Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3)

by Deborah Wilde

  Levi and I walked over to Harbour Center, a tower that housed both the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University and a revolving restaurant on the top with 360° views of the city. The door to the restaurant also happened to be the entrance into Hedon from Vancouver.

  He’d illusioned himself as a blond man so we wouldn’t be spotted together, or his destination tracked.

  “Slow down,” I said, practically jogging to keep up with his long strides. “You’re not going out for a night on the town. Best case scenario is trauma and danger in a reality that shouldn’t exist.”

  He did this goofy little dance. “Exactly.”

  I fell out of step with him, pretending I didn’t know the giant weirdo.

  Levi laughed and caught my hand, pulling me along. Most people would be shitting themselves at meeting someone like the Queen. Or at least, they’d be super cautious instead of leaping into the situation like it was the most fun they’d had in a long time.

  “You do remember this isn’t a social call,” I said.

  Levi sighed, all humor gone and a weight seeming to settle around his shoulders. I wished I could take my words back. “I’m House Head. I never forget what’s at stake,” he said.

  “Okay, Leviticus.” I squeezed his hand. “Let’s have ourselves an adventure. You’re welcome.”

  “No, you’re welcome for my genius idea of hiring you in the first place.” He winked and pulled the skyscraper door open.

  After convincing the woman manning the cash register to take the coins, a basic weeding-out ploy, we were directed to one of the glass elevators that crawled up the outside of the forty-plus story building.

  Levi dropped the illusion once we were inside the car.

  Unlike my first time, when I’d been wedged in with a boisterous Greek family, Levi and I were alone. This was good, as the menace rolling off him would have scared the bejeezus out of any poor schmuck stuck in here with us.

  I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall, watching Levi instead of the magnificent view of the skyline, water, and North Shore Mountains. “Are you scared?”

  “No,” he said. “But it suddenly got a lot more real.”

  “My first time involved my father.” Levi coughed a laugh and I winced. “Very bad phrasing. The first time I took this route, the Queen saw into my heart and discovered that what I wanted more than anything was to be reunited with Adam.” I snapped my fingers. “And there he was. It wasn’t enough that he appeared exactly as I imagined he would, or that he smelled of Old Spice and lemon candies. If I wanted to get in to Hedon, we had to play a trust game.”

  “Shit.” Levi leaned against the railing with a hard exhale. “Of all the people.”

  “Right? I’m telling you this so you’ll be ready for whatever’s coming. As much as you can be.”

  “Well, you obviously kept it together and won the game,” he said.

  “No. Trusting Adam was beyond me. I threw a knife into his solar plexus and shattered the illusion. Whatever secret desire you’re harboring? Be prepared to destroy it.”

  Levi gave me a long measured look. “I’ll remember that.”

  “At least your dad won’t make an appearance,” I said.

  Levi didn’t answer.

  “After everything he did to you? You can’t wish he was in your life.”

  “I don’t. But…” He fiddled with his cuff links. “He wasn’t this horrible abuser twenty-four hours a day. He played soccer with me. A lot. Taught me how to handle the ball and told me stories about how growing up he dreamed of playing for Italy in the World Cup. My father is smart. He saw the potential of cryptosecurity and the importance of data when they were still kind of a frontier to conquer. He worked hard and he built up his business. I admired that about him.”

  “Is that why you developed that virtual reality tech? To impress him?”

  Levi put his hands in his pockets, watching the floor numbers change. “I challenged my predecessor for House Head as a fuck-you to him, that’s for sure.”

  “Right. That was the only reason. Not to protect Nefesh.”

  “Fine. The fuck-you was a secondary reason. But I love taking care of my community and I wouldn’t have that if it weren’t for Isaac.”

  “It’s not that easy to write him off,” I said.

  “Much as I’ve tried.” He suddenly looked a lot more tired and older, like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep in a while. He turned a weary smile on me. “Does that make me a fool?”

  “It makes you human.”

