by Thomas Green
He spun and launched the weight at me once more. I contorted to dodge. The weight hit me in the stomach, twisting unnaturally in the process. So that was what his magic did. I bent over, spat out and leapt to the side to avoid the follow-up strike at my head.
With a spin, he sent the weight at me again. I braced for impact as I didn’t have the energy to dodge. The weight hit my chest, flinging me against the container. The explosion of pain blinded me for a second. My vision came back in time to see his next strike approaching my head. I was too far for him to reach. He let go of the sickle, letting the weight fly. Shit. That was about to reach me and I couldn’t dodge.
Sora stepped in front of me and slashed the weight aside with his katana. The chain flew sideways, burying into the container two feet from my head. Sora caught the sickle with his left hand.
Akiyama straightened and spread his legs into a combat stance. Sora jerked his hand, making the chain sickle fly to his hand. He tossed it to Akiyama.
I slid down onto the ground. What the hell was this about? I tried to get up, but my body refused to comply, responding with intensifying agony. Okay, fighting Akiyama head on in a melee fight was stupid. To get almost killed wasn’t a part of the plan.
Akiyama caught the weapon Sora threw him back. He weaved the chain around his arm and adjusted his stance. Sora stepped forward. Akiyama launched the weight. Sora ducked and bolted ahead. Akiyama spun and slashed. Sora weaved away and ran his sword through Akiyama’s chest.
As Akiyama coughed out blood, staring with disbelieving eyes, Sora whirled and severed his head. Sora leapt backward to dodge the fountain of blood.
Okay, that was a lot more one-sided than I had expected.
Sora slashed the blood off his blade and sheathed it. He returned to me and offered me his hand to help me up. “You fought well.”
Not really. I accepted the hand and let him pull me up to my feet. I still had to brace myself against the container to not fall. The gunfire around us ceased. I saw the remaining Yakuza members kneeling on the ground, raising their hands above their heads. Their faces were pale and eyes wide.
I stood by the container, focusing on remaining conscious. A glance at the container where my targets were confirmed my expectations. The door was open and a trail of misty gray aether led away.
I had no strength to follow them.
Sora started cleaning his sword with a cloth and Miller soon arrived by our side.
“Sorry to bother, but we have found only fish in the barrels. Would you know anything about that?” Miller asked.
I straightened and stumbled to the nearest container that oozed aether. Every step hurt. Sora and Miller followed me. I moved down the latch and opened the door. Inside were stacks of barrels and the whole place smelled of fish. No barrel near the entrance oozed aether, but the ones deeper inside did.
Sora and Miller both turned on their phones’ flashlights to see in the dark. My aether-imbued vision didn’t need that. The barrels were held in four rows, leaving a narrow pathway in the middle. I walked through until I reached the barrel oozing aether.
I grabbed the barrel and moved it into the row. The lid was sealed with tape, but I tore that off. A sour smile played on my lips as I opened the lid. “Yeah, I was wrong about the cocaine.”
I reached inside and gently pulled out the girl huddling in the barrel. She was bound, gagged, trembling from the cold, and marked with a spell, which was where the aether I saw came from.
Miller’s eyes widened. “Mother of God…”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be safe,” I whispered and put the girl down.
Chapter 8
THINGS BECAME A BLUR. I stumbled outside the container and sagged down by the wall of another. Miller commanded the agents to take out all the barrels and check every one of them. Sora handed me his business card and left.
The agents arrested the Yakuza members, fished dozens of girls out of the barrels and also found cocaine in others. Miller came to me two hours later.
I was barely conscious, but along with the pain, I had a strange feeling of warmth in my chest.
“Ambulances will arrive soon. You should go with one of them,” Miller said, his voice steady and mouth carrying a soft smile.
“I’m fine.” I hauled myself to my feet. “Just need to go home.”
He sighed. “I’ll send an agent to take you.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t feel like taking a night bus. A younger agent named Jose put me in the back seat of a Porsche Cayenne. They sure didn’t scrimp on cars. I told him the address and he took me home.
