Jessica stared at the slash marks on the top of the suitcase. “To put it crudely, yeah. And—”
“And you’re the new owner. This is bullshit.”
She fought so hard not to roll her eyes. Maybe she should put out an ad in the paper just to explain the bank’s new ownership. Then she wouldn’t have to have the same stupid conversation with every single magical who walked through that door. “Deposits go in the vault, in case you forgot. Not on the desk.”
The side of the orc’s nose that wasn’t burned and scarred over twitched when he snarled at her. “I’m not here for a deposit. I’m cashing out.”
Jessica blinked. “Withdrawal?”
“That’s the only other fucking option, isn’t it?” He glanced over his shoulder again with a quick whip of his head, then turned back to glare at her. “Well come on. Get me my shit.”
She wanted to blast the other side of his face with a fireball, but instead, she gestured toward the floor beside the desk. “As soon as you get that suitcase off the desk. Kinda need the space for your signature—”
With a growl, the orc tugged the handle and flung the heavy suitcase to the floor. It landed with a thump, throwing up a cloud of dust not from the wooden floorboards this time but from within.
“Okay… I guess that works.” Jessica slid the pad of paper and inkwell toward him, then folded her arms. “You know what to do.”
The orc dipped a fat green-gray finger into the inkwell, then slapped it down on the paper and shoved the whole pad toward her. “Hurry up.”
Shooting him a deadpan stare, she slowly peeled off the top sheet and cocked her head. “Anyone teach you how to say please?”
The bank sniggered in her mind. ‘I taught you well.’
You really haven’t taught me much of anything. Be quiet.
“Listen, witch.” The client slammed both meaty palms down on the desk, making the drawers rattle in their frames. She thought she saw a flash of light peeking out from the seams of the top center drawer, but she forced herself not to look at it directly. “I got plenty of my own problems to worry about right now, and I don’t need to pile on an extra pain in my ass because you feel like being cute. Empty my damn box.”
Well this sure sounded familiar. At least Leandras had the decency to say please the last time he’d come in here looking just as disheveled and in just as much of a rush. Did anyone make a withdrawal when they weren’t in trouble?
‘Safety deposit box. Unless you walking, talking life forms name things arbitrarily, it’s called that for a reason, right?’
Jessica ignored the bank and gestured toward the hallway behind her. “Anything specific you want me to get for you?”
“All of it,” the orc snarled. “How hard is that to understand?”
Shooting him a grimace of a smile, she nodded curtly. “I’ll be right back.”
The orc kicked his shredded suitcase and grunted as she headed down the hall toward the witching vault.
Someone had a serious anger problem.
Just tell me now, bank. Jessica opened the witching vault for the sixth time in what felt like an unconscionably long first four hours of the day. Are we gonna have a repeat of making-the-wrong-withdrawal chaos?
‘You think I know what everybody’s keeping in their stupid little boxes?’
She stepped into the witching vault and shut the door harder than she intended. The echoing slam rang around inside the huge vault and made her wince. “Pretty much, yeah.”
‘Huh. I honestly didn’t expect you to pin that down so quickly.’
“So you know what’s in everyone’s boxes. Great. I want to know if I’m gonna end up fighting off warring factions of thugs if I make this withdrawal for Mr. Crabby out there.”
‘Shouldn’t be an issue.’
Great. Shouldn’t be. There was always a caveat to framing an answer that way, wasn’t there?
Jessica stopped in front of the curving wall of safety deposit boxes and held up the orc’s smeared fingerprint. The witching vault whirled and rumbled, rows of shiny black boxes spinning side to side and shifting up and down to bring the orc’s order down to her level. When the movement stopped, she approached the box flashing with green and gold light and swiped the orc’s fingerprint in front of the oval window. It flashed green, just like always, and she stepped back to get out of the way.
Nothing happened.
“Okay, if you’re trying to prove some kind of point—”
‘I’m not.’
She paused and frowned at the small oval window on the orc’s specified drawer. “So what’s the problem?”
‘Just try it again. There’s something…I…wrong with…’
“Jeeze, I get it. Don’t hurt yourself trying to explain.” Jessica pressed the fingerprint paper fully up against the oval window, which flashed again with green light, ready to go. But the drawer still wouldn’t open. “Huh. You have this kinda malfunction a lot, or is this a new thing?”
‘Jessica, it’s not…there’s…you to fix…’
“Cut it out. This guy came for his stuff, and it’s our job to get it. Let’s go.” She pressed the paper to the window one more time, but still nothing. “For real?”
The bank didn’t answer.
“Hello?” Jessica slowly turned and looked around the witching vault. If the bank was messing with her again, it had really picked the wrong time. “Okay, well he’s waiting for us to get this done. So please. A little more help would be nice.”
Silence.
Then a wave of green ripples raced across the glittering black marble floor beneath her, moving away from Jessica’s shoes in burst after burst of urgent, shimmering light. “What’s going on?”
‘Jessica!’ The force of the bank’s shout in her head would’ve been enough on its own to send her reeling backward in surprise.
