“Right. You carried it in your floor-length ‘come fuck me’ dress with no visible panty line,” Levi said darkly.
“I have a bra.” Stop talking, Ash. I white-knuckled the dildo. If I really had magic, this was what I produced? Okay, bright side. I could become a vigilante, going around giving the bad guys of my city a good dicking.
I stepped backward, wanting to get the fuck out of Dodge so I could unscramble my brain and figure out how I suddenly had magic, but I was trapped between the railing and a hard place.
Levi grabbed me by the shoulders. “Answer me!”
Panic flooded me, my pulse spiking. One second, I was standing in front of him, the next, I moved with the lithe swiftness of a jungle predator and tossed him to the ground, my knee grinding into his chest and a glinting red dagger poised at his throat.
A dagger that the dildo had transformed into, its blade sharper than any steel.
Oh good, I wasn’t a one-cock pony. A hysterical laugh burbled out of me.
Levi pushed up to dislodge me but I held him down, which really shouldn’t have been possible, and twisted the knife against his skin. There was a faint rasp as the blade scraped against his light stubble.
What was I doing? I scrambled to my feet, clutching the blood dagger, and pressed the tip against his shirtfront. “Are you going to kill me?”
His face puckered in distaste. “In this suit? It’s Armani. But I do want to know exactly what the fuck is going on.”
Excellent question, but I didn’t have an answer. In fact, there were so many I didn’t have that I could barely keep track of them.
The pounding in my ears, the buzz of magic thrumming through me, it was all too much. I lost what little hold I had. The blade disintegrated into blood, splooshing out on Levi, and turning him into one of the promgoers from Carrie.
So much for the Armani.
Chapter 4
In the fairy tale version of my life, my Cinderella mad dash would have gotten me home safe but sooty, with only the loss of a shoe. But reality was cold and harsh: I’d lost zero shoes (just most of my dignity), and Levi was no prince.
I crashed through the aquarium’s front doors. In my first piece of luck today, a sole yellow taxi idled in the distance.
The parking lot was impossibly stretched out as if seen through a tunnel, the trees weird piney fingers stretching to the inky clouds, and the sounds of cars and guests grotesquely distorted into a harsh rumble. How much blood had I left behind on Levi’s shirt and could I bill him for it? Woozy, I staggered toward the taxi, arm half-outstretched as if the driver could hear my whispered plea to wait.
A dark sleek limo pulled up to the curb.
“Get in,” Levi said from behind me on the sidewalk.
I ignored him, stumbling forward.
He strode toward the cab.
“That’s mine,” I whimpered, the world swooping and lurching around me. Kicking off my heels, I snagged them by one finger and attempted to speed up. It was imperative that Levi not get my taxi, because I was scared that if I didn’t get out of here I’d remain trapped in some weird Ash in Wonderland version of my life that was at odds with every single thing I knew about myself.
Magic didn’t just show up. It might skip a generation or two but you were born with it or you didn’t have it. Full stop.
My blood sang as my magic settled in my bones, but the rest of me was upended. What kind of mutant was I?
Get home, get Priya, and get answers. The stress of today’s events squeezed my chest in a tight band, but I put one foot in front of the other, assuring myself that if I could return to familiar surroundings and my best friend, I could find a plausible explanation.
Please let me find an explanation.
Levi bent over to speak to the driver through the open passenger window. A moment later the vehicle pulled away with great haste, its taillights a red blur fading into the night.
I curled my nails into my palms, the cold from the concrete seeping into my feet.
Before I could call Lyft, Levi strode back to me and pointed at the limo.
“I don’t get in cars with strange men,” I said through chattering teeth, moving away as quickly as possible. So, slightly faster than a tortoise.
“You’ve known me for years.” Both he and the damn limo glided alongside me.
“Strange. Not strangers.” I briskly rubbed my arms, having forgotten my coat in my sprint out of the gala. “You’ve got blood all over your shirt. You could be a serial killer.”
