The only downside to the whole situation was that it was nearly impossible to get eyes on the shadow. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon, briefly bathing everything in a mellow orange glow before coloring the sky a rich dark purple. Overhead lights illuminated the market grounds, leaving plenty of spaces for a formless shadow to wander unhindered and unnoticed. In order to track it, I stuck as close to Chase as I could manage, taking note of every imagined flicker in the corner of my eye. Like trying to pick out a specific star on a perfectly clear night, I couldn’t ever look right at the thing to spot it. By letting my eyes un-focus, I was able to catch flickering anomalies in the regular patterns of movement flowing around me.
Of course, this made walking a little more difficult. I bumped into several people while trying to scan my surroundings without looking directly at anything. The fourth time it happened, I wound up with half a carton of some kind of fishy donut thing dumped on my chest. The girl whose dinner I’d upset swore at me in what I guessed to be Mandarin before elbowing me out of her way, leaving me with a tiny octopus tentacle plastered to the front of my shirt amidst a glop of mayo and some kind of sticky dark sauce.
“Eww,” I muttered as I flicked the gross little morsel to the ground with a shudder.
I tried wiping the sauce from my shirt, but I succeeded only in spreading the stain around before looking up and realizing I’d lost sight of Chase and his date.
Striking out in the direction I’d last seen them walking, I worked my way through the crowded aisle with my head on a swivel. They couldn’t have gotten far in the few seconds I’d been distracted, yet I couldn’t see any sign of the two lovebirds. Given Chase’s taller-than-average stature, I thought for sure I’d be able to see his messy hair bouncing along somewhere. From where I stood in the intersection between the vendor stalls and the food sellers, he appeared to have vanished from plain sight.
Then I heard laughter that cut through the crowd like a percussive blast of a small cannon. Some people chuckle silently, and some people bray like a donkey when they’re amused. Chase had a deep booming laugh like no other I’d heard before. By scanning the area where I’d heard the burst of laughter, I eventually understood that Chase had simply leaned in to take a closer look at something in one of the tents. Once he stood up again, it was easy enough to follow him along the aisle while hanging back and trying to lock down the mysterious shadow.
After half an hour of not being able to pick up the slightest hint of the abnormal shadow, I began questioning everything I thought I’d seen out on the street. I was on the verge of dismissing the whole thing as a combination of exhaustion and hunger fueled delirium when I saw something that made me snap to alertness. Despite the low-level drain of keeping my mage sight active for so long, I’d kept it running on the off chance the shadow did something that might be visible to my enhanced vision. When Chase and Lailani strolled along the outer edge of tents, I was rewarded with just that. The slightest flash of magic energy glimmered in the darkness just beyond the watery pools of light cast by the overhead lights.
This part of the market was a relative oasis of calm compared to more chaotic central rows. Even if I hadn’t recognized the kid who stepped out of the shadows, I’d still have found it extremely suspicious that he’d just appeared out of nowhere. As it was, I knew him immediately as one of the kids from the ritual performed around the power nexus.
Grinning like a hyena approaching a fresh kill, the kid went straight for Chase and Lailani. Doing my best to keep from being spotted, I picked up my own pace to close the gap. Still several paces behind, I caught the glint of light on steel at the kids hip. His hand was closed in a fist, angled slightly inward so I couldn’t see what he held until he shifted to sidestep around someone walking the other way. His arm dropped downward, giving me a clear view of the sharp little knife he clutched in his hand. It didn’t look like much, but my mage sight revealed the telltale glow of energy that meant it had been enchanted. It was impossible to know what the enchantment was designed to do, but I couldn’t take a risk that it hadn’t been charged with a spell that could kill with the merest scratch.
Having positioned himself within striking distance, Chase’s stalker walked casually behind his prey as they approached a stretch of empty tents. In another few steps, they’d be completely alone. Even without an enchanted blade, the kid could have taken both his targets down with a couple of quick swipes of the razor sharp edge.
Without thinking, I raced forward from my hiding spot several tents back. The slapping of my shoes on the pavement were enough to make the kid turn around and spot me, but before he could do anything about it, I was already flying through the air in a tackle that had both of us rolling along the ground and into the shadows beyond the edge of the embankment. There was a soft whoosh of air escaping the kid’s mouth from where I’d jammed my shoulder into his solar plexus. We tumbled over each other a few times before coming to a stop with his slender body sprawled atop me. Still dazed from the shock of being hit out of nowhere, he pushed himself up and tried to disentangle himself from my grasp.
Before he could shift his weight and swipe at me with the knife, I twisted beneath him, slamming my bent arm into his face as I rolled sideways. The blow worked as intended, the boney part of my elbow cracking him in the nose hard enough to send a spray of blood misting across my face as he flopped backwards and away from me.
“So you’re the mage bitch everyone is so worried about, huh?” he hissed after hopping to his feet. “This should be quick and painless… for me at least.”