But the glass pendant hanging from her neck flashed with brilliant, strobing blue light, accompanied by that searing heat against her chest. There was a loud pop and an unbearably heavy force pressing down on her, then Jessica was lifted off her feet in the middle of the witching vault and hurled backward.
Chapter Six
Jessica crashed against the opposite wall, rattling the safety deposit boxes battered by her body. The impact and the heavy force still crushing down on her knocked what was left of the breath from her lungs, and she dropped to the ground with a thud.
It wasn’t quite as painful as being stabbed in the back, but it was close.
“What—” She wheezed out a broken, choked cough, then gasped. When she pushed herself off the floor and onto her hands and knees, small ripples of green light pulsed across the black marble floor wherever she touched it. Blinking away the shock and the dizziness, she tried to get at least one foot under her but had to wait a little longer for her strength to return.
What the hell was that?
Finally, Jessica managed to get back on her feet, steadying herself with a hand on the curved wall of thousands of boxes. Those black boxes lined in gold rippled with paler, weaker green light where her fingers brushed up against them. She turned to scowl at the vastness of the witching vault.
“You have some—” She coughed again and had to take another deep breath to stave off the dizziness. “—serious explaining to do. What just happened?”
For the first time that actually mattered since she’d slipped on the glass pendant found in Tabitha’s secret closet with Jessica’s name literally written on it, the bank didn’t offer any reply.
“I thought we’d gotten past this,” she grumbled, turning slowly to find the pissed-off orc’s signature card on the floor behind her. “If you have any explanation at all for what just happened, I’d really love to hear it.”
Nothing.
“Okay, fine.” She retrieved the paper with the fingerprint and stumbled against the wall when she stood too quickly. “Forget the explanation. Just say something.”
She gave it ten seconds, gazing around the witching vaul
t with a sour, knotted pit growing in her stomach.
“Please?”
Jessica glanced down at the glass pendant resting against her chest. Inside Winthrop & Dirledge, the pendant maintained a soft blue glow—her connection to the bank, probably, seeing as it disappeared completely any time she stepped outside. But now, the round bubble of clear glass with tiny black specks was just that. No blue glow. No pulse of light. No bank’s disembodied voice in her mind.
Can you hear me?
If it could, the bank had either chosen to sever that connection…or whatever had thrown her across the vault had done it instead.
And if the latter were true, that meant there was something else inside the witching vault, maybe even inside the entire bank, that was fucking with both of their magic.
“Shit.” Jessica staggered across the glittering floors toward the single deposit box still glowing green on the other side.
Whatever was happening, she and the bank would figure out how to fix it. There was no conceivable way Winthrop & Dirledge’s sentient force had just up and disappeared forever. The place had been here for too long and withstood too much for that to be possible. Not to mention the fact that if the bank were broken, Jessica would be facing a slew of other problems racing through the front door just like those two gangs of idiots had the week before. But this time, she’d be on her own.
“So I’m just gonna bet on the fact that you can still hear me, even if you can’t say it straight to my face. Or my head. Some kind of sign would be nice, though.”
The orc’s safety deposit box pulsed twice with a weak green light, the entire thing lighting up instead of just the oval window and the gold trim.
Jessica stared at the box. “Just one more time so I know it’s you.”
Two more weak green pulses.
She puffed out a sigh and closed her eyes for a brief moment of relief. At least the bank could still respond somehow.
The fingerprinted paper fluttered in her hand as she pressed it against the window on the box. Again, nothing happened, which she’d already expected. But it was worth a shot.
So now Jessica had to walk back out into that lobby to face a severely socially impaired orc who definitely wouldn’t like what she was about to tell him. She didn’t exactly like it either.
When she approached the door to the witching vault and reached for the doorknob, it turned on its own with a faint pulse of blue light, and the door opened.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
Yes, it was definitely weird to be making promises to a building, especially after she’d grown so used to the constant voice piping up in her head. But they had a job to do, Winthrop & Dirledge Security Banking and its newest owner.
She stepped out into the hall, and the door swung softly shut behind her on its own. Clenching the still-white paper in her hand, she gritted her teeth and steeled herself for what was about to become a lot more than just a rude orc.
Time to face a truly disgruntled customer.
The orc grunted and folded his arms when she emerged from the back hallway. He looked her up and down with widening eyes and snarled. “Where’s my shit?”
Jessica plastered on a thin, grimacing smile, fully aware of the slight limp in her gait. “There seems to be a problem with your safety deposit box.”
“What problem?”
She reached the desk and gripped the edge, steadying herself against a lighter wave of dizziness this time. “I’m gonna have to get back to you about that.”
“The hell you will!” The orc stormed toward the desk, his yellow eyes blazing. “I don’t have time for this bullshit. If you can’t fucking do your job—”
“I’m doing my job.” She slowly looked up at him. “Cursing me out isn’t going to get your box open. Sorry.”
Balling his huge hands into fists, the orc literally roared in her face, spit flying from his grotesquely huge lips to splatter across the surface of the desk and across Jessica’s fingertips. “You have no idea who you’re screwing over. You’re fucking useless!”
