Lee kept Syrus moving until they were in a small park full of pedestrians a few blocks away. Syrus finally collapsed then and began reacting to what had just happened. He fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands, shoulders shaking.
“Uh…” Lee winced. “Sorry about your store. That was kind of my idea and, well, definitely my fault.”
Syrus’s shoulders continued to tremble. Lee dropped to one knee next to him and patted his back.
“Syrus,” he said. “Are you… wait a second, are you laughing?”
Syrus looked toward him, a wide grin on his face. He took Lee’s hand and squeezed it between his.
“The place was insured,” he said. “For a lot of money. A lot of money.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to retire to Florida and never look back. Thank you, Lee. Let me get you the information you need. You wanted to find the House of Shadows, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ll be headed to Lestaron Island.”
CHAPTER 14
Two days later, Lee was on a plane. A small plane, one that forced him to reconsider his previous definition of what air travel was supposed to be.
He’d used Bryan’s credit card again, first to withdraw money for another bus ticket to Boston, then to buy the plane ticket. He was surprised and pleased to find that Bryan hadn’t canceled the card yet, and while the fraud felt a little underhanded, it seemed like a fair compensation for what his “brother” had put him through.
He’d been concerned about whether Tess would be able to make the trip with him. There had once been a limit to how far she could travel from Primhaven safely, but the bond between her and Lee had grown stronger, strong enough to supersede it.
“I just need to stay close to you now,” she’d said. “Within a few hundred miles should do.”
“No trouble there,” he’d replied.
Plane travel was new to Tess. There were only three other passengers on the tiny jet, so she’d been able to take the seat next to him, by the window. For most of the flight, she alternated between staring out into the clouds and hyperventilating.
“This is so bizarre,” she whispered. “We’re flying, Lee. We are… actually flying.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “It’s pretty normal for the modern age.”
“I… think I feel a little bit sick.” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “My stomach is doing flip flops.”
“Also normal. I could get you an airsickness bag, but I’m not sure it would really be necessary, all things considered.”
Tess managed to hold onto her lunch, and after a few more hours, Lestaron Island finally came into view. Syrus had offered up all the information he had on the remote territory, which hadn’t been all that much, aside from rumors he’d heard of it being the base of operations for the House of Shadows.
It was tiny, just a small dollop of crab grass, trees, and hills; no more than a few hundred square miles in area. There were clear advantages to its remoteness, given the threats an independent supernatural faction would face, but there were also obvious downsides. A few of those downsides, as far as Lee could tell, were mitigated by what Zoe had revealed about the water nymph that let them travel in a manner similar to the Order of Chaldea’s Arcane Way, but not all of them.
The plane rattled ominously as it descended to the tiny airport of what appeared to be the island’s only town. The pilot mumbled a few unintelligible sentences over the intercom, and then they were on the ground, waiting for the stewardess to shepherd them off the jet.
Lee stretched his back as he made his way through the small, mostly empty airport. There were only a few employees, all of whom were standing around and looking bored. He approached one to ask about Zoe, but only received a lame reply about how they were temp employees from the mainland and unfamiliar with the locals.
“I guess we’ll have to find someone else to ask,” said Tess.
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “In a place like this, I doubt there’s all that much happening.”
Outside the airport, a rather bored-looking taxi driver extinguished his cigarette and looked at Lee expectantly. He shook his head, warding off the offer before it came. He didn’t have enough of Bryan’s money left to waste on convenience transportation.
He walked into town instead, feeling a bit odd. There was only the occasional car on the otherwise oddly empty street. People hung out on porches or sat on their front steps, and all of them gave him strange looks as he passed by. He felt like the designated outsider of the day, like he was trespassing through an entire community with boundaries and history.
There were a significant number of abandoned buildings, along with recently renovated structures. Lee wondered if the island was especially vulnerable to hurricanes, given its far-flung location, exposed in the middle of the Atlantic.
He passed by a grocery store, one of the larger buildings he’d seen, and turned the corner. A sign at the corner read “Stickly’s Tavern,” and a set of stairs led down into the establishment. It was early afternoon, a time when many bars wouldn’t even be open, but he figured it was as good a place as any to look for chatty townies.
The door was unlocked, and the barkeeper was polishing glasses behind the counter. Lee sat down, nodding to her, and asked for water, hoping to avoid being carded. While he did still have Bryan’s license, the resemblance between him and his fake brother was practically non-existent.
The barkeep didn’t say much and didn’t object to him sitting and sipping his water, which was probably due to the fact that she charged him a fee for it. Lee tried to engage her in conversation, hoping she’d have answers or at least a few clues toward finding Zoe, but she only answered with shrugs and grunts.
He was near the point of giving up and leaving when the tavern’s door swung open and a new patron hurriedly made his way to the bar. He was a bald man, perhaps in his mid-forties, pale and thin and dressed in a baggy t-shirt and jeans. He was muttering to himself, and it took him close to a minute of tapping different pockets on his body to successfully locate his wallet.
