by Vivian Wood
Groaning aloud, she pushed off the wall and propelled herself down a few blocks. She wandered aimlessly for a bit before heading to her own apartment, lest Kirael be following her. The whole time, thinking: too many questions, not enough solutions…
7
Vesper
In the middle of the night, Vesper’s phone started blaring. She sat up, blinking into the TV-lit twilight of her bedroom, then leaned over to grope the night stand for her phone.
She’d fallen asleep watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was her all-time favorite show. She’d seen all the episodes so many times that watching just a few minutes of Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking vampire ass felt like getting a really warm, familiar hug.
She glanced at her phone screen, which was entirely blank. Some paranormal entities seemed to somehow defy the trappings of modern technology, which was beyond annoying.
“Fucking Kith bullshit,” she muttered before she answered it. “Hello?”
“Vesper, Vesper…”
She screwed up her face for a moment, trying to identify the voice. “Jacinth?”
“Correct.”
She sat up, trying to focus.
“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” she growled.
“Because these are my business hours,” he snapped. “And a little bird told me that not only did you fumble your attempt on the Lesange’s life, you made nice with him afterward.”
Vesper’s breath caught for a second. “Maybe it’s part of my technique.”
“To make him rescue you from Hell? Are you playing the longest game of assassin ever?”
She sighed. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to do what I asked, Vesper.”
She licked her lips, hesitating. “I don’t think I can. He’s too strong.”
“That’s too bad,” Jacinth said, his tone going flat. “I think you just need some incentive.”
“Jacinth, please…”
“Don’t bother. I’ve already sent orders to transfer your sister.”
“Transfer? What does that mean?”
“Just that we’re calling in our debt now, and she’s going to work it off in a manner I see fit.”
Vesper’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times.
“What are you going to do to her?” she finally managed, her voice breaking at the end.
“We’ve made a deal with one of Lesange’s former comrades. Expanded our business by opening a blood brothel in a new part of town. In Hell, to be specific. I’m pretty sure your sister is on her way there as we speak…”
“You wouldn’t,” Vesper breathed.
“I did. I think this should really be a lesson to you, Vesper. If you sign a contract with a Vampyre, you’d better hope that all goes as planned. Otherwise, things get unpleasant.”
“I can… I can still…” she tried.
Jacinth laughed, a cruel sound. “Don’t bother. I’m not even going to pretend to give you another shot. You’ve angered me.”
There was a sudden click.
“Hello? Jacinth?” she asked, but he’d hung up. “Son of a BITCH!”
She dropped the phone onto the bed and lay back. A soft knock at her door, Aurora’s soft voice on the other side.
“I’m fine!” Vesper shouted, and then she lay still until she heard her roommate’s retreating footsteps.
But she wasn’t fine, not in the least. She picked up her phone and tried to call Mercy, wondering if maybe Jacinth was just trying to scare her. She jumped when she heard the three-tone blare come across the line.
“You’ve reached a number that has been disconnected,” a voice told her.
“Shit,” she said, staring up into the darkness.
How in the Hell have I managed to actually make Mercy’s life worse than it already was?
And then, Now I either have to kill a fucking Fallen angel, or break into Hell and steal my sister back.
She reached over and flicked on the lamp sitting on her bedside table, then shoved back the covers and got to her feet. With this much on her mind, sleep would be impossible…
She either needed to know how to kill Kirael, or how to get into Hell without Jacinth’s help. The answers weren’t going to appear here in her room, but the Twilight Library in the Grey Market would be a good starting point.
Looking at her watch, she groaned and started to dress.
Life was about to get really, really difficult from here on out.
8
Vesper
Slamming yet another book shut and tossing into the haphazard pile collecting on her library desk, Vesper stood up and gave herself a shake. The cavernous, dusty library was practically empty — this was the time of night that Kith were the most active, so it made sense.
Finding the answers she needed was proving impossible. Or rather, she was finding the answers, but they weren’t what she needed to know.
Killing Kirael was out of the question. She’d need to have the flaming sword from another Fallen, someone at least as powerful as he was. She’d need to cleave his head from his shoulders and pierce his heart, then do some insane-sounding ritual to send his soul spiraling away.
She’d have to make him cease to exist, basically… plus, it would take her months to gather the needed equipment, at the very least.
And if she were to be completely honest with herself, Vesper didn’t have it in her heart to banish someone’s soul.
Nor could she seriously consider killing Kirael. It would be a damned shame to kill a man that good-looking, in the rare event that he didn’t kill her first once she attacked him.
That left breaking into Hell, which was a truly Herculean task. Apparently Hell had quite a sensitive system that detected the entrance and exit of every person, and it was quite difficult to fool.
The methods of trickery to effectively enter Hell broke down into three categories: complex potions with bizarre ingredients, various types of body metamorphosis, and kidnapping or blackmail.
None of those options were particularly accessible to Vesper at the moment.
