My new enemy is used to fighting mages. Mages who happen to be squarely in my weight class.
That scares the Hell out of me.
Shaking off the spooky thoughts, I go back into the living room, where Nikki is still huddled in the corner. I settle down on the floor in front of her, legs criss-crossed.
“Hey, Nikki. You okay to talk?”
She gives a little nod.
“Izzy says you can stay here with her for a bit, if you want. You said your family’s out of state, right?”
She nods again, waking up a little. “Yeah. Yeah, actually, they’re not getting back for another day at least. I—I’m kind of freaking out about it, I really don’t want to go back to my sisters’ place alone, but also Izzy literally just met me and I had a whole panic attack in front of her, I don’t know if I want to be more of a burden—”
I interrupt her, trying my best to be polite about it. “Okay, I’m really sorry, I wasn’t honest enough about this. I think it would be good for you to stay here because you shouldn’t have to be alone right now, but also—I think Izzy’s a target.”
Nikki’s eyes snap up. “Really?”
“Yeah, remember how I said she’s got magic? I really wish you could hear her music, it’s so freaking obvious I don’t know how anyone else could miss it. But so far I’ve confirmed two of the missing people as mages, and I’ve already warned Izzy about it, but…”
“…she doesn’t believe in magic, ergo, she doesn’t know how buckwild things could get.”
I nod solemnly. Nikki squints.
“You’re a witch, right? Why don’t you just… show Isabella your magic? You keep trying to convince her, but it would be so much easier to just show her, right?”
The corner of my lip quirks up. “What, like this?” I take a furtive glance over my shoulder to make sure Isabella’s still in the other room, then flick my index and middle fingers up, letting a shard materialize between them. Nikki perks up—I spin the shard in my hand like a card trick, just to see her smile a little longer. “The cool thing about Isabella is, she’s really different from how I was when I started learning magic. I was trying to fill a hole in my life; Izzy’s the opposite. She has people she cares about who care about her, a great career, a passion that can fill a whole nightclub… she likes her life. Learning about magic would change it permanently. She would have to know about councils, monsters, demons—in the end, it might just seriously screw things up for her.” I extinguish the shard slowly, letting it spin into nothingness in my palm. “I’m not gonna force that kind of change. I’ll drop suggestions, sure, but it’s up to her whether or not she follows up on them. Her life, her decision.”
Nikki tilts her head; once again, I’m reminded of a golden retriever. “That makes sense.” Then her eyes light up. “Wait, did you say ‘councils?’”
“Yeah, I did. Why?”
“Does that mean there’s someone else we could go to about Joy? The cops are useless, but what about, like, magic cops?”
I suck in a breath through my teeth. “Yeaaah, about that… the magic pigs aren’t all that much better than the regular pigs.”
A tiny frown appears on Nikki’s face. “…Oh. I guess I should have seen that coming. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ and all that.”
“Pretty much. On top of that, the people who hold their leashes, they have a history with Joy.”
“Good history, or bad history?”
I squint, rubbing my jaw. “The New York Council—well, it’s technically the Northeastern American Regional Council, but they always meet here—they used to teach Joy. The idea was, if they got the most powerful mages in the region to train a psychic, they could turn her into a prophecy factory. It—it messed her up. I don’t know to what extent, she doesn’t like to talk about it. But she either left or got kicked out, and they acknowledge her now as much as they acknowledge me. Which is, not at all.”
“Oh. That’s… a bummer. Wait, what did you do to make them not like you?”
I snort through my nose. “That’s a story for another time.” I pull myself up onto one knee. “Take care of yourselves, okay? I’m going to find the jackass who stole your phone, and then I’m going to knock his teeth in until he tells me where Joy is. I’m going to find her, I promise.” I hold out my arms, but don’t move forward.
Nikki picks up the slack, wiggling until she can get her uninjured arm through her parka sleeve, then leaning forward on the beanbag and accepting the hug. It’s a bit awkward since her plaster cast is still between us, but I’m sure neither of us minds.