I scrambled to my feet and watched him wipe his nose with the back of the hand that still clutched the knife. He dropped into a fighter’s stance, hands out in front, upper body swaying back and forth ever so slightly while he sized me up. The deadly edge gleamed in the darkness, mesmerizing as it moved back and forth in front of me. The kid made a feint, darting towards me with a test slash before pulling back into a defensive position. I considered the thin folding blade I had tucked in my waistband — an item I’d gotten in the habit of carrying over the last couple of months — but dismissed it on the odds that a knife fight with this guy would most likely leave me on the losing end of the exchange. I’d taken just enough self defense classes to know that no one comes out of a knife fight unscathed.
“Wait a second,” I said aloud as I stood up straight and shook my head. “Why the hell am I trying to kung fu you right now?”
Extending my arm for dramatic effect, I splayed my fingers and let loose a blast of kinetic energy. It slammed into the kid’s chest, but instead of sending him flying back onto his ass, it simply ruffled his hair and made the hood of his sweater flap as though a light breeze had kicked up. He looked down at himself with an expression that said he was just as surprised the spell hadn’t effected him. When he lifted his head a second later, it was with a vicious look that made my skin crawl. His eyes narrowed, darting between my feet and hands in anticipation of anything I might throw at him. He’d gained a hell of a lot of confidence after coming through a magical attack unscathed, and I hated to think of what that meant for my immediate future.
Before I could form any kind of attack plan, the kid closed the distance between us, blade swirling in front of him in a tight figure eight weave. I stumbled backwards to get out of the way. Without knowing what kind of spell had been placed on the knife, I couldn’t risk taking so much as scratch. There was a chance some other spell like mage fire might work where the kinetic blast had failed, but if I was wrong then I’d only waste valuable energy and risk alerting everyone in the area to the supernatural duel going down a few yards away from them. At best, it’d be enough to scare this kid off, letting him get away before I could get answers from him.
At worst, it’d mean the death of an innocent bystander or two.
Come on, Alex, an internal voice urged, take this fucker out before he sinks that thing into your eye socket.
As if sensing my hesitation, the kid lashed out w
ith a swipe of the blade that came within an inch of separating my ear from my face as I spun away from it. My momentum carried me a little farther than I’d intended, and I flopped onto my side. I hit the ground in a roll that I hoped would carry me away from my attacker before he could press his advantage.
I came to a stop on my stomach and immediately pushed myself up onto one knee, both hands planted on the ground while I caught my breath. The dirt beneath my fingers was sandy and damp, and I could hear the gentle lapping of water from the river splashing against the shore just behind me. With the kid cautiously approaching, I contemplated jumping into the current to get away from him. I had no doubt that he could swim after me without much difficulty, but have you ever tried fighting someone in the water? I have. Long story short: it’s not easy or effective.
“What were you going to do to my friend?” I asked.
“Why do you think I was following him with a knife?” The kid snarled. “I was going to slit his throat and dump him in the river.”
“Yeah, I know that part, asshole. Why were you going to kill him?”
“Same reason I’m going to kill you now — to keep you from messing with our business. We know you were watching us last night. I’ve been sent to tie up loose ends. After I took care of your buddy, I was on my way to find you. Guess you saved me some work tonight.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Flashing back to a desperate move in a duel I’d been forced to fight earlier that year, I dug my fingers into the sand and flung them upwards. Wet dirt flew into the kid’s face. The sand was too wet to effectively blind him, but it was enough of a distraction for him to throw his arm up and turn his head away for the second of inattention I needed. I leapt upwards, conjuring the strongest energy shield I could manage in front of me. I had no idea if the shield would work the way I intended it to, or if he’d pass right through it, but the only way my gamble would work was if I committed to it with everything I had.
Beneath my mage sight, the shield I’d cast was visible as a scintillating wall of energy that hovered an inch in front of me, making it difficult to see much of anything beyond it. I closed my eyes in the moment before impact, balling my hands into fists and clutching my arms to my chest as I slammed into my attacker with all the force I could muster. Rather than the cold sting of a blade slipping between my ribs I’d half expected, I felt the shuddering reverberation of my body slamming into my own energy shield when it stopped short against my attacker. The weight of my leap knocked him backwards. Whatever spell he had protecting him burst the shield a moment too late for it to save him from the force of the impact.
Shieldless and sprawled on my back, I rolled over and hurried to regain my footing.
I spared a few seconds to glance around, making sure no one was around to witness what happened next. I walked up to the kid and stepped on his wrist hard enough for him to loosen his grasp on the knife. It fell to the ground where I quickly snatched it and crouched atop him, one knee planted firmly in the middle of his chest.
“Neat knife,” I said.
I pretended to admire the craftsmanship before lowering it to his cheek. Gently stroking his skin with the flat of the blade, I gave him my best crazy bitch smile. “Why were you following my friend, and what were you going to do to him?”
The kid flinched away from the blade, tears pooling in the edges of eyes wide with terror. He squirmed and twisted away from the knife as much as he dared without nicking himself through his own carelessness. He was clearly horrified by whatever enchantment had been laid upon the blade, and I was happy to use his fear against him.
I leaned into my knee, putting more pressure on his chest. “Tell me what you’re after, and I won’t cut you.”
