Phoenix Born

by Sean Stone

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ethan muttered. ‘Why would he—’

  ‘Ruby Hassell. And what a hassle she was,’ Dorian said slowly. He turned, drink in hand, to face us again. There was no remorse on his face, no guilt or shame, just weary irritation. ‘Did the two of you think you were the only men she was sleeping with? Oh no, Ruby was… let’s just say she liked to sample many dishes. She wasn’t as virtuous as she made you believe,’ he said to Ethan. Ethan was looking at him in confusion, still trying to wrap his head around what I already understood. Dorian was the cities biggest womaniser and possibly its lowest moralist.

  ‘I brought her back here the night I met her. The problem with Ruby was that once she tasted something she liked she kept going back for more. She liked the life I could offer her and couldn’t understand the fact that I wasn’t actually offering her it. She hounded me day and night, begging me to consider taking her on as a girlfriend. I believe you had the same experience, Jacob?’

  I nodded. Ruby had texted me multiple times after Ethan had caught us together. She wanted to leave him for me.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Ethan said in a choked whisper. The poor guy was having his entire reality smashed open. It would’ve been a mercy to let him continue thinking his fiancee just wandered astray with me.

  ‘Ruby was always looking to upgrade. Myself and Jacob were both several steps up from you, Ethan. She told me that the night you proposed she was embarrassed to accept the ring you offered.’

  There was no need to tell him that. That was maliciousness purely for the sake of it. I was getting the sense that Dorian was enjoying himself. He was relishing in bullying Ethan who was already a broken man.

  ‘I grew tired of her nonsense the night she came here and confronted me with my companion for the evening. She actually tried to scratch her eyes out.’ He smiled as if recalling a warm memory and then took a sip of his drink. ‘She died there and then. I had her body returned to her own bed because that was her station in life. A grubby little flat in the South End. That was who she was. It was where she belonged. You know the old expression; she made her bed…’

  I realised that my hands were balled into fists, fingernails digging deep into my palms. Killing her was one thing, but smiling whilst he told the story, and insulting the girl he had murdered throughout… Sure, Ruby was a treacherous snake of a woman, but she’d still deserved better than Dorian Gray. She’d deserved better than me.

  Ethan snapped and lunged at Dorian. He got nowhere. The Orchids had him on the ground beneath their bulk in less than a second. Dorian let out a boyish giggle as he looked down on the scene. ‘Take him away,’ he told them.

  They dragged him kicking and screaming from the room. He was like a savage cat, hissing and spitting until he was out of sight and out of earshot. I didn’t blame him. Dorian deserved some pain for what he’d done. Killing Ruby was a massive overreaction. He could’ve done anything to get her off his back, but he chose the most extreme and callous of his choices. Her life meant nothing to him.

  ‘What are you going to do to him?’ I demanded.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ Dorian warned as he directed his attention my way again.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He will die. Tonight. He can go and join his harlot in the afterlife if that’s his wish. I daresay she’s already found her next upgrade even in death.’

  ‘Doesn’t he deserve some mercy?’

  ‘He is going to his grave quickly and painlessly. He is going to his grave with his questions answered. That is mercy.’

  ‘You have a strange idea of mercy,’ I snarled. I didn’t even care that I was now disrespecting the most powerful man in the city. A bit of disrespect was the least that he deserved.

  ‘That man sent carnage through my city. He acted without my permission. And need I remind you that he conspired with my enemy? Our enemy.’

  I had forgotten about Magraval.

  ‘Now, in case you were planning on doing something foolish in your anger, remember where you are and who you are talking to. And remember I still know your secret. One word from me and you’ll spend the rest of your life in a cell. Or maybe your life will simply end tonight.’

  Drew’s hand closed around my wrist. I drew in a deep breath and tried to smother my anger. There was really no need to be this angry. Ethan had conspired with Magraval and Ruby was little more than a slut. She hadn’t wanted me because she had feelings from me, she’d wanted me because I was richer than Ethan. She wasn’t worth the feelings I was wasting on her. If I’d gotten with her then she would have spent our whole relationship seeking her next upgrade. Dorian was right about that.