“Rough day?” asked Lee.
The bald man didn’t answer him until a beer had been poured and placed in front of him. “Rough life,” he finally said.
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” said Lee.
“You a tourist?” asked the man. “It’s a fair bit out of season for your type to be around these parts.”
“Tourists come to this island?”
The man let out a loud bark of a laugh. He had a slightly grating Cockney accent.
“They do,” he said. “Bloody insufferable cunts, most of them. You’d think they’d seek greener pastures, but it’s almost as though being a backwater has an appeal of its own.”
“I can see how that would work,” said Lee.
The man took another long sip of his beer and then extended his hand. “Palmer.”
“Lee Amaranth.”
They shook. The man’s grip was bony, but strong, like a youthful skeleton.
“So if you’re not a tourist, then why are you here, Lee Amaranth?” he asked.
“I’m looking for my sister, Zoe Brock. I heard she’d moved here a while ago.”
Palmer went silent for a few seconds, drumming his fingers on the bar counter.
“Is that really why you’re here?” he asked. “It’s a damn good reason, I must say, but it smells like a lie.”
Lee chuckled. “It’s the truth. You don’t have to believe me, but it’s why I’m here. I was a little worried that I’d have no luck getting information out of the locals on my way out, but after seeing this island from the sky, I’m not sure it even matters. On an island this small, I’ll find her eventually.”
He sipped his water. Palmer furrowed his brow and flashed a toothy grin.
“I like your attitude,” he said. “It just so happens I know the fair and beautiful Lady Zoe. I feel the need to mention that your plan might run into a few unfortunate fu
cking snags if you try to execute it as described.”
“How so?”
“Let me put it this way,” said Palmer. “She’s made friends.”
“I’m aware. I’ve met a few of them, though it was a while ago, far from here.”
“You have?” Palmer whistled. “Well, that makes things a fair bit more interesting. What are you then? Mage? Sorcerer? Some other kind of supernatural fuckhead?”
Lee tried to keep the surprise from showing on his face. He glanced at the bartender, but she was organizing bottles at the other end of the counter, oblivious, perhaps intentionally, to their conversation.
“None of the above,” said Lee. “I’m just a simple brother trying to find his missing sister. If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine.”
“Slow down, I didn’t say that. I think I will help you, Lee Amaranth. If only to make things interesting.”
Palmer pulled a napkin loose from the holder on the bar counter and proceeded to scribble down an address on it. He folded it in half and passed it to Lee.
“This is…?” he began.
“The address she’s staying at,” said Palmer. “I think you would have figured this much out on your own pretty fucking fast, regardless. It’s the Masterson estate, currently inhabited by the grandson of one of the island’s most renowned residents, along with a cast of curvaceous biddies.”
“Including my sister?”
“Yeah, I thought you were aware of as much,” said Palmer. “Take my advice: make sure you show up on the front porch during the day. I would not recommend arriving during the evening hours.”
CHAPTER 15
Lee didn’t end up taking Palmer’s advice. It was a decision born from a union of recklessness and convenience. He’d been fairly certain, upon leaving the bar, that he could make it to the address on the napkin before nightfall, and fairly uncertain of his own ability to find a motel in the same timeframe.
The sun was well on its way over the horizon by the time he made it up the long, winding road that led to his destination. It was near the top of a large hill, and as Palmer had said, it was an estate impressive enough to have eventually drawn his attention even without help.
An old wrought-iron fence surrounded the property. The mansion was three stories high, recently repainted, with enough un-curtained windows for Lee to get a glimpse inside from a distance. It didn’t look as though anyone was home.
The yard had several cherry trees, though it was too far out of season for them to bear any fruit. A few beds of flowers, along with a carefully manicured garden, added to the ambiance of cultivation. The residents of the mansion, the actual House of Shadows, clearly cared about appearances.
“Well?” said Tess. “What are you waiting for? Go knock on the gate.”
“First of all, they probably have some type of buzzer or intercom at a place like this, so I wouldn’t be knocking. Second, I’m not sure that would be the wisest course of action.”
They were crouched in a small copse of trees and vegetation not far from the road. Lee had pulled Tess into his mystic stream, and she’d found a few flowers to twist into her hair. She wore only a loose, cornflower-blue sundress and walked barefoot on the grass, clearly happy to have a break from the traveling and danger. It made what Lee was about to propose feel like a hard sell.
“We’re sneaking in,” he said.
“Your sister is supposed to be here. You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”
“Maybe, but maybe not,” he said. “It doesn’t look like anyone is inside the mansion right now. While I technically have the option to wait around for Zoe to show up, I’d rather get a sense of who I’m dealing with first.”
“Is that supposed to be a pun on the Dealmaker’s name?”
Lee ignored her. He started moving, crouching low as he ran toward a spot where the trees in the yard provided a small amount of cover against the wrought-iron fence.
“Lee!” called Tess. “Hold on! I’m really… not sure about this.”