Except now he didn’t. Right. Illusion magic.
He skewered me with a supremely unamused look. “I want answers.”
“Forty-two, Miss Scarlet in the pool room with the wrench, and General George Washington.”
“About the fact you’re a Rogue.”
“Don’t forget that I’m also ‘on the lam.’” I dropped into a terrible southern redneck accent. “I’m headin’ for the county line.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
I patted his cheek. “Careful, Leviticus.” I used my old nickname for him that he despised. “You might break something.”
“Get in the damn limo.” His voice and his expression were both carved from granite and infused with all of the power as Head of House Pacifica. It may have been one of the smaller Houses globally, but it wasn’t one of the weakest. Not under Levi.
Intellectually, I’d known he was the big boss, but I’d never been in his presence when he wore it like a mantle of absolute authority. His power rolled off him, sucking all the oxygen out of the night.
My lungs shrunk to the size of peanuts and I struggled to drag in a breath. This wasn’t my childhood nemesis who’d graduated from making Frankenstein jokes about my leg to firing the first strike during finals of our university psych class by switching out my double espressos for decaf.
This was a man I didn’t want to cross because I’d lose. Badly.
“Fine.” I pivoted to get in the limo, but Levi caught my shoulder, draping his Armani jacket over me. It was warm from his body and smelled like him. Remarkably, it was blood-free. I wrapped it more firmly around myself. “Compassion?”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “Can’t have you dying before I torture you.”
I settled myself on the leather seat that contoured perfectly to my ass, still shivering despite the jacket and grateful for the blast of heat in the car. Dumping my heels on the floor, I wiggled my toes, sighing in delight.
The limo was such a smooth ride that if I hadn’t been watching the passing shadows of trees glide over the tinted glass, I wouldn’t have known we were moving.
Levi opened one of the side wood panels and removed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Limited Edition Number 27 Gold and two tumblers. He poured a splash of liquid in both and handed one to me. “Sip.”
Even one tiny taste spread through me like molten honey.
He considered me over the rim of his glass. “Were you banking on me showing you mercy when you got caught?”
“Heaven forbid.” I took another sip of perfection, savoring it. I’d never been able to afford this premium whiskey. “How long have you known me? About fifteen years? Five of them spent together every summer at camp. You really think I’m so talented I was able to deliberately hide magic all this time? And why, huh? What possible motivation could I have?”
“Your mother.”
Shit. If my magic cost her her position? Even I wasn’t sure how far Talia’s motherly love extended. “Yeah, that would have been a good one.”
He rolled the glass between his long, elegant fingers, the Tennessee whiskey gently swirling. “But you’re right, you’re not that talented. At the same time, if you haven’t had magic all these years, then explain to me how you’re the exception to the fact that all Nefesh are born with magic and how you possess blood magic when that doesn’t exist?”
Blood magic? Fuuuuuck. I tossed back the rest of the drink.
“I’m a special unicorn?” I held out my glass for a re
fill but Levi swept it away.
“I take my position as House Head very seriously. And that means enforcing laws that will keep my people safe. I’ve got no tolerance for Rogues.” He set both our glasses down on a tiny pull-out table with a preternatural gentleness that unnerved me, an overcompensation for the dangerous glint in his eyes.
I swallowed. Levi’s anger was a cold storm front buffeting me. And some of that probably stemmed from a sense of personal betrayal but I hoped he had some mercy for Rogues, both for myself and Charlotte Rose.
“You’ve got two chances,” he said. “Slim and none. Convince me that you haven’t been Rogue all these years or I’ll prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Girl Who Lived. That’s what Dr. Zhang had called me when I’d come out of surgery, my bloodied Harry Potter T-shirt cut off my body and later burned. At first the moniker had been a cute nod to the book, but somewhere in my later teens it had hardened into an iron-willed determination to follow my own path. Live on my terms.
