A Touch of Magic

by Isabelle Adler

  “For fuck’s sake, I texted you nearly twenty minutes ago to let you know what happened,” Ty said. “You didn’t think I’d come to have a chat?”

  “Nearly gave me a heart attack, you did,” AJ complained, finally lowering the gun and edging around the desk to shove it into a drawer. The sleek new laptop that was opened on the desktop looked startlingly out of place. “If I’d died, it would be on your conscience.”

  “Nice of you to think I have one.” Ty freed one of the chairs that stood in front of the desk of the antique gilded globe that was occupying it, and sat down, stretching his legs. AJ was a hell of an actor, but he’d been genuinely panicked when Ty came through the door. “So what’s the deal with selling me out, AJ? You set me up pretty bad tonight. I thought we had a healthy loving relationship here. Expecting you to show up to pick the merch and almost ending up dead tends to leave a sour taste in my mouth.”

  “We do have a loving relationship!” AJ said earnestly, not even bothering to deny the accusation. “Look, I had no choice. That creep barged in a couple of hours ago with all his goons, armed to the teeth, and made me spill the beans on the job. I had to tell him about the drop-off, or he threatened to shoot me right here. What was I supposed to do? Die, and then he’d find you anyway? Besides, I tried to warn you, didn’t I? He told me not to—in no uncertain terms, mind you—but I couldn’t leave you out to dry—”

  “You sure took your sweet time about it,” Ty said, cutting him off. “Your text came in too late. They took the damned necklace, so now you’re out of your commission.”

  Losing a commission was hardly a fitting punishment for not having his back when the shit hit the fan, but Ty knew AJ all too well. The man didn’t take to being threatened with physical violence. And he had tried to warn him, even if in the end it’d proven useless.

  Ty had absolutely no illusions as to the depth of AJ’s loyalty. Their partnership was based on profit, and profit alone. But he was a damn good fence, and his connections ran deep and wide. And that profit thing went both directions, so Ty couldn’t be quick to let his indignation cloud his judgment, even if he was pissed off as hell.

  “I was counting on your resilience and resourcefulness to get you through,” AJ said gravely. “And I was right, wasn’t I? Here you are, all handy-dandy, after you’ve lost my shitload-worth-of-money artifact, and I had to explain all this to my client. So hey, I’m the one with the problems here, go easy on me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, woe is you, AJ. Do accept my humble apologies for being coldcocked and losing your merchandise. Now, can you quit whining and find out who it was?”

  “Oh, he didn’t have to introduce himself. That’s Tony Giordano, Nick Giordano’s son.” Seeing Ty’s blank expression, he added: “That’s right, you’re not from around here. ‘Old Nick’ Giordano is a big-shot crime boss from North Beach. He likes to keep his business on the down-low, but Tony has always been more…brazen.”

  Ty frowned. “So now the mafia is interested in the occult? That’s new.”

  Strictly speaking, the Italian mafia getting into the occult was new. The Chinese were into really hardcore magic shit, but they had their own network of supply and demand that Ty wisely stayed away from.

  “Not the mafia,” AJ corrected. He visibly relaxed as it became clear Ty wasn’t about to throttle him. “I doubt Old Nick has any interest in this stuff. I bet it’s all Tony’s doing. He was always an ambitious sort of fellow, from what I’ve heard, and the Giordanos have been hard-pressed by the Chinese syndicates in the recent years. That might have something to do with him wanting the amulet, though how the hell he even knew about it, I have no idea.”

  Ty rubbed his temple tiredly. For anyone with any magic sense at all, Cary’s performance was like flashing a neon sign that said Find Magic Item Here. And now with organized crime involved… He should have explained to Westfield how to handle these things properly, he thought, and then chided himself. He didn’t have time to be so preoccupied with an amateur magician. There were some things Cary would have to learn the hard way, and besides, chances were he wouldn’t see him again.