Isabella comes back out of her computer room as I get up, and Nikki rises to meet her too. As I leave, they’re sharing both Isabella’s takeout and the food Nikki originally brought for Joy.
CHAPTER SIX
Red List
I go back to Joy’s place. The first thing I look for is her ledger, where she keeps all her clients’ appointment times. She had two clients yesterday, the second of whom came at eight o’clock, just after my visit. Actually, he didn’t come at all—his name is crossed off, and the page is annotated with the words “Got sick again!! Hope he’s ok…” His name is listed as “Mingus Oliver.” I get the feeling he’s not a strong suspect. Actually, I get the feeling that none of these names are strong suspects. Joy has an eye for people; she picks out shady clients immediately and throws them out before they can ever book another appointment, and I trust her judgment. I close the ledger and get up to search the rest of the apartment.
I know what I’m looking for next: the thick blue notebook where Joy keeps her prophecies. I remember how the first time she showed it to me, we were both drunk off our asses on cheap vodka. We’d flipped through the notebook together, laughing at how utterly useless her “gifts” sometimes were and shaking our fists at the teachers who had expected so much out of her. It was a good time.
The book isn’t in her living room, so I have to climb up the creaky, precarious stairs to her loft bedroom to find it. I don’t know how Joy sleeps here, the ceiling is so low I feel claustrophobic just sitting on the bed. Her blue book is on the bedside table. I lift it gingerly, a profound sense of guilt sinking claws into my stomach at the invasion of my friend’s privacy, albeit for good reason.
“I’m sorry, Joy,” I whisper as I thumb open the notebook. I’m immediately met by looping, spiderweb-thin handwriting, arranged in irregular chunks. Some of the pages have pictures, smudged doodles, or even magazine clippings, but any and all prophecies are written in ink. As Joy explained to me that drunken night, anytime she receives a prophecy through a dream, vision, or otherwise strange event, she writes it in her notebook in red. Later, when she finds out what it means, she writes that down in black.
Most of the prophecies inside the book have corresponding solutions already mapped out. The dream about fire was a warning not to eat the chili at Graham’s place. The number combination was a helpful reminder of which bus Joy had to take to get to Brooklyn. The vision of the melting baby was a message to Linda about her custody battle with her husband. But on the very last used page is a list of addresses in red, six in total, with no explanation of their significance.
I take out my phone and call Dick.
“Hello?”
“Dick, it’s me, Harry. Sorry for bailing on you at Jenny’s place, but this is important. I found another victim.”
“Wait—really?” I hear a rollercoaster of emotions in his voice: incredulity, excitement, perfunctory guilt over being excited, thinly-veiled excitement. “Who is it?”
My jaw tightens. “She’s a friend.”
There’s awkward silence on the other end. Then, “So, um, would you like me to come over to where you are, or…?”
“No, don’t. I’ve found all I can here anyway. But I think my friend, Joy, was interested in the same thing we are. She left behind a list of addresses, six of them.”
“Six? What are they?”
“No idea. They’re a Hail Mary at best, but my
friend has a knack for knowing what’s up way before anyone else does. I’ll text the addresses over. You take three, I’ll take three. Be thorough. Don’t overlook anything. Take pictures of everything, even if it doesn’t look relevant. And remember the altar back at Jenny and David’s place?”
“The what?”
“Julia Child.”
“Oh, right.”
“See if you can find anything similar to that. Signs of some kind of—” I grope for the words. “—a belief, of some kind. Worship. Religion, maybe. Or something kind of—like an obsessive hobby, or a fixation, or… look, do you get what I’m saying at all?”
A pause at the other end. I can imagine Dick scratching the back of his head. “…Is this an ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ type of deal?”
“Yes, just like that. Good man. Remember to take pictures.”