  The elevator slid to a stop and the doors silently opened.

  I manifested a blood dagger, my blood armor covering me from head to toe. I wasn’t sure what demon of Levi’s we’d face, but better to be safe than sorry. I exited the elevator first, inching forward, and braced for whatever illusion to appear.

  Nothing did.

  I spun in a slow circle. “Maybe as a House Head, you’re off the hook?”

  “You really think the Queen makes exceptions?”

  “Only painful ones.”

  “I feel so much better now.” He followed me onto the white tiles in the welcome area outside the restaurant.

  The revolving door spun lazily, alternating a flickering view of tables covered by crisp linens in full sunshine with a foreign night, its crescent moon an eerie shade of yellow.

  Levi stared, rapt. “I had no idea.”

  “Wait until you get inside. Hedon seems all exotic but it’s dangerous. Don’t forget that.”

  “Grazie,” he said sarcastically. “I didn’t become House Head without one or two survival skills. Or brain cells.”

  “Even when I hated you, I didn’t think you were stupid. But you’ve got to admit, there’s a part of you that loves risky ventures. First you went into the virtual reality biz, which no one would consider a sure bet, then after you invented whatever thing it was you did there and made a gazillion dollars selling the company, you went for your next crazy challenge. House Head. Except that hasn’t been as thrilling as you’d hoped, has it? That’s why you’ve been so eager to be part of my Jezebel investigations.” I spread my hands wide.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” he said bitterly.

  I frowned. What I’d said was maybe a little snarky, but it wasn’t a lie. “I feel like this is becoming a fight. Why—”

  “I know exactly what I’m getting into and I will keep them safe,” he snarled. His eyes blazed and his breaths came in harsh rasps.

  Huh? He wasn’t making sense and he’d gone from zero to Hulk-rage, which was totally unwarranted. I stepped forward, hands up, but he didn’t react. In fact, on closer examination, he wasn’t looking at me, but rather slightly over my right shoulder.

  Cold fingers of dread trickled down the back of my neck. I turned around.

  A second Levi stood there. Physically he was identical to my Levi, except he wasn’t. The was an impregnable air about him. A flawlessness. I had the feeling that if he removed his shirt, there wouldn’t be any scars.

  I couldn’t hear anything the pretender was saying, but the real Levi’s face was red and the veins in his neck throbbed. I was scared he was going to stroke out from rage. My blood dagger held aloft, I rushed the pretender and bounced off some kind of shield.

  “Whatever impetuous action you were about to undertake. Don’t.” Moran, the Queen’s henchman stepped out of the revolving door, holding his motherfucker of a sword. He wore his normal white disco-inspired suit and boots, his white hair cut shorter than the last time I’d seen it.

  I pressed against the forcefield I was stuck in. Now I couldn’t even hear my Levi’s side of the argument. All I could see was the anguish on his face. I gripped the blood dagger so hard that my palms burned, but my vicious slashes failed to penetrate the shield.

  Dropping my blood armor, I slammed my magic into the forcefield, tearing it down.

  Another one immediately sprung up.

  Three more times Moran and I played this game until I snarled, �
�Enough.”

  “That’s not for you to determine.” Moran watched the proceedings dispassionately. “Nor is it your place to intervene.”

  “How is this Levi’s heart’s desire?”

  Moran laughed. “Wherever did you get that idea?”

  “Isn’t that the price when entering Hedon for the first time? The Queen looked into my heart, saw my deepest desire, and gave it to me.”

  Results not as expected.

  “Did she?” Moran’s sword disappeared. “Or did she look into your heart and see your deepest fear?”

  That visit with my fake father had brought up my worst nightmare. I’d been forced to trust him—and failed. Then I’d killed him. Was that my deepest fear? That the release of my magic had started me down a path where I’d have to kill Adam?

  Impossible. I would never… But what if I had to in order to get the scroll? Not literally kill him, but take his magic? Break him. For all intents and purposes destroy him as definitively as if I had murdered him. Images of the gibbering mess that I’d reduced Mr. Sharp to rose up hot and thick, making me gag.