  “And who was the woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “Never mind,” Ty said. Apparently, Giordano hadn’t risked offending the beautiful sorceress’s sensibilities by bringing her into this dump, whoever she was.

  “Anyway, everybody’s all right, no harm done,” AJ continued. “We’ll just work out a plan to protect ourselves from similar shit in the future. ’Cause if the occult gains popularity with the crooks, its prices will go up, and not in the good way.”

  “I like how it’s all ‘we’ all of sudden,” Ty said. He might not be in any rush to drop AJ, but he wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. “Who says I’m gonna be working with you after getting out from under that bus?”

  “Oh, come on,” AJ whined. “You can’t seriously blame me for this. It was supposed to be a quick and easy job I’d managed to score for you. Take an artifact from a fucking common. How hard can it be?”

  “Well, it damn well wasn’t easy,” Ty growled in annoyance.

  A “common” was practitioners’ slang for someone who lacked magical abilities, and Ty was dangerously close to being classified as one, since nearly all his skill came from studious practice rather than natural aptitude. But from what he could see, Cary was definitely not a common. Ty might not have the talent himself, but he recognized it in others. The depth of it remained to be seen, but there was no question it was there, beneath Cary’s many layers of insecurity.

  “That whole debacle was the result of a big misunderstanding,” AJ said with fake conviction. “You know I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. In fact, I’ll make it up to you. It just so happens we still have the chance to recover the fee.”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  “I talked to the client right before you came calling,” AJ said. He wiped his brow in a nervous gesture. That had probably been an interesting conversation. Ty wondered again who could have commissioned the job, and what they had to say about it being botched so badly. “And once I explained everything, they were very understanding of our predicament. And now, see, they still want you to retrieve it for them.”

  “The client wants me to steal it back from Giordano?”

  “Yes! I talked you up,” AJ said hurriedly, “and I made them see it wasn’t your fault the merch was lost. And they’re willing to pay an extra fifteen percent for the expenses.” He seemed eager to get Ty hooked on the idea. “Which I am willing to pass on to you in full, as, um, moral compensation for my part. What do you say?”

  “That’s one hell of an operation you’re talking about here,” Ty said, stalling. He had to give it to AJ. He’d pulled quite a feat, convincing the client to give them a second chance. He certainly wouldn’t entrust something so sensitive with a guy who’d already failed once. AJ was his own kind of magician, and it was part of the reason Ty was willing to continue working with him. “This isn’t robbing some Harry Blackstone wannabe. These are some serious folks with some serious punch.”

  “And who better to handle them than you? Now that you know who to watch out for, it’ll be a walk in the park for someone with your skill set.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” Ty muttered, but he didn’t reject the idea outright. Yes, the ambush and the humiliation were fresh in his memory, but he was still alive and free to do what he wanted. “Okay, fine. I’ll look into it. No promises.”

  “Sure, sure,” AJ said, relaxing fractionally. “No pressure. You do your thing, scope the target, what have you. Just remember the client really wants that bauble, and our reputation is at stake here.”

  “Again with the ‘ours,’” Ty said, though of course AJ was right on that point. Reputation was everything in their business, which relied on very limited clientele and word-of-mouth-only advertisement.

  AJ just waved at him dismissively and moved to a nook that looked vaguely like some sort of a t
oy kitchen. “How about that tea?”

  “I’ll pass,” Ty said, getting up. He’d gotten all the information he’d come for and didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary. The cumulative energy of so many old and pre-owned objects piled on top of each other made his skin crawl unpleasantly. AJ didn’t have a magical bone in his body, but while Ty wasn’t a sorcerer by any means, he’d been trained over the years to sense these things more acutely. He’d also had to learn to tune them out—otherwise, he’d have gone completely bonkers at some point. “Oh, and AJ? You pull this kind of shit on me again, that gun won’t help you.”

  AJ clutched his chest dramatically, but Ty wasn’t staying for the rest of the performance. After he shut the door behind him, he could hear AJ move some stuff around, probably barricading it.