  ‘Jacob, you may feel like I have wronged you, but I haven’t. I have wronged Ethan and I wronged Ruby. Not you. Do not make an enemy of me tonight. More than ever we need to be allies now. Magraval is after us both.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I hissed, dispelling my anger as best I could. Dorian had done nothing to me. Ruby wasn’t my problem. I’d felt guilty all this time because I thought my actions might have contributed to her death but in actual fact, even if I had been removed from the equation she would still have ended up dead. I was not responsible. If anything Dorian had done me a favour.

  He relaxed at my agreement and I noticed Monroe relax too. I’d probably just come very close to death.

  ‘I haven’t been able to find anything useful out about this Magraval. His coconspirators took any secrets they had to their graves. But I suspect they knew nothing. Magraval is a clever foe. He gives nothing away. We will have to find out about our enemy some other way.’

  ‘What about Harper?’ I asked. The mayor had survived Dorian’s assassination attempt. Would the immortal try again?

  ‘I want him alive. I want to see if he continues to scheme with Magraval. I want to see if he will lead me to my enemy.’ He fell silent as he sipped at his drink. When his glass was empty his eyes flicked back to me. ‘I’m going to ask you to leave this alone for now, Jacob. I will handle Magraval. You carry on with your life and forget about it for now. If and when the time comes for you to get involved, I will be in touch.’

  ‘He came after me. I have a right to look into this,’ I argued, growing hot again.

  ‘You are in my city. Unless you want to wear a Gray Orchid I suggest you stand down,’ he said slowly, threateningly. I had no desire to become one of Dorian’s minions. Not now, not ever.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Dorian said after I remained silent. ‘Monroe will show you out.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘He can’t be allowed to get away with this,’ I fumed when Drew and I were back at my apartment and I’d put on my dressing gown. I pulled two glasses out and slammed them down on the counter before I began pouring us both a drink.

  ‘Nobody in this city is going to stop him. Least of all you. You’ve just got yourself out of the woodshed and there’s no way I’m letting you toss yourself back in,’ said Drew. He whipped his drink off the counter and downed it in one massive gulp.

  ‘I wanted to hurt him so badly.’ I was leaning on the counter heavily, glaring into my drink. Dorian Gray was not fit to run Sangford. He couldn’t go around killing people because they inconvenienced him.

  ‘I know you did. It was written all over your face. Dorian saw it too,’ there was a touch of disapproval to his tone.

  ‘And yet he still let me leave.’ I leaned back on the counter and tipped a mouthful of rum down my throat.

  ‘He’s scared,’ Drew said simply.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘You.’

  I openly laughed at that. Loud and raucous though without any real mirth. ‘Dorian owns the entire city. He has every bit of muscle at his beck and call. Why would he be scared of me?’

  ‘Because,’ Drew paused to fix himself another drink. I noticed that he made it considerably stronger than I had. ‘You just killed a creature that everybody thought was unkillable. In comparison Dorian is considerably easier to kill. Everyb
ody knows you only need to destroy his portrait.’

  ‘Yeah but… I’d never get near it. I don’t even know where it is.’

  ‘You’re the best killer in the country. I’m a good detective. Together we could find that portrait and end Dorian’s reign.’

  I had no idea how to respond to that. I stood there staring at my uncle dumbly trying to figure out if he was actually suggesting that we conspire again the most powerful, and most deadly, man in the city.

  ‘But we’re not going to,’ he said at last, breaking eye contact with me. ‘We are going to do exactly what he told us to do. Put all this business to bed and get on with our lives.’ He crossed the room and sat down on the sofa. As soon as his shoulders hit the fabric he let out a hearty sigh of relief. The ordeal was finally over for us. But it didn’t feel like it was over for me.