  I swayed backwards on my feet like I’d been punched.

  “You’re not entirely wrong,” Moran said. “Often our deepest desires are tightly bound up with our worst fears. You faced yours, and now Mr. Montefiore must confront his.”

  I tore the magic out of the force field one final time. There was a slight pull on the air around me, and it dissolved. But it was too late.

  The fake Levi was gone.

  So was mine.

  My blood armor snapped back into place and I stared Moran down with a cold smile. “Technically we’re not in Hedon yet, so you’re not protected by the Black Heart Rule.”

  “Correct. Bluster and threaten all you wish, Ashira, but that won’t bring him back.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  Moran plucked a thread off his sleeve. “Did you know that Mr. Montefiore is the first House Head to ever visit the Queen? Willingly,” he amended.

  “That’s no reason to hurt him.”

  “The Queen is not going to hurt him.”

  “She’s already hurt him.” I’d had to face my father, Levi had to face himself. How many new scars would he bear in places I’d never see?

  “If he can’t take care of himself, what use would the Queen have for him?” Moran gave me a low sweeping bow, stepped backward into the revolving door, and was lost to sight.

  Levi had to prove himself.

  There was nothing I could do to help Levi with his immediate situation. Losing the armor and the dagger, I stepped through the revolving door, bracing myself to be overwhelmed by a deafening, nauseating magic.

  But I wasn’t.

  Still eternal night, the sticky quality of the air was gone. The magic was a cool mist. I started, double checking I was in the correct place, but as always with this entrance, I’d come through to the tiny plaza with the weed-choked fountain. I’d always found Hedon’s magic repulsive, yet the foundational magic that had been a blaring dissonance making my skin crawl had changed into a vanilla bean–scented kiss.

  Hedon had been broken, but its last remaining Architect had fixed it beautifully. It could no longer be expanded, but it was also no longer in danger of blowing apart at the seams.

  Following one of the crooked cobblestone streets into the business district, I stopped at the kiosk with the electric blue ramen bowl floating above it. A bald man whistling a jaunty tune rolled out handmade noodles on a large board. I asked for directions to the cocktail bar with the Queen of Hearts’ logo and he sent me to a street three blocks over where the Green Olive was located.

  This area was a trippy cross between Blade Runner and a renaissance fair, all bathed in the glow of dozens of magic signs that hung in the sky brighter than any neon. Women in velvet gowns sung choral harmonies to entice buyers to their stall, which sold deadly-looking wind-up toys made of metal and spite.

  Another stall was shrouded in smoke, with only a steampunk cat mask visible through the swirl of fog. A paw extended wearing an intricate ring made up of dozens of tiny gold and silver gears.

  “Poison to settle your debts?” a voice purred. “It’s thought-activated.”

  The gears lifted off the band and flew together, transforming into a black pointed barb.

  “Handy, but not what I’m in the market for,” I said.

  “Another time.” The barb fell back into the gold and silver gears adorning the ring and the paw retreated into the mist.

  I hurried around a corner into an outdoor covered market. There were no walls, but fluted columns soared up to a glass ceiling. One stall showcased pyramids of spices in jewel tones that promised both enhanced flavor and useful benefits like paralysis and death. Another featured rows and rows of eyeballs. The proprietor lifted her eye patch to pop an eyeball in. With each blink, she enthusiastically described all the various modes: night vision, X-ray vision, and—she glared at a rat scurrying by, which dropped dead on the spot—looks that killed.

  I declined her promotional offer of twenty percent off my first eyeball.

  The rows grew narrower as I made my way to the back. This area was mostly given over to restaurants, a cacophony of smells from garlic, seafood, and baked goods to something acrid that made my eyes water. Clanging cookware assaulted my senses.

  There was only one non-food stall here. Liquids in a rainbow of colors were housed in glass bottles, some delicately wrought, others heavy enough to bash someone’s skull in without any damage to the glass. Alongside them were unguents in cracked clay pots and shining tins, their lids open to display the goods.