Ergo, she was in a pretty tight spot. Scooping up the whole armful of books, nearly staggering under their weight, she carried them to the return cart. She stomped out of the library, brushing past the unmanned circulation desk, then pulled out her cell phone.
Thumbing through her contacts list, she realized that she really only had one option at this point: she needed to head to Crane and Co. Being a freelance employee, Vesper hardly ever went into the office, but her employer might at least be able to give her a starting point.
She trudged seven blocks east, passing through the marketplace and into a small side street of service-oriented businesses. Witch doctors, exorcists, and practitioners of Kith law.
Emerson Crane was the latter, a Kith lawyer who took on all sorts of different cases and assignments. If, in the course of those proceedings, someone needed a private eye or needed someone hunted down and orbed… that was where Vesper came in.
A bell tinkled as she pushed open the heavy front door and made her way into the office. The front room was stuffed to the gills with stacks of cluttered, dusty files.
Vargus, her half-feral werewolf of a coworker, was sitting at the sole desk and chair. Well, if you considered feet up on the desk, leaning back and taking a nice long nap sitting. Between his enormous seven foot frame and the fact that he was permanently half-shifted between human and wolf, he generally terrified anyone seeing him for the first time.
When Vesper introduced herself at their first meeting and shook his hand, unflinching, she’d somehow managed to make herself a friend for life. A grumpy, mostly insane friend who scared everyone in his path. But still…
“Hey,” she said, slapping the bare sole of his foot.
He startled awake, sweeping a stack of files to the floor as he scrabbled to get himself upright. A little cloud of dust rose, making Vesper cough as she waved it out of her face.
“Wha? Urmph,�
�� Vargus said, rubbing at his eyes.
“I need to talk to Crane,” Vesper said. She didn’t bother to ask if he was in; Emerson Crane arrived promptly at five p.m. every day and left at exactly three a.m. He liked rules and order. And above all else, he believed in the power of a good schedule.
“Mmmkay,” Vargus said. Then he raised his voice and shouted through the door into the back office. “Crane! Vesper’s here!”
When no response was particularly forthcoming, Vargus shrugged and waved Vesper on. Vargus was no legal eagle; his job at Crane and Co. was that of bodyguard. For being slow and prone to random naps, Vargus was astonishingly quick and effective when it came to necessary violence.
Vesper swept through into the back office, which was every bit as spotlessly tidy as the front office was chaotic. Crane was sitting at his pristine desk, looking down his nose over his reading glasses at a sheaf of legal documents. His white hair was neatly parted, his tweed suit immaculate.
When Vesper entered, he took off his glasses and stood. Polite nearly to a fault, he gave Vesper a little bow before falling back into his chair with a sigh. He moved as slow as molasses, which drove Vesper crazy, but then again he was the oldest living creature she’d ever met.
“This is an unexpected visit,” he said, eyeing her curiously as he checked the time on his pocket watch.
Vesper’s lips twitched. “I need a favor. Or perhaps some advice.”
“Oh?” he asked, his brows rising with surprise. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”
Vesper had the good grace to flush a little. Sure, she could be a little… opinionated. She generally meant well, even if she could be more than a little gruff about it.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Sure, sure,” he said, gesturing to the empty chair across from his desk. “Sit, please.”
Vesper rested her butt on the arm of the chair, earning a disdainful look from Crane.
“I need to sneak into Hell,” she said.
Crane gave her a perfectly blank look, blinking. “Excuse me?”
“You know the situation with my sister,” she said.
Crane nodded.
“Well… one of her bosses offered me a trade. My sister, in exchange for running down a particularly tough bounty.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” he sighed.
“Kirael Lesange.”
Crane straightened. “Isn’t he…”
“Fallen, yeah.”
Her boss dropped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose for a few moments before speaking again.
“You didn’t take it, I hope,” he said, though his tone said he knew just what she’d done.
“I did.”
“And, presumably, you neither killed him nor died,” Crane surmised. “A draw, in your book.”
“But now the Vampyre who contracted me is very, very angry. And he’s taking it out on Mercy, moving her to a blood brothel in Hell, someplace I can’t even visit her to make sure she’s all right.”
Crane stood abruptly. He began pacing the room, muttering to himself. Vesper stayed quiet for a few minutes, letting him think it all through. When he stopped and turned to her, the look on his face wasn’t what she’d call hopeful.
“Have you any friends who are advanced practitioners of Voodoo?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you know any dragons?”
“What? No. Do dragons still exist? I thought they were extinct,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
Crane waved her question away. “I will assume you’ve already considered trying to shapeshift.”
“I can’t acquire that skill in a reasonable amount of time, so… that’s out.”
“There’s really only one quick way in, as far as I can tell.”
Vesper stood. “Tell me. That’s what I’m here to find out.”
“Well… I’m not sure it’s viable.” He paused. “Exactly how angry did you make the Fallen angel?”
Vesper was rooted to the spot, her brain whirling, trying to piece together a possible avenue for rescuing her sister.