  Ty paused in the dim hallway to light a cigarette, turning things over in his head. The idea of going after the amulet for an even larger fee sounded appealing on the face of it, but it was incredibly risky. Giordano already knew who he was and where to apply pressure if he suspected Ty was still somehow in the running after the prize. He didn’t believe AJ would sell him out to Giordano when not faced with the possibility of torture or death. After all, they did have a good partnership going, despite the occasional glitches, and that was based on Ty making AJ a good amount of money. But as recent events had demonstrated, the fence wasn’t one to stand his ground under duress, and no amount of potential earnings would prevent him from tattling on Ty if the mafioso had his gun to his head again, or if the mysterious sorceress decided to hold another son et lumière.

  And another thing. AJ was usually good about keeping his clients’ confidentiality, but this time he was being extra vague, and Ty had the distinct impression Giordano wasn’t the only one the fence was afraid of. Unease stirred in his gut. Did he really want to get into all of this? Not that he hadn’t already realized he was dealing with some dangerous people here, but he wasn’t sure he should be messing with a crime boss, or the crime boss’s son, as the case might be. Not to mention an actual sorceress, and this mysterious customer who was willing to go against the mafia to get what he wanted.

  Ty was used to keeping to the shadows, sailing under the radar of both law enforcement and criminal elements, organized or otherwise. That part of his training had been deeply ingrained in him by Leland. There was nothing blatant about the way he got things done. In some aspects, he was not unlike a professional hit man, though he didn’t usually have to kill anyone in his line of work. People in the business knew him well, of course, but he rarely got into altercations with any of them, except when it came to direct competition. Even then, it was almost never a life and death situation, which in this case it most certainly would be. Objectively, the fee for the amulet wasn’t worth the risk, really, and he could always find some other useful magic trinket to replace his ring. The only thing that would suffer would be his pride.

  But no. That wasn’t how things worked. If all it took to discourage him was a little intimidation, soon no one would hire him, or worse, they’d make him do all the dirty work and then try to stiff him. AJ wasn’t the only one who had a reputation to uphold. People came to Ty to obtain those rare, dangerous, hard-to-find and forgotten objects, and he was the best at it. He’d never turned down a job because it was too difficult, and he wasn’t about to start now. It wasn’t too late to remedy the situation before word spread about his blunder. Once he had a clear plan of action, the rest shouldn’t be that hard, or that different from his usual contracts. Ty just had to make sure he didn’t get caught.

  He stomped on the butt of his cigarette and headed for his car.

  TY WAS CURRENTLY staying at a cheap motel on Geary Street. The interior was dated and worn, and not in that vintage-y, quaint style. There were a few shady characters hanging out in the lobby even at this hour, but he paid them no mind and went straight up to his room on the second floor.

  The first thing he saw when he reached the top of the stairs was the Incredible Mr. Mars huddling on the worn carpet next to the door to his room. From his posture, Ty assumed he was asleep, but the man looked up at his approach and flashed him the plastic room key.

  “Looking for this?”

  “God, you’re a leech, aren’t you,” Ty said wearily. He was tired and aching, and all he wanted was to take a Tylenol, crawl into bed, and get some much-needed sleep to clear his head. But he couldn’t help grudgingly admire Westfield’s tenacity. “What do you want?”

  Westfield scrambled to his feet, jutting his chin out defiantly. “I figure you owe me my amulet back.”

  “Do you now,” Ty said levelly. “In case you failed to notice, I don’t have it.”

  “But you can figure out how to get it back.” Westfield was looking at him with those big doe eyes again, his eyelashes long and thick almost to the point of looking fake. An edge of desperation crept into his voice. “I mean, you probably do this stuff for a living, right? What if I hire you to steal it?”

  Ty was certainly in high demand today. Was the kid even serious? It wasn’t as if he could realistically afford his services, though he must not realize it. Still, there was something about him. Like the fact he’d managed to steal Ty’s key card without him noticing (of course, he was dazed after a head injury at the time, but still) and had enough guts to follow him, despite the very real possibility of Ty shooting him on sight.

