Dante scanned the alley to make sure we were alone, then he stepped in close to me. My instinct was to back away, but I held fast. I was determined not to let him see how confused I was, pretty sure I was failing miserably.
“We know a lot, Alex. Were you aware of who Jessica really was? Did you know about her job here?”
“As a bar owner?”
“Jessica was a Chronicler.” His eyes were cold and hard, nothing about his tone suggesting he was anything but completely serious.
If I’d been the kind of girl you see in old black and white movies, I might have fainted from learning a thing like that. Never had I suspected Jessica of being anything other than what she presented herself as, but as I recalled what little I knew about the organization, I supposed that fell right in line with the rumors. The Chroniclers valued secrecy above all else — so much so that most fae didn’t even know about them.
“I’m going to assume that because you’re tossing that word around, you know how serious it is to fake association with the Chroniclers,” I said. “What proof do you have that any of this is true?”
Dante took a long drag off his cigarette before flicking it into the alley. It bounced once, sending a cascade of sparks skittering across the pavement before it landed in a puddle where it fizzling out with a soft hiss. He then unbuttoned the cuff of his flannel shirt, rolled the sleeve up past his elbow, and spoke a few words in a language I didn’t understand.
A dark black tattoo of a styled quill pen materialized on his skin. I scanned him with my mage sight, and although I could see nothing to indicate he had any powers of his own, the tattoo was most definitely magic. More interesting was that I could see how old the magic forming the spell was. Only a very powerful ritual passed on through several generations would give off a signature like that. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.
“It’s not proof in and of itself,” he said, “but it’s all I can offer you. Jessica spoke highly of you, and I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt here. Someone is amassing a terrifying amount of power in this city, and we don’t have time for me to convince you of my good intentions.”
“Agreed. Now what can you tell me about Jessica?”
“How familiar are you with Eddie Portnoy?”
“I know him well enough, why?”
Dante shifted uneasily. I could tell he didn’t like talking about this in the open, but it was too busy in the bar to expect any sort of privacy there.
“Jessica was Eddie’s monitor,” he said. “She opened this bar as a cover, and we used our connections in the fae community to set it up as the type of place people like Eddie would be drawn to. We hadn’t thought he’d become so comfortable here, but when he became a regular, Jessica was the natural choice for his primary monitor.”
“What possible reason could you have for wanting to monitor someone like Eddie?”
I didn’t see any point in telling him that only a couple of days earlier I’d suspected Eddie of being one of them.
“Eddie is one of the most powerful Dark mages we’ve ever seen,” said Dante. “He may not look like much, but our people have been tracking him for hundreds of years. He fell off our radar in the early eighteen hundreds, so when we picked him up again here in Vancouver, we couldn’t believe our luck.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “There’s no way. I’ve scanned Eddie with the sight. He’s sensitive enough to know that magic and the fae exist, but he has no power of his own. If what you’re saying is true, it would make Eddie the most likely suspect for the murder of several people, and I just can’t buy into that. It’s crazy.”
“There are ways to mask one’s power from the sight,” said Dante. “The most common method involves a tricky bit of blood magic, but there are other ancient ways that would be all too easy for someone of Eddie’s skill.”
“So what happened to Jessica then?”
“We don’t know exactly. She disappeared last night, right about the same time we lost track of Eddie.”
“So she could be alive?”
“No,” said Dante. He held out his forearm. “This mark is a connection to the order. It ties each of us together, and it alerts us when one of our members is in danger. Jessica’s connection was severed sometime after midnight.”
My next breath caught in my chest, and I had to lean against the wall to steady myself. Forcing long deep breaths to calm the sick feeling welling in my gut, I ran through the timeline in my head, trying to put the pieces together. It had been a few hours past midnight when the Dark mage had attacked me at the library. Eddie would have had plenty of time to kill Jessica right after closing time at the bar. He could have disposed of the body somewhere nearby, then bypassed the library’s security to arrive when he had.
Three people entered the alley, talking and laughing as they approached the front door of the bar. I tried my best to look like my world wasn’t crashing down around me. Dante took out another cigarette and lit it, maintaining the pretense of hanging out back on his break.
“Eddie has the amulet,” Dante said once we were alone again. “If he finds Carolus’s grimoire, there will be no stopping him. You have to get to the grimoire before it’s too late.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said, fixated on the glowing tip of his cigarette and thinking about asking him for one of my own. “He attacked me and stole the grimoire early this morning. I didn’t know it was Eddie at the time, and there was nothing I could do to fight him off.”
“You’ll have to find a way, and you better do it quick,” said Dante. “We believe he’s staging out of a house out near the university, but we’re not exactly sure which one. Jessica said she was close to figuring it out last time she checked in. Unfortunately, she died before she could share it with us. You’ll have to figure out the exact location before you can retrieve the amulet and grimoire in time to stop him from accessing their power.”
“Why the fuck is this all on me?” I stepped in close and jammed my index finger into his chest. “Maybe you and your Chronicler buddies should get off your asses and help for once. Or is sitting on the sidelines all you’re capable of?”
