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

by Deborah Wilde

  The puppy, however, wasn’t an adult human who could fend for herself if I fucked up.

  Tatiana had conducted these awful magic experiments on the dog and yet she’d still had hope. She still trusted humans enough to be the first to venture out of that cage. She never bit me or anyone else, no matter how much they deserved it, despite having experienced so much cruelty at the hands of others. She’d trusted me to get the magic out of her, and I had. She was the Pug Who Lived.

  How could I not want her after all that?

  I pressed a kiss to the top of her sandy-colored head. “For better or for worse, you’re stuck with me.”

  She thumped her tail.

  “I love you, too. Oh.” Nope. She was just trying to get to the squeaky cow which had gotten stuck between two sofa cushions. “We’ll work on that.”

  I left Pri a note saying I was going away for work and not to worry if I wasn’t around.

  Levi agreed to watch Mrs. Hudson while I was gone. I was in such a rush, I barely had time to dump the pug and all her stuff into his arms and give him a quick kiss before hopping back in my taxi.

  Rafael and I met up in the lounge outside the gate. There wasn’t much to do while we waited to be called for boarding, so we read the closed captioning on the news playing on mute on the mounted TV screens.

  Jackson Wu’s sound bite about his friend was being replayed along with news of a looming transit strike.

  “I appreciate you sticking to the plan and letting me handle the scroll,” Rafael said. “As promised, I’ll help when it comes time to destroy the Sefer, but until then?” He fiddled with the straps of his leather carry-on bag. “I never want to experience that all-consuming loss of control again.”

  Focusing on Rafael’s well-being was better than my shaky existence. “You won’t have to.”

  Even for an overnight flight to Mexico, Rafael was nattily attired in another argyle vest and bowtie, his linen shirt sleeves precisely rolled up. “I’ve brought a special container for the scroll.”

  “Is it a Tupperware?”

  “No. Though they’re surprisingly useful, Ashira. If you stopped for a moment to read the journals, you’d know this as well. Now, we should get through this without anything going—”

  I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?”

  A commercial came on the TV featuring some loving couple videochatting via laptop with their daughter who was away at university.

  I pulled out my phone, calling up my contact list of favorites, my finger hovering over Talia’s number. Should I have given her some warning about trying to find Adam? My mother didn’t like surprises and I hadn’t considered what her reaction to her Nefesh husband’s reappearance might be. How could I expect a genuine connection when I hadn’t, even for a second, thought what this could mean, both personally and professionally for her? Given her some warning to prepare?

  I might not like Talia’s way of reaching out to me in our new normal, but at least she’d tried. All I kept doing was dropping bombshells on her.

  Rafael nudged me. “Look.”

  The TV had cut to a story about arrests made in the murder of a brother and sister who’d been part of a dogfighting ring. One of the gang members, a Mundane, had confessed to the killings. The footage showed a man with his head down, being led away in handcuffs.

  I made a sound of disgust and put my phone away. “Chariot found some patsy to take the fall.”

  “Not everything is tied to them.”

  “So it’s a coincidence that Yevgeny and Tatiana, both of whom had ties to the organization, were taken out?”

  “No,” Rafael said. “It’s a result of their greed. If their experiments with the dogs were intended to undermine the gang, then that’s motive. One thing about Chariot that we’ve learned over all these years is that they are very pragmatic. If someone is of use, the organization keeps them around.”

  The gate agent called our row to begin boarding.

  “It’s betrayal that’s one strike and you’re out,” Rafael said.

  I grabbed my carry-on and swung it over my shoulder, hoping to hide my shiver. “Nothing like a clear company policy.”

  Chapter 24

  Modern Zihuatanejo had retained all the charm that I vaguely remembered from the trip with my parents when I was little. Narrow cobblestones wound through downtown past bustling restaurants. The water was clear and fishermen spread their daily catches out on the sand by their boats at Paseo de Pescador. The air smelled of coffee, frying chilis, and a tinge of exhaust.

