“Who’s your nephew?”
“Scavenger hunt selfie.” She sighed. “Muy guapo, but dumb as dirt.”
“I’m sure Levi isn’t keeping track.”
“I’m sure as well, blanquita, since we both know that wasn’t him yesterday. Ah, gracias, Andrés.”
The chef set down our plates. Each one had three small corn tortillas topped with grilled steak, avocado, pico de gallo, and a hard, crumbly cheese, as well as a side of rice and beans. He also left us glasses of water.
I squirted the lime over the first taco and bit in. A flavor party exploded in my mouth. The avocado and cheese lent a creamy smoothness to the sharpness of the lime and the fresh spiciness of the pico de gallo. These were the best tacos I’d ever eaten, plus chewing bought me time answering the Queen.
She allowed me two tacos and half of my rice and beans before she cleared her throat.
“That was Levi,” I said. Stellar comeback.
“Comemierda. Illusion magic doesn’t do that. No matter what some people try to pass off on TV.” She speared a piece of steak.
I wiped off my hands. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. I’m Mundane and not privy to anything Levi may or may not have done yesterday.”
The Queen didn’t push it and we ate the rest of the meal in silence.
“Thanks for the food.”
“My pleasure, chica. Though, it’s a shame.”
The lights in the food truck went out.
Unease fluttered through me. “What’s a shame?”
“That someone like yourself, who keeps popping up in such interesting ways, doesn’t know more about who I should thank for my nephew. Because if I did owe someone, I’d want to repay them. Perhaps allow them five minutes with an old friend.”
A chair shot out from the shadows. Mr. Sharp was bound to it, his eyes wide with terror above his gag and his hands cuffed with the magic-suppressors.
“Did he say where the lab is?” I said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You promised to help.”
“I don’t like being lied to.” She spread her hands with a smile. “Of course, everyone is entitled to their secrets, especially with a stranger, but I’d like to think we’ve become friends. I help my friends. That one?” She tilted her head at her prisoner. “He is not my friend. Are you?”
White Rabbit Man stepped into the light behind him holding a long sword.
I choked down my mouthful of taco. What the fuck should I do? Mr. Sharp was high up enough in his organization to know where the lab was and right now he was my only option at finding the kids. Not just mine, Levi’s as well, because for all his “brainpower,” I doubted his team had any more leads than I did.
The ideal outcome would be for the Queen to get answers and then let me deliver Mr. Sharp to Levi to be dealt with through official legal channels.
Light glinted off White Rabbit Man’s sword. That wasn’t going to happen.
But if the Queen learned that I had blood magic and especially that I could take people’s powers, what would she request of me? I’d done it again, thought I’d been too clever by half, but I was out of my league. She was the Queen and I was a nothing little pawn on this chessboard.
White Rabbit Man raised his sword, awaiting my decision. Did he care who he ultimately used it on? I sunk my neck into my shoulders as terror clawed through me. Did I value my own skin over Meryem’s?
You bet I did.
“It was me yesterday.” I screwed up my face, hearing a heavy door clang shut on a future free of the Queen.
“You lied about being Mundane.”
“Only sort of. About a week ago, I discovered that someone warded my magic for my entire life. Suppressed it. I believed I was Mundane, but when I met you, yes, I knew otherwise.” I spoke to my feet not her face.
“More and more interesting. What’s your magic?”
“Blood. I can take magic and…” I exhaled shakily.
She put her arm around me, all grandmotherly concern. The fierce fifty-something was Mafia grandma if anything. “Rip it off like a Band-Aid.”
“Destroy it.”
The Queen squeezed my shoulders. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it? So, Ashira Cohen, may I repay my debt to you?”
Said the devil. Her cinnamon and chili magic danced around me like a noose.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe this made us even. One way or another I was in her clutches. “Please do.”
She snapped her fingers and White Rabbit Man lowered his sword, blending back into the shadows.
“Have fun,” she said, and walked away.
I approached Mr. Sharp. “She’s still going to kill you. It comes down to how you want to die. Sure, she’s famous for that one clean stroke, snick. Off with your head.”
He flinched.
“But she’s my friend and she owes me. So it could easily be a slow carving.” I ran my hand down his arm.
His green eyes spat hate at me.
I yanked down his gag. “Where’s the lab?”