The irony of giving him shit for saying almost exactly what I had said only hours before was not lost on me.
“We are forbidden from interfering,” said Dante, responding to my anger with surprising calm. “To intervene would be to break our oaths. It would be the unbinding of our entire order and all that we’ve worked to build over thousands of years.”
“Great. That’s real fucking helpful.”
“I’m sorry Alex, but there’s something else you need to know.”
I took a few steps away from him, trying to burn off my anger and frustration without vaporizing his head clean off his shoulders. It was a spell I had only theoretical knowledge of since I’d never been able to bring myself to test it on someone, but this was beginning to feel like the perfect opportunity.
“The Conclave has put out a capture order on you,” said Dante. “Whatever happened between you and Eskola was enough for him to take it to the Eleven. They’ll be tracking you, but they can only locate you when you use your magic.”
“Like I have a dozen times since getting here? Maybe you should have told me that twenty minutes ago.”
“The bar is shielded from their detection,” he explained. “They can’t see you here. It took a great deal of doing, but we had someone friendly to our order set it up this morning in the hopes you’d show up. Believe it or not, we’re on your side, Alex.”
A lone figure appeared at the entrance to the alley. Instead of entering the bar, it continued towards us. I saw Dante tense and reach behind his back to presumably draw some kind of weapon, but I put my hand on his arm to steady him before he did anything rash.
“What are you doing here, Chase?”
He came close enough for me to see that he was grinning like a fool. He had no idea how close he’d come to having his throat slit by a member of one
of the most ruthless secret societies in all of history.
“I came to help,” he said. “Viktor didn’t like it, but he said I was recovered enough to make my own decisions. I felt shitty about what I said to you this morning, and I couldn’t let you go on alone.”
Dante relaxed at the mention of Viktor’s name, but I knew any further discussion about the Chroniclers and their role in the events to come was a non-starter. They might have trusted me enough to reveal the identity of two of their agents, but I highly doubted that same courtesy extended to Chase.
“I’ve got some bad news,” I said. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him what I’d just learned without it coming across like a shot in the chest, so I decided to just come right out with it. “I’ve just learned that Jessica is dead.”
Chase’s smile faltered for only a second before reforming awkwardly. “What do you mean she’s dead? We just saw her last night. This is a joke, right?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Dante.
The news washed over him like cold rain, and he stood there silently working to process the information. Chase had been with me when I’d gone to Lorelai after her attack, but Kumiko had already begun the healing process, and we’d known she wasn’t in any further danger. For all my warnings that death seemed to follow wherever I went, Chase hadn’t actually experienced it for himself. Just as I had when I’d first taken the case, Chase had seen this all as a game. I could only watch helplessly as the reality of exactly what kind of shitstorm he’d gotten himself into crashed over him.
I went to him and put my arm around his back since it was as high as I could reach. “You don’t have to come with me. I know you felt something for Jessica, and trust me, I know better than most what you’re going through right now.”
“Who killed her?” asked Chase, his voice empty and flat.
“The Dark mage we’re after,” I explained. It seemed prudent to leave out a few details. There’d be time enough for him to process everything later. “And I’m on my way to stop him once and for all.”
Chase looked into my eyes, and I saw a flicker of anger flare up alongside his determination to have revenge against the man who’d killed Jessica. “Then I’m coming too.”
I squeezed his arm and stepped away. I was done trying to convince him he’d be safer elsewhere. My entire life, people had been telling me to stay out of trouble, and I’d never been one to heed their advice. What right did I have to tell Chase to wait in safety while others did his fighting for him?
“Let’s go then,” I said as I led us out of the alley. “But first I have a couple of stops to make, and I think you’ll enjoy the show I have planned.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We walked for twenty minutes before Chase broke the silence threatening to smother us. “I can’t believe Jessica is dead.”
The temptation to tell Chase everything I’d learned from Dante was strong, but I held my tongue. I didn’t fully understand the ramifications of Jessica’s true identity myself. I’d heard enough to question whether she’d ever been a real friend, or if I’d been just another person of interest to the Chroniclers. Sure, I didn’t rate as high as an evil Dark mage like Eddie, but those who knew enough to be aware the Chroniclers existed also knew that their sole purpose was to observe any and all use of magic. I didn’t even have to be a passably mediocre mage to warrant their attention. That much had been made clear when Dante had addressed me by name without my ever having seen him before.
“Why do you think this Eddie guy killed her?” asked Chase. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Do you remember when I told you people had died because of me?”
“Yeah,” Chase said softly, mostly likely remembering how he’d brushed off my earlier warnings that helping me would expose him to danger.
“One of those people was a guy named Brody.” I practically choked on his name. The memory of him dropping dead in front of me was still so vivid my voice faltered a little as I spoke. “All he did was try to help me get home so I could rest. Instead, he walked into a trap that had been set for me. He died right in front of my eyes. The only reason he’s not alive right now is that he stepped into my apartment before I did.”
