Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  The man shifted beside me. “You agreed to the terms.”

  I shook my head. With the mule this close, we could talk freely without being overheard. If only I could manage it without breathing. “No,” I said. “I agreed to lift a minor, plate-sized relic off a clueless museum intern. You missed the bit where said flunky was also being targeted by the Swiss Guard, who, by the way, apparently don’t wear pajamas when they’re not at the Vatican. You also missed the part where the Swiss Guard had become ninjas. All that’s a little out of my pay grade.” I took a sip of my drink, wincing at the tang as I set the glass down again. Horseradish. Nice. If I had to use it on this guy, it was going to sting like a bitch.

  “But you have it,” my contact said again, indicating that he was prepared to get what he wanted simply by boring me to death. I glanced at him again. He was powerfully built, with a thick jaw and a boxer’s nose—only now his curled upper lip was sweating, his beady eyes looked a little coked up, and his cheeks were flushed. Something wasn’t right here. He was too nervous, too intent.

  “The transaction was compromised.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t given full information. With full information, I never would have taken the job. But, I can be reasonable. Which means your new price is only double. So go talk to your boss, get the extra cash, and then we’ll have something to discuss.”

  “No.” Again with the gun. Harder this time. Sharper. “You must give it to me now.” The man had turned almost feral with intensity, and my Spidey sense went taut. This definitely was too much reaction for the relic in question. We weren’t talking the Ark of the Covenant here, no matter how much I was going to charge the guy. I reclaimed my glass of horseradish whiskey and took in Henri. He was still at the far end of the bar, well out of the way of any untoward blood spatter. Very efficient, our Henri.

  “Take it easy, my friend,” I said, as casual as all hell. “We’re just having a conversation.” It wouldn’t be long now, I thought, watching his nostrils flare. The cards felt heavy in my jacket pocket. The glass felt heavy in my hand. And the golden seal of Ceres suddenly weighed a hundred pounds in its slender pouch against my body.

  It was a pretty thing, really: a flat gold disk the size of a dessert plate, imprinted with an image of the Roman goddess of fertility and grain on one side. On the flip side, a half-dozen thick, raised symmetrical ridges lined its surface at odd angles. Not the most spectacular artifact I’d ever been asked to locate, but not the most mundane either. With the help of the cards, I’d tracked it down fairly quickly, even for me.

  Still, I maybe should have asked a few more questions before I headed out this evening. A third-century BC seal featuring a corn-festooned pagan goddess shouldn’t have been entrusted to your average intern for a late-night museum transfer. And the guy had seemed really young too. Too young, too clueless. Which might have caused me to stop and reconsider what I was doing, if I hadn’t been so distracted by the ninja shadows of death who had swarmed the Metro platform the moment I’d made the grab. I’d immediately thought the Swiss Guard had come to swipe the relic out from under me, but why? What had I seen to tip my mind that way?

  And why would the Swiss Guard care about such a minor artifact?

  “Give it to me,” my contact hissed, officially signaling the arrival of the next stage of our negotiation process: brute force. Then he lunged at me.

  I moved just as quickly. With a sharp, cutting jerk, I splashed the horseradish whiskey into the guy’s eyes, then shattered the glass against the bar as his hands went to his face, his scream a guttural bellow. Henri was right beside me, ripping the man’s gun away as I shoved my contact flat against the bar, the cut edge of the glass tight against his heavy collarbone, pressing into his thick, sweaty neck.

  “And now the price is triple,” I gritted out, focusing on his clenched-shut eyes as tears rolled down his cheek. “You want to pay, you know where to find me. You don’t want to pay, I got plenty others who will.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he sputtered. He tried to open his eyes, but that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. “You were hired to—”

  “You bet your crusty baguette I would. Tell your boss that if I’m still around and he’s got the money, then he’ll get the package. Otherwise, no deal.” I stepped back as Henri and Le Stube’s bouncer moved in, the bartender whipping a spotless white towel off his shoulder to finally help my contact get cleaned up, and the muscle ready to hold the guy tight until I got out of there.

  No wonder I liked this place so much.