  Arkady had provided me with the name of a pub where this Avi Chomsky hung out, along with the fairly regular hours that I’d find him there.

  The Crushed Barnacle made my favorite drinking hole, Blondie’s, look like the Four Seasons. The décor took its inspiration from Davy Jones’ locker, emulating a shipwreck with splintered beams, half a ship’s carcass hanging lopsidedly from chains on the ceiling, and bleached fish bones scattered on the sand floor.

  “Charming,” Rafael said, sidestepping a skeleton wearing a dusty pirate hat that was perched on one of the bar stools.

  The bar was packed with men, all of them cheering the very loud soccer match on the big-screen TV.

  I muscled my way to the bar, slapping off some wandering hands, and, in the case of one particularly persistent creep, whose Hawaiian shirt was stretched tight over his beer belly, threatening to stab him with my dagger.

  “I’ll stab you with my dagger,” he leered, showing me his missing teeth.

  “Do it and I’ll rip it off and shove it up your ass.”

  He belched and returned his attention to the game.

  I ordered a couple of beers that both looked and tasted like piss, and Rafael and I wandered through the bar. We found Avi in the back room, playing a round of darts with a thin man who reeked of pot. Avi wore a faded black t-shirt, khaki shorts, and flip flops.

  Rafa raised an eyebrow at me and I shook my head. Avi’s features were a plausible match, especially given the burns, but he was too short to be my father.

  I sagged against the doorframe, reaching a hand out to steady myself. Get it together, Ash. A dead end didn’t mean the end of the trail. I almost turned around right there and then, airport-bound to go home and find a new path to pursue, but the coincidence bothered me. I could buy the existence of other Avi Chomskys in New York, but here in Zihuatanejo? The place had less than one hundred thousand people and wasn’t exactly famed for its Jewish population.

  Their game wrapped up and Avi pulled the darts out of the board. His opponent paid up and shambled back into the front room.

  Avi sized Rafael up. “Want to play?”

  Rafael smoothed a hand over his vest. “I was known as Double Trouble back at my local pub.”

  “Oh yeah?” Avi said. “Real sharpshooter.”

  I groaned. Double Trouble meant you couldn’t quite hit the double necessary to win the game. “I’ll play you.”

  Avi gave me an indulgent look, then shrugged. “I like to spice things up with a bet, but we can go easy.” He slapped three hundred pesos down on the table next to him. Just over twenty bucks Canadian.

  “Sure.” I matched his bet and took my darts.

  I got a couple of “lucky” throws in, but lost the game. I shook out my hands. “I can do better. Play again?”

  “You going to lose again and then fleece me on the third game?”

  I smiled grimly. “How about I just trounce you on this one?”

  “You think you can?”

  “Try me.”

  Avi pulled out his wallet. “How much?”

  “An answer.”

  He stilled. “To what question?”

  “Play and find out.”

  Avi moved his T-shirt to show the butt of a gun. “I’d prefer to know now.”

  “26L1,” I said.

  His gaze went distant, then he shook off his stupor and put away his wallet. “I got no issue with him.”

&
nbsp; I barely caught my flinch. This was it. The point of no return. “You know who 26L1 really is,” I said.

  “Is that why he sent you? I got no more clue now than when he hired me and arranged the wire transfer. Assure your boss I don’t know what his name is and I’m happy to keep it that way.”

  “What was the wire transfer for?” My voice sounded tinny and very far away.

  He laughed. Not even cruelly, just like he was genuinely amused by the question. “He had a horse he needed put down.”

  My heartbeat slowed like there was a lead weight tied to it. I’d gone from a childhood viewed through rose-colored glasses to an adolescence and early adulthood in a cold unforgiving gray, but I’d been secure in the knowledge that the bottom had already dropped out of my world and I’d survived. It couldn’t get worse than this.

  How wrong I’d been.

  If you want to spend the extra money, little jewel, spend it on clarity.

  My father was dead.

  The world turned red. My blood armor locked into place and I slammed a fist into Avi’s jaw, sending him crashing into the far wall.

