by E. A. Copen
The mirror. I focused on my haggard reflection staring back at me. Khaleda might not have wanted to admit it, but there were demons after her. She couldn’t just walk away from her father’s empire and expect them to leave her alone. Sooner or later, someone would come for her, and when they did, no locked door would stop them. I reached out to touch the mirror.
“What the hell are you doing in my room?” Khaleda slammed the door closed behind her, but it didn’t latch thanks to my spell. Her upper lip twitched as if to snarl. Then she remembered the bucket of ice in her hands and stormed to the mini-fridge to put it away. “I stepped out for two minutes to get some ice, and you decide to break in and what? Stare at yourself in my mirror? I swear, Josiah, you get weirder every day.”
I stepped away from the mirror, putting my hands in my pockets. “Could’ve left a note.”
“I don’t have to tell you every time I go somewhere. And since when have you ever been concerned about where I go and what I do? I’m not the one who disappeared on a bender for a week.” She slammed the fridge door shut and collected her car keys from the desk.
“I never asked you to look for me, Khaleda.”
Khaleda stepped toward me, but her expression softened. “What the hell happened to your neck?” She extended a hand to touch me.
I swatted it away. “It’s nothing. Shaving accident.”
She sighed and put one hand on her hip. “If something happens to me, the only thing you’re out is a driver and someone to bitch at when things don’t go your way. But if you die…Well, let’s just say I don’t think God’s Hand has much use for a succubus. Keeping you alive keeps me alive.”
“You sure that’s the only reason you came looking for me?” I flashed her a knowing grin.
Khaleda let out an exasperated growl and turned. “If you want a ride, it’s leaving in two minutes.”
The ride across town took longer than it should’ve. Power had been restored to most of the grid, but it was as if everyone had forgotten how to drive in the few hours it was out. There were more wrecks than there had been during the snowstorm. New Yorkers. Give them a foot of snow, and they’re right at home, but take away the rigid structure they’re used to and the city devolves into chaos. Hadn’t anyone told them rules were made to be broken?
Stefan’s house was in the twenties block of 33rd Street, tucked among brick apartment buildings. There weren’t many houses on that stretch of road, so it was easy to find. It was a white, two-story brick building with a tiny yard surrounded by an iron fence. Not much to look at on the outside. One of those plastic red snow shovels sat tucked up on the porch next to a big bag of sidewalk salt. There wasn’t any mail sticking out of the box on the porch, which struck me as odd. If a person had gone missing for three weeks, his mail ought to be piling up, yeah?
I got out of the car and stopped in front of the fence to give it a good shake. Pure iron. Could be coincidence, or it could be more evidence that Stefan was into magic. Maybe he’d gotten in over his head. That’d be a good reason to disappear. The wrong spell could consume the human body in a matter of seconds, not leaving behind so much as a speck of ash. But there would’ve been evidence that he’d been mucking about with magic out of his league, evidence I hoped to find inside his house.
The metal gate groaned as I pushed it open. No protection spells activated as I stepped onto the property, no early detection magic. Of course, we weren’t likely to be the first people looking for Stefan at his house. Someone else could’ve triggered all the magic weeks ago.
“Front door’s open,” Khaleda observed, sliding past me. She climbed onto the porch and gave it a light shove. It squeaked open into a darkened room.
I stopped on the walkway next to the stairs. A clay pot had been overturned, and the cactus in it pulled out by the roots. It now lay in a pile of potting soil. “Alexi Komnosis is looking for him. I expect we’ll find the place tossed.”
Khaleda walked back to the edge of the porch. “Strange place to leave a cactus. It’s not nearly warm enough for it.”
“Old Greek tradition,” I said and did my best to scoop the cactus back into the soil. “Keeps evil spirits out.”
“So this Stefan guy was worried about attracting some bad attention?”
“Or he’s just an old-fashioned superstitious traditionalist.” He didn’t strike me as such from the photo, but I couldn’t rule it out, not until I knew more.
The first room was a narrow transitional space with a coat rack to the right. On the left, the frame of a large mirror, big enough to take up most of the wall. Someone had shattered it and left the pieces where they fell.
“Does that strike you as odd?” I gestured to the broken mirror.
She shrugged. “Could’ve been broken in a fight or by accident. Or maybe Alexi’s men broke it, thinking something might be behind it.”
“Do me a favor and search the coat pockets, would ya? Might find something of interest.”
I moved into the next room, which was a long, wooden hall with a set of narrow stairs. The remains of a handcrafted runner sat in tatters on the floor. Someone had ripped it up, probably when they searched the place. But if they were looking under the runner, they weren’t looking for Stefan. And the plot thickens, I thought and took the stairs.
The upstairs had three rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and another room with a closed door. Bedrooms were where most humans kept their intimate secrets. For some reason, they felt it was the safest place, going so far as to hide fortunes in mattresses during dire times. If I wanted to understand Stefan, that was the place to look, but I knew one better.
I ducked into the bathroom. Someone had gutted the medicine cabinet, pulling out an array of pill bottles and tossing them into the sink, toilet, and bathtub. Once again, the mirror had been shattered. One was an accident. Two was suspicious. If we hit three, we’d have a pattern.