  Stepping out into the warm, muggy night, I strode toward the Luxembourg Gardens, the popular tourist destination still illuminated despite the fact that it was nearing midnight. I angled my way through a dozen or so manicured plots, waiting for a tail to materialize. None did that I could see, so I changed course. The evening was still young, and I had more business to finish.

  Besides, all was not lost tonight. Not yet, anyway. Chances were good that the King of Coins would still cough up the money for his relic. Even at triple his original cost, it was probably a steal, if my contact’s panic and the interest of the freaking Swiss Guard was any indication. But, if the deal blew up, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been left holding the proverbial bag; it wouldn’t be the last.

  And I hadn’t been lying back at Le Stube. The magical antiquities black market had been heating up for the past year or so. If there were already two parties gunning for this chunk of gold—my buyer and, apparently, the pope—then someone else with money to burn was probably sniffing around, too.

  That cheered me up.

  I left the Luxembourg Gardens and skirted the Odéon, turning onto the Rue de Tournon as I let my stride lengthen. Paris was still drying out from a recent drizzle, and everything smelled full of the promise of summer, with none of its oppressive heat. Father Jerome would be waiting for me, and even though I’d wanted to be able to give him more cash tonight, I was not arriving empty-handed. It would be enough, I thought. It had to be enough.

  I turned onto the Boulevard Saint-Germaine and scanned the long, wide street. As usual, the neighborhood was hopping, but that didn’t concern me so much. As I approached the church, however, something about the tone and tenor of the large crowd milling around struck me as odd. Specifically, that there was a tone and tenor. Rollicking music blasted out from several venues, and the partiers seemed unusually raucous, while jazz, booze, and pot all hung heavy in the air. I finally caught sight of a large banner flapping in the evening breeze that explained all the crazy: Festival Jazz à Saint-Germaine-des-Prés!

  Ah, Paris. City of Festivals.

  I slipped into the throng, drifting toward the arched entryway to the church. With this many people, I could have been a gorilla in a tutu and no one would have noticed me. The main church doors were locked at this hour, but, as expected, the side door opened easily into the cool quiet of the ancient church.

  I’d barely stepped through before the bolt slid home, and then the short, cloaked old priest was at my side. “I’d only just begun watching for you,” he said, his quiet voice as welcoming as warm bread. “Is everything all right?” Like most Europeans, Father Jerome’s English was flawless, only made to sound richer and somehow more intelligent with his thick Parisian accent.

  I shrugged. “I had to cut short tonight’s negotiations.” We walked toward the nave of the church, where colorful frescoes gleamed in the gentle light of dim sconces, and I felt myself relax a notch or two. Here in this sacred space, there was solace to be had. Even if just for a little while.

  As we paused in front of the altar, where the light was highest, I reached into the left side of my jacket and pulled out the thick money pouch. I handed it to Jerome. “I’d wanted there to be more,” I said. “The list grows longer.”

  “It will always be long,” the priest said, his words a quiet absolution I’d not realized I needed. He reached for the pouch but didn’t take it from me immediately. Instead, his soft, papery hands enveloped mine, h
is eyes staring up at me. “You are tired, Sara,” he said. “The need will always outstrip those who serve, and we cannot lose you too.”

  “I will rest.” I pressed the money into his palm and turned, anything to avoid his kind gaze. “It’s only thirty thousand. That won’t go very far.” It will hopefully be many times more than that, soon. But I couldn’t promise that to Father Jerome. I was done with promises I couldn’t keep.

  “It will go as far as it must,” he said simply. It was always this way with him—he was careful, calm, and sure, even as he took risks that would have terrified a man half his age. Risks to protect the youngest and most defenseless members of the psychic community, whose very innocence made them coveted commodities on the arcane black market.

  Now he weighed the package in his hands. “We must make choices, though. The boy in Chartres shows promise—and with promise comes danger. He and his family currently live outside the village in relative safety, but small pilgrimages are now occurring to bring them food and gifts.”

  I grimaced. “What did he do?”

  “Blessed the crops.” Even the smile in Jerome’s voice was gentle, soothing. “Which ordinarily would have bought us more time, except the villagers have already gathered their first harvest, and it is barely spring.”