And I had, but too much of living had been about surviving. Yet in this moment, despite how surreal this was and all of Levi’s threats, I felt more alive than ever. After spending years on bottom-rung cases, I now faced the biggest mystery of my career: myself. A thrill fizzed through my veins and damn if I didn’t want to say “challenge accepted” in the boldest way possible, like waving a flag at a bull.
I brushed some dirt off the hem of my dress. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” he said.
“You think anyone is going to believe that you knew me all these years and didn’t know about my magic? ‘Why did you keep her off the books, Mr. Montefiore? Was she running black ops for you? Or were you simply making exceptions for a friend?’”
“Your point?”
“Tonight was as much a shock to me as to you. I want the chance to unravel this mystery.” I twisted around on the seat and pulled up my hair.
His breath warmed my neck. “I don’t give a damn that you’ve found religion.”
“I didn’t. Someone inked that on me and I only found out earlier today. Hours before I discovered that I had magic.” I let my hair tumble back down. “I don’t know why or how it never manifested before, but I want to find out. This may be a point of law for you, Levi, but it’s my life. I’m a damn good private investigator. Let me put the pieces of this puzzle together, because what if I wasn’t the only person this was done to? That would have huge repercussions for your House.”
House Pacifica headquarters came into view. Located smack dab in the center of downtown on some of Vancouver’s priciest real estate, the long seven-story building was shaped like an “S” laying on its side. The glass managed to catch and reflect light in such a way that it was never the same color from morning to night. In dark clouds it took on a deep silver color, while a summer sunset would turn it a brilliant orange-pink. Right now it was obsidian black, immutable and enigmatic.
The limo turned into a driveway. A parking gate built seamlessly into HQ slid open and the car descended into the depths below the building.
“Do we have a deal?” I said.
“No. I don’t take kindly to blackmail. Or half-baked lies. Tell whatever story you like.”
The next hour was a blur. I was booked on suspicion of being a Rogue and tossed in a holding cell. My protests fell on deaf ears–as did my demands for a phone call. They’d taken away my small handbag with my wallet and iPhone. Also my shoes. As if self-harm via a chunky wedge heel was a serious risk.
The only things I’d been given were a Gatorade and a bag of cashews because, apparently, I’d looked dangerously pale. Well, no shit. Birth a freaking knife out of your blood and see how lightheaded you felt.
I sat on the bolted-down bench, poking at the scab on my palm where I’d cut myself on the railing earlier. I couldn’t even blame Levi for not believing me. Magic always adhered to a specific set of rules. “One of these things is not like the others” did not apply.
Yet I refused to rot in here; I was the only one with the motivation and ability to clear my name. Bail would be my first major hurdle. In the plus column was the fact that I had no priors, not even a parking ticket, with a business based in the community. That should qualify me, but the big minus was that they might decide my mother’s resources made me a flight risk. I laughed bitterly.
Levi finally returned along with Miles Berenbaum, his Chief of Security. Unlike the Nefesh police chief who reported to both Levi and the Chief Constable, who also oversaw the Mundane forces, Miles worked directly for Levi and was exceedingly loyal.
And wasn’t it just perfect that two of the most powerful people in this city were the same popular best friends that my grandparents had sent me to Jewish summer camp with every year in my teens, just wielding influence on a different level?
The cell door clattered open.
I held my hand out to Miles. “I want my phone call.”
“You’ll get it,” he said. At six-foot-four, he was a couple of inches taller than Levi. Dude must have had his customary uniform of black pants and black long-sleeved shirt specially made for him, because that bodybuilder frame of his decimated any puny off-the-rack clothing. Even though it was the middle of the night, his dark brown eyes were clear and his blond hair was as meticulously buzz cut as ever.
If anyone had hospital corners on their bed, it was Miles. He was as reserved as Levi was charismatic–to people other than me–and while I’d never seen him catting around with anyone, it wasn’t for lack of offers.