  “Let’s discuss it inside,” he said.

  Westfield hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded and unlocked the door with the card. It opened with a click that echoed too loudly in the empty hallway.

  “After you,” Ty gestured and then stepped after Westfield into the awaiting darkness.

  Chapter Four

  THE OTHER MAN moved past Cary to turn on the lights. The room was small and stuffy and smelled distinctly of mold and mothballs. A thick mustard-colored duvet on the king-sized bed matched the faded carpeting. Surprisingly, the room looked relatively clean and tidy enough to appear unlived-in. The bed was made, and there were no personal effects scattered around.

  “So,” Cary said, leaning against the TV dresser stand and crossing his arms on his chest. He was wrung out to the point of exhaustion and dying to shut his eyes and pass out, but now was not the time to let his guard down. “Thanks for the invite, um…”

  “You can call me Ty.” He removed his leather jacket, wincing, and sat down on one of the rickety chairs next to the small round table near the window. Cary suddenly thought that he must be just as tired as he was.

  “Is it like, Tyson?”

  “No, just Ty.”

  There was a small pause. “Do you know who that jerk in the parking lot was?” Cary asked.

  The guy—Ty—nodded. “Tony Giordano, the eldest son of a mafia boss from North Beach.”

  “Great.” Cary’s heart sank a little. He’d had a feeling the suit was dangerous, just not how dangerous. He was way out of his depth. What could they possibly do against someone like that? This Ty (whoever and whatever he was) was no match for the mafia, as recent events had clearly demonstrated.

  Ty was watching him intently. His eyes were a dark hazel color, sharp and intelligent. It was strange that Cary didn’t feel intimidated by his presence. Of course, he wasn’t waiving a gun at the moment, but even so, Cary instinctively didn’t think of him as an immediate threat, as he had in his dressing room. It had been only hours ago, but it felt as if eons had passed. Sleepless, tense eons of running around the city to retrieve his property while trying not to get killed.

  “Can you get it back?” Cary asked.

  It was rather unlikely, but he had to give it one last try. There was no way he could do this on his own. He could ask around and get some feelers out with his past buddies, but the chances of anything surfacing were slim. If someone so high up the food chain was interested in this item, it probably wasn’t going to end up in some pawnshop—especially considering its unusual nature. So if Ty was unable or unwilling to help, that would b
e it.

  “Maybe,” Ty said. He stretched his long legs, assuming a more relaxed posture.

  “‘Maybe’? What does that mean?”

  “It means I haven’t assessed what I’m up against yet. Theoretically speaking, yeah, I could probably steal it back, given the right circumstances.”

  “Okay,” Cary said slowly. It was a better answer than he expected, but how much of it was sound judgment, and how much empty swagger? It had only taken one blow to bring Ty to his knees, after all, and he was damn lucky it wasn’t a gunshot. “How much do you—”

  “Look,” Ty said. “I’m not gonna take your money, since you can’t afford me anyway. But I tell you what. You want that amulet? You help me get it. Since you managed to follow me all this way, I’m guessing you can pull your own weight if you try hard enough.”

  “Gosh, you make it sound so flattering,” Cary said.

  He wasn’t sure why Ty suddenly wanted his help. Frankly, the thought of going up against the mafioso in the expensive suit, his hired guns, and whoever that woman was, scared the shit out of him. But there was no way for him to find the amulet by himself, and he wasn’t naive enough to believe Ty would just hand it back to him free of charge even if they did manage to find it. This was his best shot at getting anywhere near the amulet. Especially considering all the occult stuff he knew nothing about. He was, however, good at stealing things, or at least he used to be. “If you don’t want me to pay you, what’s in it for you?”

  “If I get duped on a job, that means I’m out of my fee, and, more importantly, it hurts my rep with my clients. I can’t be known as the guy that can’t deliver. It’s bad for business. Not to mention that they took my ring, and I want it back.”