  One team scored and there was a roar of cheers from the front room. Rafael hurried to the doorway, standing guard.

  “How did you resist his Charmer magic?” I advanced on Avi, but after three steps, my armor disappeared. I desperately tried to summon my magic but there was only empty space.

  Avi pushed to his feet, his gun drawn.

  Rafael shielded me, one arm thrown out to each side to keep me behind him. “Ash, he’s a null.”

  The one possibility I hadn’t considered because nulls were so rare. Then again, who was I to talk?

  Avi waved Rafael over to the table, demanding we both keep our hands where he could see them. “I’m also a very good shot, so step back. Who are you?”

  A sluggish fear swam up from deep in my core as I stared down the barrel of that gun, but it was flash frozen into a cold, hard ball of rage. “Ashira Cohen. Did you kill my father?”

  “Possible. I killed a lot of people.”

  “Avi Chomsky was his alias.”

  “Aw, girlie. Did you come here looking for some kind of closure? He didn’t suffer, if that helps. One clean shot.”

  “When?”

  “Hmm. It was after Cuba, so maybe fifteen years ago? Look. I was hired to a job. I did it. It was business, nothing personal.”

  My father was dead, and with him every last shard of hope I’d so carefully nurtured all these years. And for what? Men playing power games? A bullshit dream of immortality? My fists clenched.

  “I wouldn’t.” Avi cocked the trigger. “You have no magic and this isn’t the kind of place where anyone is going to come running to help you."

  “What were his last words?” I ground out.

  Avi shrugged. “You think I’d remember that after all these years? Come on.”

  Right. A job. So inconsequential that Dad’s dying words weren’t worth remembering. I blinked hard to clear the wetness from my eyes.

  “And the scroll?” This couldn’t all be in vain. I couldn’t have lost him for nothing. Something good had to come out of this.

  “What scroll?” Avi scratched his chin with the gun.

  Rafael grabbed the pint of beer and chucked it at Avi. It fell short, smashing on the ground, beer staining the sand, but the noise caught Avi off-guard.

  I grabbed a dart and chucked it.

  It hit him in the arm, causing his shot to go wild. The sound in this small room was deafening, but no one bothered to investigate. Tough crowd.

  Rafael lunged at Avi, wrestling him for the gun. He slammed Avi with some kind of complicated forearm strike, smoothly yanking the gun from his grasp.

  Avi stumbled back.

  “Drop the nulling,” Rafael said, the gun trained on Avi.

  “Fuck you.”

  Rafael coldly fired a bullet into Avi’s foot.

  He screamed, and fell to the ground, writhing and bleeding.

  Two misshapen swords appeared in my hands. I tossed them away, my magic flaring wildly.

  “Now,” Rafael said, “what happened to the scroll?”

  “There wasn’t one.” Avi’s hysteria-tinged words had the ring of truth.

  The ball of ice in my core cracked and broke, releasing a slithering darkness. I jumped Avi and started wailing on him, smashing his jaw to pulp. “There has to be a point.”

  “Ashira,” Rafael snapped.

  Everything was red: my vision, my fists, Avi’s face. But it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even beginning to be enough. I called up my magic and hooked it into his.

  Rafael grabbed my shoulders, but I threw him off, dimly aware of my Attendant crashing into the table that still held my beer.

  I wrenched Avi’s magic out of him and stabbed my red forked branches into it.

  He gasped and clutched at his heart.

  So weak—and mine for the taking. My last sliver of rationality yelled at me to stop. I was killing him. This was a line I could never uncross, never make up for, but it wasn’t too late.

  I smiled, pouring more power into him. I was the instrument of a goddess. An eye for an eye.

  Avi spasmed, his eyes rolling back to show the whites. His face disappeared, replaced with my father’s, wearing an expression of deep sorrow and disappointment.

  With a frustrated cry of rage, I pulled my hands away. Avi’s magic snapped back into his body. He was unconscious, but alive.

  “Get out of here,” Rafael said, already calling for an ambulance. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He didn’t look at me as he spoke.