He moved into my personal space and jerked his thumb to the ceiling. “Up.”
I grabbed hold of my dress fabric so I wouldn’t step on it, though the hem was filthy and I’d managed to rip a side seam when I’d grappled with Levi at the aquarium. Rest in peace, dress.
“About time.” I grimaced, the stench of rotting flesh and feces assaulting me. Geez dude, fix your diet.
A smudgy, oily shadow flowed out from Miles at a slightly faster speed than it had with the Green Thumb Employee, bobbing from side-to-side as if assessing Levi and myself for its new accommodations.
My heart stuttered a beat. Miles wasn’t my favorite person but I didn’t want him dead once that smudge broke free. I also didn’t want to find out whether Levi or I would be the new recipient of that abomination, but damn, using my magic would only cement my Rogue status.
Fuck it.
Ripping the scab off my palm, I squeezed my fist to call up a drop of blood, then working on instinct and adrenaline, I magically teased it into a silky thin red stream. I fired the ribbon over Miles’ shoulder and into the shadow, where it forked into red branches, anchoring the smudge in place.
That was crazy cool, but the feeling that a million wriggling maggots had surged from the smudge to infest my soul, not so much.
I shrieked.
Charlotte Rose’s admonition that the House was experimenting on people replayed in my head. Was this it?
But then Levi shouted, “What the fuck?”
Miles glanced back and jumped about three feet.
“Don’t move!” I yelled.
Straining against my branchy grip, the smudge arced over Miles’ head like a wave, stretching out for its new victim. It was still connected to Miles, which was a good thing, because the second it disengaged fully he would drop dead. I didn’t know if he could accidentally tear himself free and I was determined not to find out.
Spearing the wave with more branches, I stopped it in its tracks, the smudge thrashing against its restraints.
Levi stepped toward it, stepped back, and balled his fists. “Get it out of him.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do? Give it a facial?” I said.
“It’s in me?!” Miles hurled fireballs over his shoulder. “Where?”
The fireballs passed harmlessly through the smudge to scorch the walls and ceiling of the cell, thin tongues of flame lapping along the seams.
Cursi
ng with the inventiveness of a man whose reality was unravelling, Levi grabbed a small fire extinguisher off a mounted bracket outside the cell and doused the fires, yelling at his righthand man to calm down. Personally, Levi yelling at me would be the least calming thing I could think of, but Miles was vibrating in place from the force of keeping himself in check.
Dark clouds swam through my vision, arms shaking and eyes watering from the atrocious stench. Terror pierced my soul as I stared directly into the heart of this mass that was sheer wrongness. I fell into its endless night, a puny speck against a devouring fiend, my only shield this newfound magic I didn’t understand.
The smudge still flowed out of Miles becoming more entangled into my magic branches, but it had slowed to a trickle and would soon be free of him.
Time was running out.
I swayed, dangerously close to passing out from blood loss. Once I did, the smudge would kill us all.
Levi caught the underside of my arms to bolster my grip. “How do we stop it?”
I was about to give off some snarky retort to the effect that I didn’t know. Except I did.
Scraping deep for the last vestiges of my energy, I poured more magic into it, shuddering and convinced that writhing maggots swarmed me, but pushing through for one last assault.
In an act that was both beautiful and totally unnerving, white clusters bloomed all over the branches and devoured the smudge.
Just ate it right up, yum yum.
The smudge was gone, leaving only a shocked silence and a decimated jail cell.
Spent, I sank to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees, my head down, willing away that creepy maggoty sensation still crawling over and inside me because otherwise I was going to tear my skin off.
“It’s gone?” Miles finally said in a hoarse voice.
I glanced up. His expression was pinched and he was rubbing a trembling hand over his sleeve. “Totally gone,” I said.
He caught himself on the next pass of his sleeve and dropped his hand to his side. “Thank you.”
Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 1) Page 5