With a reluctant sigh, she ventured closer. “I’m going to regret this.”
I wouldn’t. I couldn’t regret what I didn’t remember.
The snow was melting fast, trickling into gutters and gurgling down the drains, as I pushed through the stained-glass door into the store Curiosities. The heat hit me first, like it always did when I stepped off New York’s winter streets into Maf’s store. Evocative smells of cinnamon and thyme tickled my memory. Old scents from an old world.
An electronic bell buzzed, its modern sound at odds with the rows of shelves stacked to the ceiling with artifacts, tourist junk, and witchcraft paraphernalia. Glass skulls sat next to dozens of papyri, their potency hidden among the trinkets.
The ancient and infallible Mafdet—Slayer of Serpents—was tucked behind the counter. Her ample bosom rested on the countertop, threatening to spill out of her flower-print top. She threaded a string of colorful beads through her fingers, drawing my eye to the valley between her generous assets. It had once been widely known that no god or beast could outrun her. Her fortunes had changed since then, but she’d adapted—adapt or slumber. There was no other way for the ancient ones.
“Back so soon, Ace?” she asked. Her voice was cracked with age, or so it would seem to those who believed she was the kind, but slightly unhinged old lady who ran a store full of superstitious nonsense. “Business or pleasure?”
“Business.”
“Ah.” She picked up a pair of wire-framed glasses and planted them on her nose. “You get more handsome every time I see you. Almost as dashing as the Lord of Silence.”
My lips twitched. The Lord of Silence was yet another name for Osiris—Lord of Death didn’t have the same poetic ring to it. “Flattery might work for Shukra, but not for me, Maf.”
She tsked. “So serious for one so young.”
I stopped at the counter. We weren’t alone in the store—a tourist couple was browsing the aisle—so I couldn’t very well press Alysdair against Maf’s neck and terrify the answers out of her, but that might change the moment those window shoppers left. Maf knew it too, hence the beads of sweat glistening on her brow.
“The kid I spoke to in here a few weeks ago, I warned him off, remember?”
She pursed her lips. “Something happen to him?”
“Now why would you ask that? Unless you sold him those canopic jars after I advised you to send them back to wherever you got them from.”
“We all gotta eat.” She winced at that and blinked quickly, remembering to whom she was talking. “It’s not my fault the people with money are idiots. What did he do?”
“Summoned two demons.”
She spluttered. “Not with those jars he didn’t. They were inactive. Made sure of it myself. No magic in them.”
“Are you sure about that?” I leaned against the counter. Her red-rimmed, watery blue eyes flicked to where Alysdair was peeking over my shoulder.
“I was assured.”
“So you didn’t check yourself?”
“Look at this place. It’s full of hungry, needful little trinkets. They all chitter and tease. No, I didn’t check myself. I just put them on the shelves, like everything in here.” She puffed and huffed, apparently offended.
“Did you sell him anything else? Anything like a potent summoning spell?”
“N-no,” she stammered. “No, I wouldn’t. Never. Ace, we have an agreement. I help you, and you don’t shut me down. I wouldn’t risk that by touching anything with power. I wouldn’t.”
The browsing couple brushed by me, eyeing Alysdair.
“Cosplay,” I muttered.
They smiled, chuckled nervously, and moved on to admire a simplistic painting of Isis’s profile.
Maf wiped a hand across her forehead. Dark patches had spread under her arms and the fingers caressing her beads trembled. “I swear by Isis—”
“Swear by someone worth something.”
She recoiled as though me bad-mouthing Isis would somehow cause my curse to rub off on her. I grinned back at her.
“I swear it. By Amun-Ra, I swear it.”
Damn. I was hoping she’d sold the kid the papyrus spell so I could follow a paper trail to the source. My only lead had just gone cold.
“I believe you.” Nobody swore on Amun-Ra’s name and lied.
Her shoulders drooped, her relief almost tangible.
“But if anyone tries to sell you anything potent, I want to know about it—immediately. Not in a few days. You pick up your phone and you call me there and then.”
She nodded frantically. “Of course.”
“Good. Now tell me what this is?” I planted Ammit’s box on the countertop and watched Maf’s eyes widen and her plump lips form an O.
“May I?” she asked, reaching for it.
I gestured for her to go right ahead and watched her plant the box in her palm like it was made of glass.
“My, my. Such power.”