I hang up, but I’m not satisfied with the conversation. There’s no way Dick will actually know how to look for signs of magic, and even if I had time to give him a crash course, he’d never get all the nuances. Also, he’d think I was insane. Damn. But we’ll cover more ground separately, and I can look over the pictures later to catch whatever he’s missed. Maybe I’m being manipulative, but right now I don’t have much of a choice.
I send Dick the addresses, pointing out to him which are his responsibility, then tuck Joy’s book of prophecies into my coat. I’ll need to hide it somewhere safe. Prophecies, even ones that have already come to fruition, aren’t the kind of knowledge you can afford to lose.
I’m careful to step around the shattered glass ball as I leave. I don’t even want to look at it. If I do, I’ll have to remind myself that this isn’t the same as before—there’s no body to stumble on, at least not yet. Joy’s not dead. She’s just not. Stupid of me to even consider that, just because of—
No. Not going there.
I’m nearly at the door when something compels me to turn and look at the fairy tapestry on the wall. It’s a tapestry, it’s not going anywhere. But if Joy knew she wasn’t going to be here, she wouldn’t have kept it out in the open. Now that I know the circumstances, it seems… irresponsible to leave it up. Joy would want it safe and clean in her usual trunk.
Once I figure out how exactly the metal rod and brackets on the wall are keeping it up, the tapestry is surprisingly easy to remove. I roll it up as neatly as possible, take it up to Joy’s bedroom, and leave it in the heavy trunk against the wall. The apartment looks bare without it, but there’s a more complete sense of Joy’s absence, an affirmation of the mission at hand.
I’m going to find her, and I’m going to find her alive.
***
The first address in Joy’s notebook is a little dormitory apartment on the outskirts of the Victory University campus. I don’t question so much as eavesdrop, and I find out that a girl who used to live in the dorm disappeared a few nights ago while at a concert, along with three friends. Same night that Aden disappeared. Similar circumstances, too. I awkwardly climb a tree to get up to the dorm room window, and peering in I can see a definite altar, complete with half-melted candles and a metal bowl of some kind of chunky substance, as well as a velvet choker with a half-moon pendant laid out across the windowsill.
Nothing says “budding witch” like a velvet choker. Just ask my tiny goth sister.
…And then I have to run, because it turns out campus security isn’t fond of strangers in long black coats peeping into students’ dormitories. It’s not hard to lose my pursuers, especially when a horde of students exits a nearby lecture hall; I plunge into the crowd, then make a sharp turn and hide between a hulking black van and a brick wall. And—not that I intended for it to happen—some poor Asian kid in an ankle-length coat with hair like a Chia Pet gets tackled in my stead. I feel bad for him and his Matrix sunglasses… I hope he can afford to sue.
The second address is an apartment number in the Bronx. It’s… empty? As soon as I arrive at the brick building the landlord is in my face, asking if I want a tour of the recently cleared space. I tell him what he wants to hear and he shows me around an apartment that’s been stripped bare of any useful evidence. A bit of wheedling, and the landlord reveals that there used to be a family of four living here before they were evicted for their failure to pay rent nearly two weeks ago.
Unlike my previous arboreal adventure, I have time to get out my magic-vision glasses and examine the place through them. Amidst the swirling colors denoting the different kinds of abstract energy that have passed through the area, I see no signs of active magic use. If anything, the place shows signs of stagnancy, probably a result of the living residents getting kicked out a fortnight ago and no one coming around to take their place. It’s a depressing sight.
The third address is a bit more promising; it belongs to a bachelor in his early thirties who’s apparently not interested in springing for an unpickable lock. I turn the entire place inside out—no magic. No altars, no knickknacks, nothing. Maybe someone already cleared everything out? But one glance through my glasses confirms that the place truly is devoid of magical energy. It looks like this guy just watches a lot of soccer, eats mainly pizza, listens to obscure glam rock, and works the night shift at a convenience store. He also doesn’t have a password lock on his laptop; his browser history says he probably hasn’t been home in four days. It also says he has a fetish for girls dressed as clowns. Eh, that’s pretty harmless as fetishes go; I won’t judge.