  For a perfume stall, there should have been a riot of scents but I could smell nothing over the food.

  A woman with pale gold eyes stepped out of the stall, offering to sell me a rose-red perfume that she promised would induce love. Refusing, I tried to zigzag sideways to the exit, but I was blocked by a kiosk rolled directly into my path.

  “How about this?” She followed me, holding up a gorgeous bottle with art deco flourishes and a fat, tasseled perfume pump. Inside, a midnight-blue liquid swirled.

  “No, thanks.” To avoid her, I jogged diagonally to my left, accidentally knocking aside a plump man whose arms overflowed with prickly scarlet plants that looked otherworldly.

  “It’s an experience like no other.” The woman with the bottle followed me.

  I tried to speed up but my passage through the press of shoppers and chaos of deliveries was impossibly slow and I stopped in frustration.

  There was a furtive waving from my right. Adam, or the fake Hedon version I kept encountering, stood wedged between a raw foods bar—the food in question being eerily unidentifiable—and a place with rows of chicken feet hanging by the entrance. Wearing the battered black trench coat he’d been so fond of, Fake Adam motioned me over, but I shook my head.

  The Green Olive and its answers about Mayan awaited. I had no time for gameplaying with Reasonable Facsimile Dad.

  Unfortunately, my hesitation allowed the woman to catch up to me. She sprayed a plume of perfume in my face. “Very good, yes?”

  It smelled cold and sharp, like being outside at 2AM and hearing a creak from behind. You know it’s nothing. It’s nothing. But it’s not nothing.

  I plucked at my clothing, my eyes darting around the market. “What scent was that?”

  She was gone.

  Everyone was staring at me. Cold sweat beaded the back of my neck. I sought out Adam, because even the illusion of my father was better than the sneers of derision and voices pitched low.

  I couldn’t find him. Sound and color spun distortedly. I clapped my hands over my ears, paralyzed. There was no way out.

  A phalanx of the Queen’s Guard, in black tactical gear with mesh obscuring their faces, marched into the market. The Queen’s logo of a heart with a crown and specter was stitched on their upper arms. They stopped, their gazes homing in on me.

  The Queen had sent them. Bringing
Levi had forced her decision into whether I was her enemy or not.

  My heart kicked against my ribcage twice and I bolted, fleeing up the narrow rows. The vibration of thudding boots shivered up through my feet. How would I escape them?

  There. Just ahead, peeking out from behind the side wall of a storefront. Adam watched me with a forlorn look.

  I sprinted over to him. “Help me.”

  “You had your chance to escape, little jewel.” Adam held out his hand. “Now you have to hide.”

  The guards marched closer.

  “Show me.” Clasping hands, we ran blindly through the market until the covered area fell away into a dense thorny thicket. Was his grip too tight? Was he leading me only to betray me?

  I tore free and, crouching low, eased into the bushes, twisting through them until I’d lost him. My leather jacket took the brunt of the damage, my arms up to protect my face. I stopped, listening for footsteps, the branches comforting in their confinement.

  I could stay here forever.

  No, they’d find me here too. I had to go deeper. Hide so thoroughly that no one would find me.

  “Good girl.” Adam appeared, squeezed in next to me in this tight space. “I taught you well.”

  He hadn’t taught me, though. He hadn’t been there at all.

  And he wasn’t here now.

  Sorrow, heavy and dense, welled up inside me. I manifested a blood dagger, feeling the weight of it so irrevocable in my palm. Then I lifted the blade and slashed myself.

  Chapter 9

  The pain in my forearm was accompanied by a clarity that cut through the fog of this induced paranoia.

  “You,” I said to False Adam, “begone.”

  “Little jewel—”

  No, I knew better now. There was one person in Hedon who knew enough about me to conjure that image of my father up in the first place. One person who would want me incapacitated and unable to fight back.