I sifted through the broken glass in the sink to pick up a few bottles, none of which had the name Stefan Nikolaides on them. Valium, Xanax, Percocet, Vicodin, Adderall… He had enough pills in there to run his own pharmacy. Chances were good he was. A lot of money to be made swapping pills for cash. Could be he was doing it on the side without Alexi’s blessing, but then that was hardly any reason to offer such a reward to have him returned alive.
The stairs creaked. I pocketed the Vicodin and a few of the Adderall and went back into the hallway just in time to intercept Khaleda as she came up the stairs, a crumpled receipt in hand.
“Cigarettes and booze at the corner store,” she announced, shoving the receipt at me. “Nothing interesting.”
I unfolded the receipt and smoothed it out on the wall. “Menthols and ouzo.”
“Does it make a difference what he smokes and drinks?”
I shrugged and put the receipt in my pocket. “Maybe. Another broken mirror in there and enough pills to put big pharma out of business.”
“So he’s a junkie low life.” She folded her arms.
I shook my head. “A dealer probably with stock like that.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not sampling the stock.”
“Doesn’t mean he is either. Let’s stick to the facts unless we have evidence to back up our theories.” I nodded down the hall. “Do you want the bedroom or the other one?”
“I’ll take the one I know best. You can have the mystery room.”
I nodded, and we each went our respective ways.
The doorknob buzzed with the faint touch of magic. I moved my hand over it, trying to discern the purpose of the spell, but couldn’t. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been triggered yet, despite the door being slightly open. Out of an abundance of caution, I opened the door slowly. Nothing exploded and no fireballs launched at me, so I assumed it wasn’t a dangerous spell and ducked inside the darkened room.
The air immediately felt different, heavier. Wood polish and faint, more natural cleaning chemicals had been used in there, and recently. I tried the light, but it didn’t come on. I’d
have to resort to angel fire to light my way. Bugger all. Using all my magic this early is going to wear me out before things get interesting. Just the same, I extended my hand and tried to summon the fire, but it didn’t answer. I tried again only to get the same results. Something was blocking me.
That spell on the door. I cursed. Guess Stefan wasn’t a small-time practitioner after all.
With no artificial lighting and my magic failing, I resorted to my lighter. The tiny orange flame lit up a space about a foot and a half in front of me, barely enough to see anything. I stepped and stopped as the light fell on the edge of a permanent circle carved into the wood floor. At first glance, it looked like a magic circle, but not one I’d encountered before.
And here I thought I knew the purpose of every magic circle, I thought and knelt to put my fingers to the edge of it. As I shifted my weight forward, the light touched some Cyrillic writing passing through the center of the circle at a curve.
“Can you read Cyrillic?” I shouted to Khaleda in the next room.
“Of course I can,” she yelled back. A moment later, she appeared in the doorway a large square case in hand. “But his stuff isn’t in Cyrillic. It’s Greek. Cyrillic would be Slavic.”
“What’s that?” I asked, standing and gesturing the case.
She held it up. “The last surviving record in his collection. The rest have all been broken and scattered around the bed.”
I took the record case from her and whistled. “Fantastic Planet. This is a good one.”
“The band’s name is Failure,” she said, crossing her arms. “No wonder I’ve never heard of them.”
“No, no. They were a nineties grunge band. Bunch of fuckwits thought they sounded too much like Nirvana, but they needed their hearing checked. Failure put a lot more effort into the texture of their music, the layering of harmonies and signal processing. Really, for the era, they were ahead of their time and would’ve gone on to do great things if they could’ve gotten past their creative differences.” I leaned into the light and carefully pulled the record out. Spotless.
“Well, other than that and a few books in Greek, there wasn’t anything too interesting in the bedroom. Look like you got the interesting room.” She leaned around me for a glance into the room. “What’s the circle for?”
“Nothing.” I slid the record back into the case. “The room is sealed against magic, so it makes no sense to put a magic circle in it. It’d be impossible to activate.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she noted and snapped her fingers. “Oh, I almost forgot. There was a vanity in there. Mirror’s smashed to hell. Do you think Stefan did all the mirror breaking or whoever tossed the place?”
I shook my head. “No way to know for sure. What about his clothes? Were there empty hangers in the closet? Suitcases?”
“All still there.”
I mumbled a curse. It was something at least. Stefan had left everything and fled, but why if he was supposedly untouchable? And why the impossible circle? Things just didn’t add up.
Khaleda sighed. “What exactly are we looking for, Josiah? With all this stuff lying around, don’t you think it’s likely he just got in over his head and pissed off the wrong customer? He’s probably at the bottom of the river by now.”
“Only one way to know for sure.” I snapped my fingers. “Go and fetch my bag, will you? I left it in the bloody car.”
She crossed her arms. “And what are you going to be doing that’s so important you can’t fetch it yourself?”
I put an arm around her and walked her back toward the stairs. “We’re searching for a man who doesn’t want to be found. In a city the size of New York, he could be anywhere. So how do you narrow that down? You get inside a fella’s head. Know thy enemy, Khaleda.”