With a thank you, I exited the vehicle and stumbled to the door. To my surprise, nobody ambushed me. This time I took the elevator.
I closed the door and pressed the fourth floor. The elevator started moving.
Lights went out and the elevator stopped. The emergency, red light turned on. Blood started pouring into the elevator through the door.
Oh, now this was just fucking great. I let myself slide to the ground by wall. This was the first and last time I would ever use this elevator. “Really funny, Vivian.”
A sense of heat filled the air, blood swirled in the small elevator and Vivian formed in front of me, her sapphire eyes shining, illuminating her perfect face. She measured me with an appraising stare and the corners of her mouth dropped. “My, my… it seems my suspicion of you not living up to your yesterday’s words was correct.”
“Yeah. I’m a bit tired.”
She ducked, placing her knees by my sides, sitting on me. In a gentle move, she slid her hand to my face and then grabbed my crotch. Her lips curled “You seem to have both important parts intact.”
I smirked. “I’ve got about ten wounds too many to get it up.”
“I can solve that.”
Oh, I had no doubt she could use her magic to influence my blood flow to suit her purposes. The unnatural heat of her aether poured into me. I pushed it out with my aether. “Sorry, not today. Maybe Monday will be better.”
She scowled. “Yesterday, you promised tomorrow.”
“I said, not promised.” In the supernatural world, promises were a big deal. Since no real system of justice worked, reputation became crucial. Nobody wanted to work with someone who couldn’t be trusted, hence I promise were the most magical words in existence.
“Really? That’s how you want to play this?”
I shrugged. Pain was my reward for the movement, reminding me not to try my luck with complex moves. “Sorry, wasn’t planning to get this roughed up. I’ll make it up to you on Monday.”
She slowly shook her head. “That is not good enough, I am afraid. The Summit of the Hand of God will take a week, so I’m busy from Monday to next Sunday, and then Lucielle will cast me back into my punishment harness for hell knows how long. Tomorrow is the last day I can enjoy myself in the upcoming future and you are going to be a large part of that enjoyment whether you like it or not.”
Okay, in retrospect, I have caused my own undoing by spending all this time playing around with her, with kisses and touches. Now, the beast was off the leash and wanted to feast on my flesh, so me being too beaten up for anything simply wouldn’t do.
Actually, when I thought about it, she was uncharacteristically restrained. I smiled. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Promise?”
Oh, no, I didn’t want to promise that. Especially since I would most likely be equally beaten up tomorrow. But the viciousness shining in her eyes told me she would get what she wanted, one way or another. “I promise.”
Her teeth bared as she formed a wide grin. “That sounds better. Meet me at the abbey’s church tomorrow night. In the meantime, take care of yourself. It would be an awful shame if you were too wounded to be any fun.”
“What if I am?”
“Then I’ll have my fun through revenge.” She softly kissed me on the lips and turned to blood. The crimson liquid flowed out of the elevator, the lights came back on and it started moving.
&nb
sp; I didn’t like the way she said that. Vivian’s means of having fun almost always meant someone else dying or at least greatly suffering.
The elevator stopped and the door opened. I clawed my way up to my feet and entered my apartment. This time, my entrance wasn’t unnoticed. I didn’t even manage to pull off my shoes before the music silenced and Evelyn stood in the door frame.
I smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey? You come home looking like this and all you have to say is hey? Hmm?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I—”
She motioned at the bathroom door. “Shower. Now!”
I stepped forward and wobbled. She bolted to me and supported me under my shoulder. I didn’t want her to carry me, but I didn’t have the strength to stand upright either. This was the problem with fighting while using a lot of aether. One fight a day was perfectly fine, but I fought twice today, and my muscles have had enough.
Yes, I had aether to spare, but the amount my body could channel without a prolonged rest was limited. And I reached the limit today, not to mention the beating I took from Akiyama.