I sit on the guy’s couch as I think. Then I see a suspicious stain, and perch myself on the narrow arm of the couch instead.
According to the timeline, David disappeared first, over a week ago. The college kids, clown-dude, and Aden disappeared simultaneously, three days ago. Joy was taken most recently, just last night. The evicted family is… an unknown variable. If I don’t count them, three out of eight disappeared people are most definitely mages. The college kids could have all been experimenting with magic, given that they were hanging out with choker-girl. That would make six out of eight—a much bigger correlation, but an entirely unconfirmed one. Of course, now that begs the question: is Aden into magic? Does the theory even fit?
Was I wrong to be worried about Isabella? Is this shitstain targeting mages at all?
The sky is dark when I leave the building, and the only light comes from street lamps illuminating the sidewalk in patches. Two of the lamps nearby are guttered and flickering.
Somewhere behind me, I hear the rolling slam of a car door, then a rush of stumbling footsteps. “Hey, bitch!” an agitated, wheezing voice shouts. I pivot on one foot with my hands still in my pockets, not entirely paying attention.
“Look, Dick,” I say, “I know I’m not giving you much explanation for stuff right now, but this has gotten personal and I’d really appreciate if you didn’t—”
I freeze. A disheveled, white, baby-faced man in office wear stands on the sidewalk just three feet away, directly under a street lamp. The yellow light gleams off of tears streaming down his ruddy cheeks. His cream-colored shirt is stained at the chest and armpits with sweat, partially hanging out of his tan slacks and clashing egregiously with his bog-green tie.
He’s pointing a gun at me.
It’s not a very big gun, just a tiny silver revolver with a snub-nosed barrel shorter than my thumb, much less intimidating than Isabella’s. But it’s still a gun. And it can still kill me, especially at this horribly, horribly short distance.
“Called me a dick,” he mutters, his voice shaking just as hard as his hands. “Ruins my life and then calls me a dick. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
My hands twitch inside my pockets. If they were free I’d have thrown up a shield by now, purely out of reflex—but it wouldn’t have lasted more than second, my magic being what it is. Thank gods he hasn’t shot me yet. I stay standing, even though my heart seems intent on rattling me like a pair of maracas. I swallow to wet my dry, cracked throat, inconspicuously slipping my hands out of my pockets.
“L
ook, man, I think you have the wrong person,” I say, fighting to keep my voice low and steady, pretending to look at his face while my eyes subtly track the revolver’s every movement. I raise my hands, slowly, in what I hope is a placating gesture. “Just put the gun down and tell me what’s going on, okay? I swear—”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Every muscle in my body tightens in an instinctive spasm. The white noise of fear swells up in my brain, seizing every thought—I grapple with it, forcing the buzzing jumping energy into my stiff arms, letting it tingle up my fingers. My shield ready, I discreetly check my surroundings. No pedestrians in sight. No lit, half-shuttered windows with startled onlookers’ faces showing through. A street lamp behind me flickers, then goes out. Crap, crap crap crap.
The gunman’s eyes, beady and rimmed with red, emit a laser beam of pure hate in my direction. “You bitch. You fucking dyke bitch. What the hell did I ever do to you? You made her hate me! I would have made her happy, don’t you get it? I love her! And she was going to love me!”
“What?” I say, staring at him in bewilderment. Who is this guy? Did I fuck his girlfriend? I mean, if I did, she’s probably the one who fucked me, girls who’ve always wanted to peg their boyfriends get really happy about meeting me—focus, focus. I feel like I’ve seen this guy before, but my mind is running a blank on names.
“She’s getting married!” he screams at me. The street lamp behind me must have turned on again, because there’s a steady glow building, scattering light onto the sidewalk in front of me—making me an easier target. “Don’t you fucking get it? She’s getting married to that asshole, and it’s your fucking fault!”
He squints and raises the gun. There’s no room for the shot to go wide, even with his shaking hands and the unreliable lighting, there just isn’t enough room—
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