Chase placed his hand on my shoulder, and I took strength from his company. Turns out I needed the guy by my side more than I’d thought I would.
“I now know it was Eddie who’d set that trap,” I continued. “Dark mages like him don’t think twice about taking a life. For all we know, he killed Jessica because she said the wrong thing, or because he thought she somehow threatened his plan. Looking for reason in the actions of a madman is a good way to go mad yourself.”
“That’s what makes it so hard,” said Chase. “She was an innocent bystander in all of this, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her.”
Was I really going to lie to my friend like this? Chase had patched me up after my battle with the kryte, fought off vampires, and then demanded to come with me when I set out to fight the most powerful Dark mage to surface in centuries. He deserved to know the truth of why Eddie had taken Jessica out of the picture.
No explanation would be good enough to erase his pain though. Jessica was dead, and Chase learning of her involvement with the Chroniclers would do nothing but put him in further danger. The Chroniclers were rumored to work closely with the Conclave in their attempts to keep the general population from discovering that magic was real; and they occasionally reached out to mages like me; but they never, ever exposed themselves to other ungifted humans.
After everything we’d gone through together over the last couple of days, I trusted Chase more than anyone else I knew. Letting him in on this particular secret, however, was as good as writing his death certificate myself.
“So where exactly are we going anyway?” asked Chase after another few minutes of walking.
“We’re almost there.”
“Yeah, but where is ‘there’ exactly.”
I flashed him a grim smile and pointed across the street.
“The Golden Phoenix House of Wonton? I know you’re always hungry, Alex, but is this really the time to be stopping for Chinese food?”
“We won’t be staying long. I just have to deliver a quick message, then we’ll be on our way.”
I checked to make sure no traffic was coming, then jogged across the street. Most of the other businesses on the block had closed hours ago, but a handful of people sat eating when I pushed the restaurant door open. None of the diners looked up at us when we entered, but the woman behind the counter nearly dropped a plate of noodles when she realized who I was.
The server shouted something in Chinese, and two skinny Triad poster boys came running out of the back, really committing to the role with half unbuttoned maroon dress shirts displaying symbolic tattoos inked across their chests. No good foot soldier is complete without a fully automatic submachine gun, and these guys had gone all out in bringing one for each hand.
Customers dove under the tables or ran for the door. I heard Chase’s panicked shouting behind me as a hail of gunfire raced towards us with a brapapapapapap and a shower of brass spewing from the weapons.
Magic is a funny thing. When you focus really hard on a spell because you’re desperate for it to work, it almost always fails. The more you try to force a spell, the more difficult it is to maintain control of your power. Beginning mages tended to struggle with that concept more than anything else in their early training. It had taken me years to be able to perform even the simplest of spells intentionally despite having had major spells just sort of happen when I hadn’t planned on casting them.
Letting magic kick your brain into a hyper-animated state that essentially made time slow down around you was one of those spells that was extremely difficult to cast. A precise set of neural connections is required for the casting of any given spell, but all I’d really done is imagine the world slowing down into movie-style bullet time. I lifted my hand and wiped it to one side, allowing myself
a little grin of satisfaction when every last one of the bullets was flung sideways into the wall.
Time sped back up to its normal pace, and I tossed a paralyzation spell at the henchmen. If they’d been smart enough to wear a charm or two instead of the gaudy gold chains hanging from their necks, they might have saved themselves from being frozen wide-eyed and terrified with no hope of fighting back.
I stepped calmly past them and turned to see if Chase was okay.
“What are we doing here, Alex? Will you please tell me why we’re attacking a restaurant guarded by Chinese mafia rejects?”
“It’s not a restaurant,” I said as I pushed open the door to the kitchen. “Well, it is a restaurant, but that’s not all it is.”
At the back of the kitchen was a door that looked far too serious to be sitting in shit-hole like The Golden Phoenix House of Wonton. Although painted black to look less conspicuous, it was a reinforced solid metal door with a heavy duty peep hole mounted in the middle of it.
“Is it some kind of vault?” asked Chase when he saw it.
“Pretty close actually.”
Standing to the side of the door opposite its handle, I held my hands out, palms hovering over the spots where I figured the hidden hinges to be. The door glowed red along its edge, and with a bit of smoke and the acrid smell of melting steel, the hinges snapped under the weight of the door itself. Instead of tilting back, it simply sank down a half inch, sitting upright and still blocking the way. I reached out with my index finger and gave the thing a little nudge, sending it crashing backwards like something out of a cartoon.
If anyone had been guarding the stairwell, they’d abandoned their post by the time we broke through. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness below, so I lit a spark and set it hovering off in front of us as we descended to the basement level.
“What is it with you and dark underground spaces?” muttered Chase. “There better not be any vampires down here.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said as we rounded the corner and came to another door. “This is one of Eskola’s blood banks. There may or may not be a dozen cranky vampires behind this door. You can wait upstairs if you feel more comfortable, but maybe go across the road to be safe.”
Black Magic (Black Records Book 1) Page 24