I didn’t reply and certainly didn’t tell her I couldn’t feel any power coming from that box. Someone had warded it against me personally, and that was information enough.
“Can you open it?”
She gave it a twist, but the lid didn’t budge. “There may be a way, but it’s sealed by expert hands. It will take time. Why don’t you ask Shukra?”
“No, this is…” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want Shu to know about the box. It seemed important that nobody know, and Maf was almost nobody. She could keep secrets. “This is private.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Tell me about Shukra’s most recent visit.”
Maf tucked the box away behind the counter and relayed Shu’s visit to me, like she did every month. Shu didn’t know Maf reported to me, and Shu also didn’t know I was keeping a close eye on her magical practices. She thought she was slipping her on-the-side spells by me. So far, she’d sold a few spells here and there for a few hundred bucks. Love potions, prosperity spells, and the occasional minor curse—little things. But she’d get greedy. Greed was a sin we both shared in.
When Maf finished, she added, “She bought those ingredients in the last few days.”
The ingredients, including a goat’s heart, were potentially dangerous in Shu’s hands, but a mundane household ornament could also be turned into a wicked charm in her hands. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something, something vital. It would come to me.
“Looks like she’s preparing a blocking spell,” Maf supplied carefully, watching my reaction.
“Yes, it does.” A blocking spell boxed up thoughts, dreams, and memories and tucked them far away inside the subject’s mind. It was a difficult spell to master. I couldn’t cast it, but Shu could. “Thank you, Maf.”
When I reached the door, she called out, “Rumor has it there’s a price on your head.”
I’d heard the same rumor.
Godkiller, those same whispers said.
Anubis believed I’d killed Amy. He wouldn’t come after me himself, but he’d send others until someone or something caught me with my back turned.
“There always is, Maf.” I shoved through the door into the shock of winter air and said again, to myself, “There always is.”
Shu was participating in a loud and colorful conversation on the phone in her office when I returned. Someone was getting an earful, and for once, it wasn’t me. Whoever it was should be grateful. Shu’s silence was far more dangerous.
I opened my office door and froze.
There, sitting on my desk like it had every right to park its rump on my day planner, was an all-black house cat. Not an alley cat. This one was well fed and groomed.
The tip of its tail twitched across its front paws.
“Shukra?” I called out, keeping my gaze leveled on the cat. “Shu!”
“What?” she snapped back.
“There’s a cat on my desk.”
“I didn’t put it there.”
“A real cat.” The cat blinked its green ey
es at me.
“What do you want me to do, call animal control? The NSA?” She slammed her door closed.
“I hate cats,” I grumbled at the feline and stalked closer. It didn’t have a collar, but someone somewhere was missing a pet. Its tail twitched again, and it looked back at me, daring me to shoo it off my desk. The second I did, it would probably turn into a spitting ball of claws and fangs.
“Cat, that’s my desk.”
It lifted a paw and started grating its pink tongue across its pad.
“Leave, cat, or I’ll—” I reached for Alysdair. The cat’s eyes flickered with knowledge, like the little feline was urging me to brandish the blade.
With a small laugh, I dropped my hand. “Fine. I’m going out. You better not be here when I get back.”
But it was there when I got back, curled asleep in my chair. I would normally kick it out, but as I went to scoop up the creature, I hesitated. It wasn’t so bad. Asleep, it was harmless.
“Yah know, the death sentence for killing cats was abolished long ago. I can make it so you meet your little four-legged friends in the afterlife sooner rather than later.”
It didn’t stir. Clearly this cat didn’t have a shred of self-preservation.
I shoved the sleeping cat and chair aside and parked the guest chair behind my desk. The cat didn’t wake, and now it owned my chair.
“I hope you like vodka,” I told it while checking my planner.
Shu had stuck a note on today’s date: Mr. Cooper called. There’s a talking alligator eating his thousand-dollar koi. Be there – 2:00 p.m.
A job—exactly what I needed. “No rest for the wicked.”
Continues…
The series continues in Witches’ Bane, click here to order now!
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Read on for an excerpt of Betrayal, Girl From Above, Pippa DaCosta’s bestselling sexy scifi series, readers compare to Firefly & Killjoys.