  I stiffened. That wasn’t good. “Then he is the priority. Chartres draws too much attention anyway with its ley line configuration. Someone will notice what’s going on there. The family should be moved before there’s trouble. Only child?” Jerome nodded. Single children were the norm in families like this. “Who else?”

  “Two other families remain on the watch list,” he said. “In Turin and San Sebastian. Those are established cities, though, with friends close at hand, and the children are young. So far, whispers of their abilities have been kept to close relatives. The chateau in Bencançon has received five more families in the last week, however, and yet another orphan. So whatever is not needed for the boy in Chartres will go there. And the search continues for others. ” He shifted his gaze to me. “The young healer in Linz has not been recovered. The twin girls from Kavala, it has been nearly a month without word. The same with the child from Berlin. Fifteen remain at large, and those are only the ones we know. ”

  “Pierre-Charles?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice, but I knew the answer before the old priest shook his head.

  “He…was found in Nimes. His heart and eyes removed.”

  I glanced away, knowing the image would haunt me, along with too many others. Pierre-Charles had been a blond, blue-eyed boy of fourteen, almost too beautiful to seem real. But he had not been taken for his fair skin or sweet face. He had been taken for the visions he saw. Visions he’d been stupid enough to share with his fellow students in some backward Toulouse boarding school. Word had gotten out too fast for us to intervene. By the time we’d reached Toulouse, Pierre-Charles was gone.

  Magic was a bloody business these days. True psychics had value as tools, yes. But also as donors for rituals. And children with such abilities were considered to be especially precious.

  It was always the children who paid.

  “Bounty hunters?” I prompted, to chase away the chill that had fallen over the nave. “Or just scared locals?”

  “Hunters, we believe. The body was dumped outside the city, the surgery precise.” Father Jerome shifted in the half-light. “The dark practitioners grow bold.”

  I nodded. “Something’s bothering them.”

  I’d met Father Jerome on my second assignment, more than five years ago. He was an acknowledged expert in Roman antiquities who had actually once seen the trinket I’d been commissioned to find on that particular job. We’d worked well together, then Jerome had hired me himself, to liberate some second-rate reliquary from a cesspool of dark magic. Back then, I didn’t know how deep the underworld had become, but Father Jerome had proven to be an able instructor. I’d found other such instructors along the way. And, eventually, I’d learned about the black market bounty hunters who were being paid top dollar to deliver gifted psychics as arcane sacrifices—the younger and more untrained the better.

  I’d tried to stay away, not get involved. But I couldn’t help myself in the end, not when children were going missing.

  Some things never changed.

  “I should have more for you soon,” I said, then glanced at him as a new thought struck me. Maybe Father Jerome would know what the big deal was about my current relic, why it’d suddenly been elevated to Rome’s Most Wanted list. The old priest was an expert on antiquities, and I had a vague recollection that Saint-Germaine-des-Prés had been erected on a Roman shrine of some kind. I reached into my jacket. “Actually,” I began—

  A moment, Miss Wilde. The sensually familiar voice riffled through my mind, setting me instantly on edge. I would rather you not do that.

  “Yes?” Jerome frowned at me as I stiffened. “What is it, Sara?”

  Dammit, Armaeus. “Just…Give me a minute,” I muttered.

  I turned and strode down the long central corridor of the church, the world falling silent around me.

  Then, with a flash of brilliant white light through the soaring stained glass windows, the sky exploded.

  Chapter Two

  I broke into a jog even as Father Jerome called out after me, insisting that the light show outside was harmless midnight fireworks.

  Fireworks, yes.

  Harmless, not exactly.

  With a shiver of premonition icing my skin, I exited the building and plunged back into the milling crowd of jazz fans before turning around to gaze up at the sky along with everyone else. The night exploded once again, this time in an electric shower of blues and reds and greens. Starkly outlined against the night sky, the main tower of Saint-Germaine-Des-Prés was silhouetted by a burst of falling fire.

  It looked identical to the Tower card I’d drawn at Le Stube not thirty minutes earlier.