“Umm… not too angry, maybe?” she guessed.
Crane gave her a stern look.
“All right, I stabbed him, but he didn’t seem that mad about it,” she confessed.
Crane closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling deeply.
“Vesper, I suggest that you go about trying to make amends, and quickly. Even better, if I were you I would be trying to figure out what you can offer him to help you.”
“I don’t know a thing about him,” she said, her lips twisting.
“You’re a part-time private eye. I’m sure you can work something out, no?” Crane asked, shuffling over to retake his seat.
“Right,” she said, nodding. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
“I’m here if you need me,” he said. When he glanced down at the papers on his desk once more, she took it as a dismissal and headed back out into the front office.
“How’d it go?” Vargus asked, not looking up from the Times Picayune newspaper he held.
“Good, kind of. How do you feel about doing a little profiling for me?”
He folded down the paper to glance at her, and she tried not to snort aloud when she saw he was reading the comics.
“Anyone interesting?” he asked.
“Oh, you know. Just your usual Fallen…”
“What? Tell me everything!” he said. Gossip was Vargus’s very favorite thing. Next to naps, at least.
“Clear off somewhere for me to sit, and we can hatch a plan,” Vesper said. “I need your help figuring out his whole story, and any weaknesses I can exploit.”
“Vesper, I love it when you talk all aggressive to me,” Vargus said with a toothy grin.
As Vargus jumped up and started moving files around, a smile tugged her lips for the first time since Jacinth’s phone call.
Maybe, just maybe she could fix this…
9
Vesper
Vesper flipped through what felt like the thousandth musty old scroll, squinting to make out the contents.
“Archangels through the ages…” she read aloud to herself. “Ugh, useless.”
She shoved the book away and yawned. Looking at her watch, she tried to decide whether she needed more coffee or some water to balance out the zillion cups she’d already guzzled down.
She didn’t want to attract any more attention to herself, since she was already accompanied by a seven foot tall hairy man in a suit. Coupled with her resting bitch face, head-to-toe leather outfit, and the katana on her back… they were turning a lot of heads.
“Hey,” Vargus said, poking his head into the cramped back room of the library that Vesper had staked out as her territory for the last two days. “I think I might have something.”
“Really?” Vesper said, perking up a little.
“Well… you aren’t going to love it, probably,” he said, fidgeting.
Vesper sat back in her chair, giving him a long look. “Go on…”
“Remember the time that Laagos demon camped out in your apartment and tried to kill you?”
Vesper canted her head. “Yeah.”
“And I came over to help you roust it, which was… interesting.”
Vesper sighed. “Yeah. I really liked that couch, but it was burned beyond reckoning.”
“Right. And then, for the briefest moment, I met your lovely roommate.”
“Oh, yeah…” Vesper said with a snort. “You were ridiculously awestruck. I woulda thought you were meeting a celebrity or something.”
“As I told you before,” Vargus said, looking annoyed. “It was not her beauty.”
“Suuuure.”
“Vesper… she’s a Null.”
Vesper stood and stretched. “I don’t know what that means, dude.”
“Have you ever sussed out what kind of Kith she is?”
Vesper paused. “White witch, I think.”
“Nope.”
; “What’s a Null?”
“Someone who’s magically… blank. She’s the center line between Heaven and Hell, someone born with the specific goal of settling debts between the two kingdoms.”
“So?”
“So… have you read a lot of end-of-the-world prophecy?”
“Assume that I have a life and therefore haven’t read any,” Vesper said, beginning to lose patience.
“In many doomsday prophecies, a small collection of Nulls side with either Heaven or Hell. Eventually they decide whether Heaven or Hell wins the eternal war.”
Vesper squinted at him, trying to make sense of his words. “What?”
“In this… interpretation, Heaven and Hell are playing against each other. The game is complex, as elaborate as…” he paused. “Well, as the entirety of humanity, I guess.”
“And the Nulls… what, choose sides?”
“More like they’re… convinced. By the righteousness of Heaven, or the lavish comforts of Hell. Either way, whichever side ends up with the most Nulls will sort of… win.”
Vesper took a second. “Okay, one: I don’t like the word win used in this scenario. Two, that makes Nulls sound pretty damned important.”
“They are. And it just so happens that your roommate is one.”
Vesper gave him a long look. “You’re crazy.”
“I’m not, I swear it.”
“How do you know? How long have you known?”
“I met her when I ran into you both at the market, remember?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well, the second I looked at her, every hair on my body shot straight out. I knew she was unusual, I just didn’t know what kind of unusual. And it took me months to figure it out.” He gave her something close to a bashful look. “I researched it in my free time.”
“Nerd.”
“And yet, you choose to hang out with me,” Vargus pointed out.
Vesper blew out a breath.
“Okay… well… If she’s such a hot commodity, why would she be hiding out, living in some cramped apartment with me?”
Vargus shrugged. “Beats me. Trying to avoid being tempted by Lucifer, maybe?”