She dropped her head and couldn’t help the low chuckle escaping her.
“You think this is funny?”
Suddenly, Jessica couldn’t stop laughing. She bent lower toward the desk, trying to catch her breath and shake herself out of this at the same time. Why was it so funny?
“Do you have any idea who I am?” the orc bellowed. “How long I’ve been coming here for that damn vault? For my things? If you don’t check yourself and get what I came for—”
“You’ll what?” Jessica whipped her head up with a gasp and finally brought herself back under control. “Fight me? Go back there yourself and tear the place apart? Good luck with that.”
“I’ll rip you apart, bitch.”
“You can try.” She grinned at him as another chuckle burst from her lips. At this point, there was no way she didn’t look completely insane. “The last magical to say that isn’t trying anything anymore.”
“You little—” The orc snarled and lunged at her.
The desk illuminated in a flash of blue light and jerked across the floor toward the angry client with a screech of wood on wood. It caught him in the upper thigh with so much force, the orc’s chest and head whipped forward and smacked against the surface with a resounding thud.
“What the fuck?” He tried to shove the desk away, but all his hulking strength could only move it two inches. One meaty hand went to his half-burned nose and came away slick with blood.
That was apparently now the desk’s most useful feature. And the bank was still in action. Mostly.
Jessica folded her arms. “Like I said, you can try. But I really don’t recommend it.”
“You’re gonna regret this.”
“Probably not as much as you do. But feel free to come back later, and we can try again.”
Blood sprayed from the orc’s nose and mouth when he snorted. “Oh, I’ll be back. And if you can’t get my things out of that damn vault, I’ll get them myself.”
Jessica shrugged. “Your funeral.”
“Fuck you.” With another growl, he swiped the dripping blood off his face yet again and flicked it onto the polished wooden floor. “They said the reckoning had come, and the fucking witch responsible can’t even do a simple goddamn task.”
Her smirk faded. “Who said that?”
“Better watch your back, witch,” he spat with a sneer. “And I’d make it quick if I were you. Looks like you’re running out of time.”
“Before what?”
Chuckling, he spun away and stormed toward the door, donning his beefcake human illusion one more time.
“Hey!” Jessica stepped around the desk. “Who told you about the—”
The second he opened the door with a rough jerk, making the bell and the metal crow jingle and clack madly against the frosted glass, the oversized suitcase slashed by who knew what kind of claws leapt from the floor of the lobby and sailed toward its owner. It clipped his hulking shoulder on the way out and sent the orc crashing against the doorframe as the suitcase spun end over end like a rectangular frisbee into 8th Street. Staggering onto the sidewalk, he spun around with a hiss, and the front door of Winthrop & Dirledge slammed shut in his face.
“Fuck you!” he roared again.
For a second, it looked like he might try to burst back inside and go for one more poorly thought-out attack. Jessica flexed her hands just in case, but the orc finally grunted and stepped away to retrieve his suitcase.
With a sigh, she ran a hand through her hair and gazed around the lobby. “Well thanks for the backup. Pretty sure I could’ve handled him, though.”
Still, the bank’s voice didn’t return.
“Right. How about a little help with the desk, huh?” When that didn’t garner a reply or a flash of blue light around the desk to return it to its place, Jessica rolled her eyes and went to move it back herself.
They’d gone through this before too
. The bank had its own way of protecting her and making its point, but she wasn’t especially fond of the thing’s insistence on making her clean up afterward. Still, an out-of-place desk and a few scratch marks on the floor were a hell of a lot better than a couple dozen bodies.
Grunting as she shoved the desk back into place, Jessica let herself return to what she’d wanted the orc to tell her, though chances were slim he would’ve stayed for a friendly chat. Someone had told him about the “reckoning”—whoever they were—and normally, she wouldn’t have given two shits about what some angry magical with a vendetta against her, the bank, and most likely the rest of the world had said.
But that was exactly what the Requiem members had called it when they’d shown up here for Leandras and that damn coin. Both shady factions, actually.
“We felt the reckoning.” That was what one of the changelings had said before calling Leandras something in a language that hadn’t sounded remotely familiar.
What Jessica really wanted to know was how the hell the rest of magical society had heard about it too. The only magical who’d made it out of that giant fight was Leandras. She and the bank had made sure of that. Which could only mean there were even more magicals out there who’d felt the reckoning just like the Requiem and Jensen’s Team Anonymous. And they were talking about it.
So there was someone else out there she could go to for answers. Jessica needed answers, especially now that the bank had apparently lost its ability to tell her anything.
The skitter of claws across the hardwood floor rose from her right before Confucius came scrambling around the corner from the other end of the kitchen. The lizard stopped briefly to look up at her with his golden eyes and hissed.
“We’re back to this, huh?” Jessica spread her arms. “I’d love to know your reason for being here at all. Immortal lizards don’t just hang around for no reason, right?”
Confucius opened his mouth and let out his signature creaking groan. Then he skittered across the empty lobby toward the back hall, stopped, and turned around to face her one more time.
The Cursed Fae (Accessory to Magic Book 2) Page 6
