as he looped the cord over his head tucked the charm under his shirt.
“It will block any small spells directed towards you,” I explained. “It’s not very powerful, but it should be enough to keep you safe from vamp stare.”
“Vamp stare?”
“All vampires have hypnotic magic that allows them to plant suggestions in your
mind. It has nothing to do with whether or not you look into the eyes, but if you see a vampire staring at you like they’re trying to bore into your brain with their mind, you need to start second guessing any sudden impulses. The charm should shield you from the worst of it, but it can’t help you if you’re already inclined to go along with whatever it is a vampire wants you to do.”
“So you’re saying it won’t work if a sexy vampire chick wants to seduce me?” he asked.
Jessica groaned, and I wondered if she was rethinking her decision to stand up for Chase a minute ago.
“It won’t protect you from letting your libido make your decisions for you, if that’s what you’re asking. Maybe stay away from female vampires altogether.”
“I dunno,” he said as he gathered his things and pulled on his jacket, “it doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”
“Buy some heroin and save yourself the heartache,” said Jessica, her voice low and distant. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what it feels like to become a walking blood bag for a vampire.”
Chase was wise enough to let that last comment go unchallenged. I’d never asked Jessica about her personal history, but it didn’t take a psychiatrist to see that she’d dealt with some shit in her life. I guess it was one of the reasons I’d always liked her so much. Her hint at the darkness in her past made me wish I’d put more of an effort into making friends with her outside of the bar, and I promised myself I’d do just that if I managed to get through this in one piece.
The Bolt-Hole had originally only had two ways in or out; the narrow main entrance used by most patrons, and a back door that doubled as an emergency exit. Once Jessica had understood that a subset of her customers required something a little more covert, she’d installed a third and hidden option that had the added benefit of allowing the bar to stay open long after the front door was locked for the night. It was this secret door the vampire must have used, since he was already sitting on a bar stool waiting for us when Jessica let us in an hour before she normally opened for the night.
“Niilo, this is Alex and Chase,” said Jessica by way of introductions.
Black Magic (Black Records Book 1) Page 17