Khaleda rolled her eyes. “He’s not really our enemy so much as he’s a paycheck for you, isn’t he?”
“Same difference usually.” I grinned at her when she shot me a threatening look and waved. “Don’t rush back.”
Chapter Five
KHALEDA
I cursed Josiah’s name under my breath all the way back to the car, wondering if I should’ve just left him in that graveyard to freeze to death. The things he dragged me into… The things I did for him and not even a word of thanks. It was enough to make me consider getting in the car and driving until the road ran out. If God’s Hand didn’t have a noose around my neck, I would’ve.
His bag was in the back seat where he always kept it. This time he’d tossed it behind the driver’s seat, which meant I had to go out into the road to get it. I looked up and down the street, ensuring it was empty before stepping around the car.
Cold steel pressed against the back of my neck just below the hairline when I leaned into the car. “Get in the car, Your Highness.”
I turned my head slightly to catch a glimpse of the man behind me. He was taller than me and wore a pair of dark sunglasses. The bottom half of his face hid behind a thick, black beard.
He sighed, bored. “Don’t be stupid. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. Get in the fucking car.”
Couldn’t argue with that logic. Besides, I’d be better able to maneuver once the gun wasn’t resting against my spine, and maybe he was in a talkative mood. I slowly raised my hands in surrender and slid into the back seat.
“Up in the front, behind the wheel. That’s right. Now close the door and buckle in.” He waited for me to comply before he sat behind me, keeping the gun level with my head. “Hands on the steering wheel.”
“Are we going for a drive?”
“Sure. Why not? Drive and talk. So long as you don’t try anything stupid, we can be civil.”
I put the car in gear and eased onto the gas, directing the car back into traffic. “So who do you work for?”
His thick lips twitched. “We’re not here to play twenty fucking questions, Highness. You’re going to tell me all about this job Manus Dei has you on. How many bodies?”
“One so far. Why? Should we be expecting more?” I tried to glance in the rearview mirror, but he shifted the gun, warning me. I put my eyes back on the road.
“Was there a mirror?” he spat.
“If you’re so interested, why don’t you ask them?”
“Yes or no, Highness! Was there a fucking mirror?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was shattered.”
He cursed.
I slowed the car to a stop at a red light. A smattering of fat raindrops hit the windshield, so I turned on the wipers. “You know, maybe I’d be more helpful if you told me who you were and what you wanted.”
“Who I am isn’t as important as who you are.” He adjusted the gun slightly. “We don’t have to be enemies. In fact, I would prefer it if we were allies. It’s a pity that things have broken down so much since your father’s death. I represent a faction of demons that would like for things to go back to the way they were with one minor adjustment. You’re going to go back where you belong to be Queen of Hell.”
I stared straight into the rearview mirror, ignoring the barrel of the gun pointed at me. “I don’t want anything to do with Hell.”
“Afraid you don’t have a choice. If you don’t take over right now, we’ll remain scattered, fighting each other. And while we do that, someone far worse is about to climb out of The Pit. Someone nobody wants out. You think you’ve seen bad? Think you’ve been through torture? You just wait until the main event. Things are about to get a whole hell of a lot worse real fast.”
“If you think what I went through was nothing—”
“I don’t, Your Highness.” He pressed a gloved hand to his chest, feigning offense. “But some do, and some say you deserved worse. Some say you liked it.”
I spun around, letting the barrel of the gun rest against my forehead. “Tell anyone who thinks that they can come check with me personally. I’ll redefine the meaning of pain for them.”
He tipped the gun aside. “Oh, please. You’re
losing your edge, Highness. Being around all these humans has made you soft. They say you’re barely even feeding, and it shows. We’ll have to remedy that if you want to stand a chance against the other contenders.”
I made a gagging sound and turned back around when the car behind us hit their horn.
“No reason for you to act all high and mighty, Ms. Morningstar,” said the demon. “I’ve seen the broken shells of men you leave behind. Don’t act like you’re better than anyone just because you destroy their minds and not their bodies. You’re just as depraved as the rest of us monsters.”
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel until it creaked.
He gestured toward the road with the gun without ever turning his head. “Eyes on the road, Highness.”
I took a turn, cutting off another car in the process. “Say I agree. I can’t just walk into Hell and take the throne. I’ve got no army. No support. I left looking weak. My father made sure of that.”
His chuckle made my skin crawl. “You’re not serious? Half of Hell is ready to throw their support behind anyone willing to step in and stop what’s about to happen. Besides, you’re a succubus. You’re in New York. Improvise. I’m sure your Nephilim friend has a stockpile for starters, and he won’t be needing them anymore. Not if he keeps poking his nose around where it doesn’t belong.”
I took another turn. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say the more demons he pisses off, the shorter his lifespan gets. Stop the car.”
I stomped on the brake and slid to a hard stop, almost causing the car behind me to rear-end us. They cussed me out and pulled around me, stopping to give me the finger on the way. I scowled at them, and they sped up.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think it over, Highness,” said the demon, popping open the rear door.