He scaled the fence without much trouble, dropping down on the other side. It was risky, and it could backfire, but he still considered it to be a wiser option than finding and approaching Zoe directly.
He was already on a remote island, and that fact alone might trap him within the Dealmaker’s sphere of power once he revealed his presence. He needed to know if the House of Shadows had skeletons hidden in its closet, literal or figurative, before placing any amount of trust in them or even in his sister.
“Tess,” he whispered. “Can you unlock the back door for me?”
“This is a terrible idea,” muttered Tess. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
“Did you say something?”
She swatted him on the shoulder. Lee pulled her back into his mystic stream and caught her wrist, placing a soft kiss on the back of her hand.
“See,” he said. “I do listen.”
Tess rolled her eyes, trying and failing to suppress a small, dimpled smile. She lifted the hem of her sundress up and skipped toward the back door, becoming ethereal again as she drew in close. It only took her a few seconds to slip through to the other side and unlock it.
He opened the door as silently as he could, creeping inside and shutting it smoothly. He was in a lounge area with a high ceiling, couches, several furnished chairs, and a large fireplace. Despite the silence and lack of lights that greeted him, the space felt actively lived in. He could smell the lingering scent of dinner from the kitchen, garlic and spices, and he could feel the gentle current of the air conditioning’s churning.
Lee moved forward slowly, pausing every couple of seconds to listen and look. The front of the mansion had a foyer with an archway staircase leading up to the second floor and a door underneath that presumably led to the basement. He glanced over at Tess, who was wringing her hands in the fabric of her dress. He pointed a finger up and then down, gesturing the question. She scowled, shrugged, and pointed up.
The second floor held half a dozen bedrooms, which seemed like too few given the small army the Dealmaker had had with him during the attack on Primhaven. He was lucky that nobody was home, but it raised the question of just where, exactly, they were.
He reached another small lounge area at the end of the hall next to a study and a few more doors that Lee didn’t have time to examine. As soon as he stepped into the upstairs lounge and took in the general layout, he was interrupted by a soft, cooing voice.
“Oh? What have we here?”
A powerful sense of danger prickled the back of Lee’s neck. He turned around slowly, feeling naked and vulnerable without his kris dagger or any real weapon to speak of. A woman stood in the doorway, blocking any chance of escape.
She was a stunning example of what can happen when the stars of maturity and genetics align. Pale blonde hair hung loose across her shoulders. Her full lips were quirked into a small smile, and she had her arms folded over a very large pair of breasts, which was a small tragedy, considering she wore only a thin nightgown.
Her hips and butt were plump in a perfect counterbalance to her upper half, and she was barefoot. She looked like she’d just woken up and climbed out of bed, though the confidence she held herself with made him extremely wary of her.
“Lee Amaranth,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Mira,” said the woman. “Ryoko didn’t tell me we were expecting a guest tonight.”
She stepped forward into the lounge, and the features of her face became fully visible in the glare of the setting sun. Her eyes were a deep, unnatural scarlet. Lee heard Tess gasp and shift closer toward him.
“Lee!” she hissed. “She’s dangerous!”
He knew that already, but kept his expression as calm as he could, as though he was facing down a wild animal. It was all he could do, really.
“I’m looking for Zoe,” he said.
“I don’t believe you have an invitation to be here, Mr. Amaranth,” said Mira. “Which means you’re tr
espassing.”
She reached behind her and slowly closed the door to the lounge, turning the lock into place as she did. Her smile was growing wider, her lips trembling slightly, as though she was trying to keep her excitement under control. Lee felt unnerved by that, and only just resisted the urge to take a step back.
“Zoe did invite me,” he said. “Though I guess I may have, well, waited a while before taking her up on the offer.”
Mira didn’t seem to hear him. She inhaled through her nose and her eyes briefly fluttered closed.
“Mmmm…” she sighed. “You have such a pleasant smell. Masculine and rebellious. Like a young lion ready to step out from the pack.”
Tess tried to tap him on the shoulder in warning. It wasn’t necessary. He already sensed the attack coming, telegraphed by her focus and stillness. Mira was a blur as she rushed toward him, hands outstretched and aggressive.
He dodged, spinning in the direction of the door and then back again as she moved faster than he could, cutting him off. There was a bookshelf against the wall, and he snatched a heavy volume from it and flung it at Mira as she came at him a second time.
She blocked it, but not with her hands. A tendril of pliable shadow shot outward from the back of one of her shoulders, diverting the projectile with casual ease. Lee had seen the Dealmaker use the same trick, and as the dark supernatural appendage stretched forward to wrap around his waist, he focused his will and used dispel.
Mira gasped and scrunched her face up in surprise. “Interesting. I’ve never seen that trick before. It won’t be enough, unfortunately.”
She blurred again, surging toward him. He dove low, rolling across a polished coffee table and landing in a sprawl. He came to his feet quickly, grasping his wrist in the conjuration casting stance, and flung his palm forward as Mira tried to grab at him a second time.
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