  ‘What about Magraval?’ I said, joining him on the sofa. I leaned back resting my head on the back of the sofa. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the peace. It was nice not to have somebody trying to kill me. For now at least.

  ‘Leave him to Dorian. He hasn’t done anything directly to you. Until he does, he isn’t our problem. Dorian has more than enough resources to deal with him. Try to keep yourself out of trouble.’

  ‘Good plan,’ I said, my voice slurring lazily. I was already stating to drift off to sleep. I could do with a few days of normal life. Leave Magraval until he made his move. Then I’d figure out what to do about him.

  ‘I’ll tell you what though it’s nice to see you finally letting someone in,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t really let Ruby in. I didn’t care about her. Not really. I was just feeling guilty for using her. But it looks like she was using me right back. So no harm done I guess. It wasn’t me that got her killed.’ No blood was on my hands.

  ‘Not Ruby, dipshit. Leah,’ Drew growled.

  I rolled my head to the side so I was facing him and opened my eyes. ‘Leah?’

  ‘Why do you think you managed to finally draw energy from nature?’

  ‘I panicked.’

  ‘You panicked because she was in danger. You care about her. And don’t give me any crap about protecting your business assets. She’s in your head, boy. It’s about time you let someone in. You shouldn’t live your life alone. A man needs a woman.’ He gave me a friendly pat on the leg and then stood up. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said before trudging off to the spare room.

  I didn’t move. I sat in the same position on the sofa. His words echoing around in my head. I’d let her in. Leah was in my head. Maybe that should have made me happy but it really didn’t.

  I had a rule.

  No attachments.

  If Leah was my emotional stimulus then that rule had been broken. When you let people in they could hurt you. They could leave. The very idea of Leah going anywhere was…

  I had to get her out of my head. She was an employee. Nothing more.

  I fell asleep thinking about what I was going to do about this unfortunate situation.

  I woke up on the sofa. I wasn’t fully rested but a dull ache was pulsing from the middle of my right forearm keeping me from sleeping any longer. I pushed back the sleeve of my dressing gown and raised my arm to my eye line.

  ‘What the…’ I said out loud as my eyes widened in surprise. On the inside of my forearm, a patch roughly the size of a watch face had turned completely black and several thin tendrils were sticking out like tiny arms. I knew a curse when I saw one and there was no doubt in my mind that I was looking at something insidious lurking under my skin.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Drew asked from the kitchen. He was already up, dressed, and drinking a cup of steaming coffee. No matter what time I got up I could always guarantee he’d been up for at least an hour already.

  I beckoned him over and showed him the mark on my arm. He sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head. ‘Jacob, what spell did you use on Kagen at the Patch?’

  His eyes didn’t hold his usual disapproval. He was scared. ‘Uh…’ I didn’t need to say any more. He closed his eyes and groaned.

  ‘There’s a reason that spell is forbidden and it’s not just because it’s deadly. It has consequences. It always rebounds onto one of the people nearby. About sixty percent of the time it rebounds onto the caster. I can’t believe I forgot about this last night. With everything that was going on…’

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked. ‘How do we fix this?’

  Drew shook his head again. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never met anyone stupid enough to cast the spell before. From what I’ve read there is no cure.’

  ‘There has to be a cure. Every curse has a cure,’ I said hurriedly. I had not gone through all that with Kagen and Ethan just so I could end up killing myself.

  ‘We need to see Marcus. He’s Master of Spells. If there’s a cure he’ll know what it is.’

  The Hall of Wizardry was closed. My entire life I had never once seen the Hall closed. Artemis’ murder was a special circumstance. Until the Elders appointed a new Prime Wizard the doors would remain closed to all. Even the staff had been evicted from the building. Only the five Elders were allowed inside.

  Thankfully, Drew managed to get Marcus to come to my apartment that evening. He examined my arm for several minutes. ‘If we didn’t have enough going on at the Hall I’d call you to a hearing. That spell is forbidden for a reason. You can’t just break rules whenever you see fit, Graves.’