  I stumbled outside, wracked from head-to-toe with violent spasms from stopping the process of taking Avi’s magic. I made it as far as the beach out back, where I collapsed in the shade of a nearby palm tree, my heart skipping beats. Plagued by dizziness, I clawed at the sand.

  A woman in a housekeeping uniform from one of the hotels crouched down to ask if I needed help. Water? A doctor?

  She was so kind, slinging my arm over her shoulders to help me up. She didn’t deserve to have me sneak my magic inside her, exhaling in the sweetest relief when I confirmed she was Nefesh.

  I had never hated myself more for what I was about to do, but that siren song in my head was drowning out the very ocean itself.

  “Ashira!” Rafael sprinted across the sand to us. He took me off the woman’s hands, assuring her that he would get me help. Believing I was suffering from sunstroke, she told him where to find the nearest clinic, and hurried off to her shift. Safe.

  “Help me,” I whimpered.

  His expression hardened. “You promised,” he snarled.

  My legs buckled; I was almost bent double, sweating while the world swam drunkenly around me. Every particle of light stabbed me in the eyeballs.

  Rafael dragged me to behind a boat parked on the sand and tossed me on the ground. His shadow fell over me, blocking out all light. “You knew this could happen if you aborted the magic destruction. I should have trusted my instincts. You’re a liability, but you won’t make me one.”

  I reached a trembling hand out to him, flinching as he abruptly pivoted, leaving me convulsing in the brilliant sunlight.

  The world dipped and swirled, a fever dream pulling me under. It was getting harder to resist, but I had to. I had too much to live for. Spasms rocked me in burning waves. I was on my knees, hyperventilating with my forehead pressed to the sand, and holding on to my loved ones’ faces like talismans. My ears popped and blood dripped from my nose, but bit by bit I fought my way back until the pain receded. I took a full, slow breath. Rolling onto my back, I blinked up at the clouds through bleary eyes, my thumb and forefinger pressed against my nostrils to staunch the bleeding.

  Motion flickered in the corner of my vision, and I turned my head to find Rafael squatting nearby, watching me, one hand over his mouth.

  “At least this’ll make for a juicy entry in my Jezebel file, right?” The bitter words scor
ched my throat.

  He poured some water from a plastic bottle over his handkerchief and gave them both to me. “Yes.” He said it like it was penance.

  I scrubbed my face, washed off the dried blood, and drank deeply.

  When I tried to stand up, Rafael was there to help, but I declined his outstretched hand and got myself on my feet. Standing was the extent of my abilities, however, so I allowed Rafael to get us to the airport and check us in without arousing too much suspicion.

  Levi’s travel agent had arranged for stand-by tickets on our return flight since we hadn’t known how long it would take us to deal with Avi, and we managed seats on the last plane back that night.

  Luckily, my condition had more or less worn off by the time we cleared security. Rafael led me to the gate and then hesitated, his eyes on departure boards and passengers dodging each other’s luggage as they hurried to their destinations. He opened his mouth, looked at me, then closed it. With a sigh, he slipped off to join the crowds browsing the shops and getting overpriced food before catching their flights.

  I didn’t call him back. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to get away from me.

  I sat in numb silence on a plastic chair watching excited passengers come and go, wondering how anyone could be happy when my father was this traveler who was never coming home, and waiting for the tears to come. Hoping they would because Dad was dead and I felt nothing beyond a grim anticipation for revenge on the person who’d orchestrated his murder.

  We boarded in silence.

  Dad had tried to con Chariot with the fake scroll. That was the only thing that made sense. He’d intended to give the true piece to Gavriella, and somehow this 26L1 had found out. One strike. Dad’s betrayal had been his death warrant.

  There was one piece of the puzzle that my brain kept worrying over, though: what had happened to the real scroll?

  It was much easier to dwell on that. I eyed Rafael, who was pretending to be engrossed in an article about the hottest beachfront resorts in Thailand. I didn’t require ice in my drink given the frostiness rolling off him.