Evelyn put me into the shower in full clothes and washed me like zookeepers would wash an elephant. She peeled the drenched cloth from me afterward and gasped when she saw the wounds. Yeah, my burnt shoulder and calf weren’t pretty. And neither were the massive bruises on my chest accompanied by smaller stab wounds.
The water bullets I got hit with earlier didn’t cause deep wounds, but they penetrated the skin.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Evelyn whispered as she started the second round of washing.
I sat sagged in the shower, full of mixed emotions. I loved the worried look in her eyes and the care she was giving me. But I also felt guilty. “It’s just one harder job.”
“No, it’s not one job.” Her orange eyes flared up. “This one job happens every month.”
“Come on, when’s the last time I got this badly beaten up?”
She gave me the you’re an idiot look. “Five weeks ago, I had to pick you up in the ditch because you got hit by a truck.”
“That was an accident completely unrelated to the job I finished earlier.”
“Really? You would’ve never been there if you weren’t hunting the rogue mage. And what about three weeks before that, when a house collapsed on you? But that also doesn’t count, right?”
And I also got shot sixteen times in the past year, though never anywhere vital. She had a point. “Look, I’m a fallen angel. No matter what I ever do, my life will be like this.”
“That’s only your stubbornness talking.” She helped me rise and half-carried me to my chair. I was too tired to even feel cold. She sat me down and brought her balms. Given how perfectly prepared she was, she must have expected me to come home roughed up.
Apparently, I wasn’t as unpredictable as I thought. “And what would you have me do?”
“Something safer. Can’t you join a SWAT team? Or the Church forces? Or at least become something like a contract killer or a vampire hunter or a demon exorcist? Literally any job in the world where you don’t have to constantly fight other mages? I’m sure Katherine would help you get a position at the Church.”
I winced in pain as she started cutting off the burnt skin from my shoulder. The wound was shallow, but that also meant the nerves weren’t all scorched, so every slightest touch burned and sent a bolt of pain through my body. “I’m a private investigator, so I do other stuff than fighting rogue mages.”
She grabbed a patch of burnt skin and tore it off. After I was done yelping, she asked. “Do you? When was the last time?”
“There was… okay, not that one, but the job I did last…” my words trailed off. I may have called myself a private investigator, but almost all my jobs were Dewin Institute’s cleanups. That meant I dealt exclusively with rogue mages and other types of aether wielders. And nobody else was that dangerous. “I don’t think I’d do anything else for the Church though.”
“But you’d have a team that’s a lot less difficult to kill than you are. Whatever people you’d be working with would be trying to survive, so they’d never go into stuff as dangerous as you do by yourself.”
She was done clearing off the burnt skin and now started putting generous amounts of balm onto the wound. That was cold, but pleasant. “Katherine got hit by a crossbow bolt in the last mission, so it’s not like her job’s any safer.”
“Want to bet that’d never happen if you weren’t involved? Hmm?”
My heart sank. Yeah, if I wasn’t there, she wouldn’t risk charging in and would have waited for the backup.
She finished with the shoulder and ducked down to my calf. Since that was further from the brain than the shoulder, the burnt-skin clearing didn’t hurt as much. Or, at least, I withstood the pain better. “My point is that the money isn’t worth this. Plus, how much do you have saved?” she asked.
“Almost nothing.”
She moved her hands at my calf like a comb, tearing off all charred flesh in one move. When I was done shouting with pain, she said, “I’m not stupid, Lucas. I know you’re getting paid way more than you admit. It’s sweet how you’re trying to have some savings by protecting them from me, and I’ve been happy playing the game, but don’t lie to me when I ask.”
With both Vivian and Lucifer calling her a pet, it was easy to forget she wasn’t stupid. Yes, I had a secret account with a card she didn’t know about and yes, there was a huge pile of money in it. Doing about two jobs per week with a fifty-thousand-dollar average pay stacked up through the months. But that was our emergency backup. And, if I was to be honest, I loved the life I lived. “Suppose you’re right, what’s your point?”