  ‘Is there a cure?’ Drew said sternly. It was hardly the time for a lecture. It was like visiting a lung cancer patient and telling them they shouldn’t have smoked all those cigarettes.

  ‘No. There is no cure,’ Marcus said before leaving. Drew actually thanked him for his time. I declined to do so.

  Drew vowed to turn over every rock on Earth until he found a cure. The only reason there wasn’t a cure already was because nobody had been dedicated enough to find one. That didn’t fill me with much hope but if there was anybody I trusted to research the hell out of my condition it was Drew. And I wouldn’t exactly be sitting idly. I would be searching for a cure myself. But first I needed to get drunk.

  I didn’t go to Alibi because I didn’t want to see Leah. The best way to break an attachment was to distance myself from the attachee. That meant avoiding Leah for the foreseeable future. To that end, I went to a bar that I didn’t even own. I still kept to the North End though, I’m not a savage.

  I sat at the bar and guzzled rum and coke until the alcohol started to take hold. That tingling that signified the beginning of tipsiness was one of my favourite feelings. Once you felt that it meant things could only get better. It didn’t take long from that point for full drunkenness to take hold and pretty soon the room was swaying like the deck of a ship.

  ‘Jacob Graves, you handled your phoenix problem spectacularly.’ I looked over to see Jasmine Sorrinell climbing onto the barstool to my left. She was dressed exquisitely as usual. Her gorgeous blonde hair was flowing over her exposed shoulders. My drunken eyes wondered down to the low cut of the top and the exposed skin of her bosom. In my intoxicated state I was powerless to stop the little noise of satisfaction that escaped my lips.

  ‘Subtle,’ she said with a satisfied smile. She liked the attention.

  ‘Sorry, I feel like I’ve been horny for weeks,’ I admitted without the smallest trace of shame. It seemed like eons ago that I’d walked into Alibi planning to take someone to bed and had instead been escorted to the police station.

  ‘Good to know,’ she replied. The barman brought over a giant glass of gin that I didn’t remember hearing her order. ‘I’ve been wondering what it is about you that has attracted my sister’s attention and managed to keep it. She’s not shallow enough to be interested in you just because you look like Tristan. There has to be more substance to you, but I just don’t see it.’

  ‘Well, come back to my place and I’ll show you plenty of substance,’ I said in what I thought was smoothness but in reality was probably pretty cringey.r />
  ‘Ha,’ she said and looked away. ‘I think not.’ She raised her glass to her lips, the movement was pure elegance. I’d never seen anyone drink in such a classy way. A little voice from deep in my mind was telling me the alcohol was making her look better than she really was. Beer goggles and all that. But even that little voice had to admit that Jasmine was an exquisite woman even when I was sober. The whole family of nymphs were. I wondered what their mother looked like.

  ‘Scared that if you come back with me I’ll make you wanna stay here too?’ I slurred, grinning like an idiot. I was dangerously close to falling off my stool.

  She turned back to me, her eyes scrutinising me curiously. She placed her finger on my chin and raised my head gently so she could inspect my face. ‘You are an intriguing man, Jacob Graves. But I will not accompany you back to your apartment. I will not become your conquest.’ She stood up and straightened her tight white dress. ‘So why don’t you accompany me to mine. And then you can be my conquest.’

  About an hour later I stumbled out of Jasmine’s fancy apartment. I walked with the cocky, satisfied swagger of a man who has finally had his most carnal needs sated. After the hour I’d just had I doubted it would be the last time I visited Jasmine’s lair. I hoped not anyway.

  As I walked away a little voice croaked — attachment problem solved.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I didn’t bother calling a taxi to take me home. The walk would do me some good. It would allow me some time to clear my mind and process everything that had happened and was now happening. The throbbing in my arm had been subdued by the alcohol and until I thought about it I had completely forgotten that I was slowly dying. I wasn’t as bothered by it as I should have been. I’ve always been a bit of an optimist. Drew and I would find a cure. Marcus said the curse was a slow developing one which gave us time to fix it.