Excerpt ~ Betrayal, #1 Girl From Above
I had a hard time focusing on the motherboard array while my balls throbbed, my gut heaved, and a cold slab of artificially reincarnated woman stood behind me. The second I’d gotten a good look at her face, I’d known what she was; synths all looked the same, with skin too smooth and eyes too bright to be real. As for what she was doing in my cargo hold, that was a mystery. If Chitec caught me with her, I’d be waving goodbye to my ship, my work, and maybe even my life. Add to that the crates of illegal Chitec weaponry I happened to be hoarding, and I’d definitely be put into the ground for good.
“Check the reserve fuse.”
And apparently she’s a mechanic too.
“It’s not the reserve fuse.” I gripped a penlight between my teeth and wedged my hand inside the mangled wires.
Built in 2350, Starscream’s rewire service was long overdue. The bounty on the synth’s head—there had to be one since synth’s were all bought and paid for by someone—would pay for a rewire, a two-week vacation to Lyra, and fuck, maybe even a complete overhaul. The trick would be collecting the bounty without Chitec hanging me out to dry. Fran could make the trade, if I trusted her not to fuck me over—which I didn’t, since I’d fuck her over in a heartbeat.
The penlight slipped free and clattered on the floor. The synth scooped it up, looming to my right in that ridiculous, hooded cloak. She aimed the light’s beam over my shoulder at the motherboard, though she was just as likely to crack me over the head with it. Her hood concealed most of her face in shadow. I could make out a fine, almost perfect nose, and lips tinged a little blue. Synths were all copies, right down to the pert lips and mildly intrigued expression: five hundred male, five hundred female, and apparently one extra. People actually paid good credit to sign up for that life-ever-after shit. Somewhere inside her synth body, a human being long past their expiration date was supposed to dwell. Very little gets under my skin, but she—One Thousand And One—made my skin crawl.
“Your heart rate is increasing.”
No shit.
“That’s what happens when you get hit in the balls.” I braced an arm against the panel and frowned at the array. “You wanna use those fancy diagnostics of yours to tell me that I also feel like I’m gonna throw up?”
“I can’t tell you what you’re feeling, only the outward symptoms.”
“Because it’d be weird if you could,” I mumbled and wormed my hand through the bird’s nest of wires to pluck the reserve fuse free. Sure enough, it had blown. I replaced it with another and drilled the panel closed.
“I can see you’re going to be as much fun as my second-in-command.” I tapped my wrist-comm. “Fran, we’re good to go. Take Starscream out far enough to give the authority the slip, and then idle her in shadow. Don’t leave the system yet.” A deep, resonating engine growl rumbled through the ship. “Meet me in my cabin. I got something you’ll wanna see.”
“Cale, there isn’t anything of yours I want to see.”
Ha. Ha.
The synth’s slightly blue lips twitched as though she could actually recognize sarcasm. A synth with a sense of humor—that would be new.
“Leave your guest in the rec bay,” I told Fran and cut the link. She might be a bitch, but she followed orders. Mostly. When it suited her.
I nodded toward the exit. “After you, and no sudden movements. You hit a guy in the balls and all bets are off. Fuck with me, and I’ll carve out that synth power core of yours and use it for spare parts.”
She headed for the exit, her boots almost silent on the grated floor. “I doubt I am compatible with your ship.”
I grinned at her back. She was right about not being compatible. The sooner I ditched her, the sooner I could get away from Calisto and to a jump gate. In a day, I’d be half way across the nine systems, with my credit account looking all the better for it.
Read the sexy, dirty sci-fi Betrayal, Girl From Above #1 for FREE today. Visit pippadacosta.com
Also by Pippa DaCosta
The Veil Series
Wings of Hope ~ The Veil Series Prequel Novella
Beyond The Veil (#1)
Devil May Care (#2)
Darkest Before Dawn (#3)
Drowning In The Dark (#4)
Ties That Bind (#5)
Get your free e-copy of ‘Wings Of Hope’ by signing up to Pippa’s mailing list, here.
Chaos Rises
Chaos Rises (#1)
Chaos Unleashed (#2)
Science-Fiction
Girl From Above #1: Betrayal
Girl From Above #2: Escape
Girl From Above #3: Trapped
Girl From Above #4: Trust
New Adult Urban Fantasy
City Of Fae, London Fae #1
City of Shadows, London Fae #2
About the Author
Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on the other, she draws from a patchwork of ancestry and uses it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.
Sign up to her mailing list here.
@pippadacosta
pippadacosta
www.pippadacosta.com
[email protected]
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Hidden Blade (The Soul Eater Book 1) Page 14