“That you can get a normal job and make up for the loss of income through this reserve. And, if it really gets bad, you can always do one or two contracts on the side.”
Yeah, I could. I hunched my shoulders. “You’re right. After I’m done with this job, I’ll talk to Katherine to get me a position at the Church.”
“Promise?”
Oh, of course she remembered how this worked. I paused for a long moment, and then sighed. In the end, I could do this for her. “I promise.”
She rose and pecked me on the cheek. “Into bed, now.” She had to help me rise. I was too tired to move by myself. Gingerly, she led me to the bed and put me on the mattress.
Afterward, she moved her jars and balms and sat next to the bed. She cleaned the wounds on the chest and then started putting balms on them. When she was halfway done, she dipped her fingers into the jar, and they came out dry.
She scowled.
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “This is enough. I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head. “Yes, why get healed when you can bleed, right? I’ll go get supplies, make more balm and finish the treatment.” She rose and went to dress.
I didn’t want her to leave. But I lost the strength to speak. My mind clouded and my eyelids became heavier than lead. I heard her close the door a second before I fell asleep.
I woke up in the morning with a cobra coiling on my chest, its head raised in front of mine. The snake hissed, tongue touching the tip of my nose.
Yeah, good morning to you too. Wait a second… no music played. I scowled and rose, knocking the snake on the ground. The move made me dizzy as blood drained from my head. Evelyn’s bed was empty.
I walked to the living room. Nothing. The bathroom was empty too.
Evelyn was gone.
Chapter 9
OH, THIS WAS NOT A PEACEFUL MORNING. I put on my clothes, donned the gun belt, tied the holsters to my thighs, threw on my coat, grabbed my hat, fixed my tie around my neck, ate a fistful of painkillers and stormed out of the apartment.
On the stairs, I called Evelyn. No answer. Why didn’t I keep a permanent tracker on her? Because I thought it would be weird. Being smart was much easier in hindsight. Despite it being pointless, I tried to look for aether. Not a drop. The collar and bracelets that bl
ocked most of her ability to use magic were still working. Fuck!
I half-dashed through the street toward Washington Square Park. The Nether Mart was a Secret-Societies-only shopping center hidden under the park. I walked to the side of Washington Square Arch and eyed the maintenance door. A display with a numbers-only keyboard was glued to the wall. There were many more entrances to the Nether Mart, but Evelyn always used this one.
The standard maintenance staff would enter their access number and the door would open. I typed in one-three-three-seven and the door opened. But instead of the stairs beyond leading up, like they would for commoners, they headed downward.
I entered, closed the door and I dashed down the stairs. The air was dry, the concrete walls, ceiling and floor clean. Dim light from the ceiling illuminated the corridor. Behind me, the room shifted to the standard version and darkness flooded the room. Yes, Secret Societies loved to be dramatic. Lights turned back on and I crossed the room toward the elevator, seeing it was completely barren. I jabbed the button and the steel door opened with a ding.
The elevator bore no marks of a fight. The mirrors were spotless, the ceiling light shining bright and the floor clean. Once I got down, I crossed a short hallway, I gazed at the Nether Mart. Lights weaved like snakes through the vast underground hall. Hundreds of neon signs worked together with the lights, illuminating the various shops. Every building was different, ranging from a wide tree with doors and windows, to a floating globe with stairs leading to the door, all the way to the modern mall of glass and steel.
The paths between the buildings were packed full. Among mages, Sundays were shopping days. The crowds were made of the classical Secret Societies blend, marked with clothing ranging from casual jeans, to black suits, dashing dresses, witch outfits, combat armor, and all the way to medieval armor. When hidden from common eyes, mages didn’t bother pretending they weren’t weird.
I lowered my cowboy hat into my face and pushed through the crowd, heading all the way to the Chinese temple at the other end. The current director of the Nether Mart was Wu Yu Yan, the youngest descendant of Wu Zetian, the former Chinese empress. I had neither the time nor the nerve to deal with her underlings.