  Of course, I’d also drawn the Magician, the Devil, and Death in that reading. And now, here was the Magician not two feet away from me, smelling of fire and heavy spices, of books and mystery and wonders untold, a genie uncorked from his bottle.

  “What are you doing in Paris?” I asked, still not looking his way.

  “I could ask you the same thing, but…” M. Armaeus Bertrand’s richly intoned words seemed to linger in the air, leaving no doubt that he’d been following me this whole time. Asshat. I should have known better than to get in bed with a guy who’d been around longer than the Arc de Triomphe.

  Still, it was time for a refresher course on boundaries. “This isn’t your job, Armaeus.”

  “I have taken an unexpected interest.”

  “Then I hope you’ve taken out an unexpected loan. Because if not, we’re done here.” I finally turned to study him, praying that the newest talisman I’d purchased to blunt his effect on me would do its job.

  Not even close.

  Half-French, half-Egyptian, M. Armaeus Bertrand was a sleekly muscled man of rare and exceptional beauty. He stood well over six feet, though I didn’t think of him as tall so much as…overwhelming. Rich, ebony hair hung in thick waves to his shoulders, and his face was starkly beautiful, all bronzed skin and elegant eyebrows and sculpted cheekbones that angled down to that lushly sensual mouth. For tonight’s rendezvous, he’d paired an expensive-looking black suit with a royal blue silk shirt, open at the neck to reveal another swath of rich caramel skin. Everything about the man screamed money, power, and danger.

  Most especially danger.

  Now his pale gold eyes were more than a little amused as he watched me struggle to tear my gaze away from him once more. I randomly found two brain cells that were still firing and linked them together, rekindling my ability for speech. “So what kind of interest do you have in my relic?” I tried again.

  “An intensely…personal interest.” He spread his hands, his French blood ensuring that even his shrug sparked carnal desires. Images suddenly scored through my m
ind—Armaeus naked and predatory, all that magnificent strength and intensity focused solely on me, his hands like fire on my skin, his gaze locked on mine, his mouth—I blinked rapidly, realizing that all the oxygen had somehow been sucked out of my lungs.

  Which was, admittedly, making it tough to breathe.

  “Quit that,” I grated out, taking a sharp step back. Annoyed, I worked off the hematite bracelet on my right wrist and let it fall to the cobblestones. Yet another charm that had failed the test.

  Armaeus chuckled softly, his gaze never leaving mine. “It is pointless to ward yourself against me, Miss Wilde. You will tire of this game long before I do.”

  “So you keep saying.” I straightened, willing myself not to touch the one trinket that had worked against this man, an ornate knot on a long silver chain I’d purchased after consulting a carnie-level fortune-teller on the south side of the Vegas strip. The thing had cost me half a year’s wages, but it had been worth it. Sadly, Nikki had warned me straight up that the Tyet’s purpose was only to prevent actual sex. I didn’t even want to think about all the crazy that left up for grabs. “Cut to the chase, Armaeus. I’ve got work to do. What is this ‘personal’ interest? And how much are you willing to pay?”

  His golden eyes regarded me steadily. “The seal is intact?”

  “Of course it’s intact.” I didn’t ask how he knew about the seal. I didn’t need to. To the rest of the world, M. Armaeus Bertrand was a reclusive Vegas-based hotelier and casino operator. To me, and to those who walked in his shadowed world, he was the Magician. As in the Original Alchemist, the Trickster of the Tarot, the Cobbler…and the leader of the Arcanan Council that was—quite naturally, I suppose—currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Keeping the world safe for all things magical.

  I’d never heard of M. Armaeus Bertrand before he’d hired me for my first job with the council about a year ago. That hadn’t fazed me, though. I was used to anonymous players hitting the scene. And while my community of carnie psychics and magical artifact diggers was chatty, we couldn’t keep up with every flush nut job who trolled the circuit looking for some lost amulet or sacred tome. One recent newcomer with a death wish had wanted me to wrest a recipe book of spells from the Goodnight family—witches of no small renown. I’d known enough to turn down that job. Others hadn’t been so smart.