The kid just shook his head as best he could without slicing himself open. I had no intention of actually killing him, but he didn’t need to know that.
“We both know this knife is enchanted, but only you know what it does.” I tilted the blade ever so slightly, scraping the perfectly honed edge over the curve of his chin. His pupils dilated even further, turning his brown irises into nothing more than a sliver of an outline. He did his best to sink into the ground beneath him, trying to put as much distance between his skin and the knife that would have shaved away his facial hair if he’d had any to spare.
“Who taught you to harness the power of the nexus?” I asked more firmly.
I moved the tip of the knife up to his cheek, keeping it on enough of an angle that it wouldn’t draw blood when I pressed down into skin already stretched taut from his partially open mouth.
“Shtop” he mumbled, moving his mouth and tongue as little as possible.
I eased up a little with the knife, still maintaining pressure on his chest. Without knowing if the protective spell that had resisted my attack was tied to him or the blade, there was no way I’d risk giving him enough freedom of movement to unseat me.
I repositioned the knife so it sat just under his chin, the tip resting just beneath the soft spot under his jaw. He had enough room to speak, but I made sure he got the message that the tiniest bit of upward pressure on my part would make his day a hell of a lot worse.
“I can’t tell you anything,” he finally said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
Just because I had no idea how to place a compulsion on someone, didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. If someone had taught an ungifted how to tap the kind of power this kid clearly had access to, it stood to reason that they’d ensure he couldn’t easily give them up if he got himself caught.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and you just blink once for yes or twice for no. If I get the feeling you’re lying to me, this knife finds its way into your brain. Sound good?”
The kid swallowed, then blinked once.
“Did the person who taught you to use this power send you to kill me?”
Blink.
“Do you have any powers of your own?”
Blink. Blink.
“Did you and your gang rob the Trang Enterprises warehouse?”
The kids eyelids fluttered, and he clenched his jaw against some unseen pressure contorting his face into a mask of pain. Eventually he blinked a single time, his features softening immediately afterwards.
“Is the person who taught you to use this power in your gang? Were they at the nexus last night?”
This time the kid’s whole body shook so hard it threatened to buck me clean off his chest. He spasmed as though he was having a seizure, his eyes bulging out of his head with a look of pure horror. His eyes fluttered halfway closed, then sprung open again.
“Forget that last question,” I said quickly.
His body relaxed. The force of his deep inhalation pressed my knee upwards. Simpler compulsions were often tied to speech rather than thought, but it appeared this one ran a little deeper into the kid’s psyche than I’d hoped. If even blinking was enough to send him into an apoplectic fit, I wasn’t sure how the hell I was supposed to get any answers out of him.
“Do you know what will happen to you if you break the compulsion?”
Blink. Blink.
“I’m going to guess that you can get at least one word out before the compulsion takes hold,” I told him. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer as quickly as you can. Don’t think, just speak. Do this one thing, and I’ll let you go. Understood?”
“Yeah,” the kid muttered.
“Give me the name of the person you’re working for.”
His lips had barely parted to speak when his chin slammed downwards, impaling itself on the blade I still held tightly in place. The knife slid through his skin with no resistance, a ragged hiss of air escaping his trachea while he wriggled his arms free in order to take hold of my wrist. He fought my attempts to rip the knife free, struggling to press the knife upwards. Slack jawed and helpless, I watched in horror as he thrust the full length of the blade up into his skull. Thick dark blo
od spilled out of his mouth and throat to cover my hand and wrist.
I let go of the knife and jerked my arm free of his grasp. His hands flopped away from his chest, his lifeless body becoming limp and still. A gurgling belch of air bubbled up through the stream of blood from the weight of my body collapsing his lungs like some kid of morbid accordion.
Still clutching the knife, I hopped to my feet and staggered backwards, bile rising in my throat. My brain replayed the events of the last few seconds over and over again, trying to understand how things had escalated so quickly.
I rested a hand on my stomach, breathing deeply to quell the roiling in my guts. This kid wasn’t the first person I’d killed, but never before had I ended someone’s life so brutally. The few times I’d taken life had been accidental — the result of self defense. Even though I knew he’d been acting under a magical compulsion that had forced him to drive his own head down onto the blade, it had been my prompting that had triggered him. His blood dripped down my wrist like crimson honey. The hilt of the enchanted knife was slick and slippery, forcing me to squeeze it even tighter lest it fall to ground for someone else to discover.
Staring down at the scene before me, I noticed the blade glowing a little brighter beneath my still active mage sight. Traces of visible magic swirled around the knife like a swarm of fireflies. The newly released energy scattered and attached itself to the body, multiplying and burning brighter as it consumed every trace of the kid’s flesh, muscle, and bone. My hands were alight with the activated spell, and when I cut off my mage sight, I watched what was left of the blood smolder and disappear in a matter of seconds. The spell’s workings were warm on my skin, almost comforting the way standing a little too close to a fire on a cold night felt both just right and too intense at the same time.
Black Market (Black Records Book 2) Page 9