“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.” Still so properly posh, even on the verge of death.
“Those kids are being tortured, stripped of their magic.”
“It’s wasted on them. They were never going to reach the full potential of their powers. Why not let someone more adept benefit from it?”
“Like thieves? You’re despicable. And a liar. Magic isn’t transferable.”
He shrugged. “You won’t find them.”
“Maybe not.” I removed his wallet from his back pocket. “Edmund Bottom. No wonder you went with ‘Sharp.’ Well, know this. I will find everyone you care about and rip their magic from them the way that you people have done to these kids.”
His brows came together and then understanding hit and he drained of all color. “And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.’”
“What is it with you people and the dogs? Also, you’re a bunch of hypocrites. We both know what the ‘technology’ actually stripping the magic out is.”
Priya was right and Jezebel was a type of magic. This man had answers about me that I couldn’t ask questions to because my time was limited and Meryem was my priority.
I swallowed my disappointment, flipped a blood dagger into my palm, and pressed the tip against his jugular. “Where’s the lab?”
“And some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled on her. Then he went in and ate and drank. And he said, ‘See now to this cursed woman and–’”
I punched him in the gut so hard his chair fell backwards.
Once he’d stopped coughing, he laughed. “They’ll find you and they’ll kill you.”
Fucking enough. I broke the cuffs off him.
A strand of fairy lights tore loose and wrapped around my neck.
Grappling with this noose with one hand, I used my other one to slice him across his left pec with the dagger.
He gasped, his magic hold loosening enough for me to tear the strand off.
“Don’t like it? Let me give you a taste of what your people are subjecting those kids to.” Pressing down on his bloody cut, I rode his magic.
He was a Lightweight, a type of wind elemental that moved things with surgical precision, used for everything from earthquake rubbish removal to stealing safes. His magic felt like dozens of translucent feathers bobbing on a current and tasted like spun sugar.
Sharp convulsed in his chair.
I forced myself to slow down, but every part of me throbbed, craving all the magic at once. The world turned soft and dreamy and I sighed, flexing my bloody fingers against his skin.
My cheeks were flushed, my breath slow and full. Only dimly did I register the burst blood vessels in his eyes and his pained howls.
I swiped a bloody index finger over his brow. “Relax. Ride it with me.”
I crooned at him until he sang along with me, and all the while, his magic d
anced inside him, hooked to mine.
Once I was sated, I teased his magic out, watching the smudge flow from his body through blissed-out eyes. My entire body tingled and I was more alive than I ever had been.
I’d stepped into my destiny.
My branches forked through his magic, blooming into the white clusters that devoured it. There was no maggoty sensation like with the third-party smudge, no foul smell, just a gentle release from my high once the magic was gone, like waking from a lovely dream with the taste of sugar crystals on my lips.
That’s when I realized that Sharp wasn’t singing.
He was screaming, a mostly nonsensical gibberish broken by sobs and a street address.
I dropped to my knees fumbling at his bindings. He flopped free, his pupils dilated with terror. I looked at my hands as if I could bring his magic back and heal him, even though I knew, deeper than my bones, that it was impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, bowing my head, but there was no absolution. I would have to live with this the rest of my life.
There was a soft rustling. I glanced back to find the Queen watching me.
“Muy interesante.”
“I didn’t mean...” Under her all-knowing stare, I bit off the rest of that lie. “Can you help him?”
“I will end his pain.”
White Rabbit Man appeared and carried Sharp away.
I scrambled to my feet and vomited into a scraggly patch of bushes.
The Queen handed me a stick of peppermint gum. I nodded my thanks, allowing the minty flavor to take away the foul taste. If only the stain on my soul was as easily removed.
“Pobre cosita. You didn’t realize how deep the shadows go. My advice? Save those kids. Celebrate that victory.”
“It doesn’t erase what I did.”
“You made a choice that now allows you to make a different one. One that is easier to live with. That’s all life is. A string of choices and in the end, we hope we come out ahead.” She pressed her hand to my cheek. “Go.”
In a blink, I was back in my world and back in the sunshine.
But there was no warmth at all.
Chapter 21
Did the ends justify the means? Did the pain of a single individual, especially one already condemned to death outweigh that of the many? When was “for the greater good” a moral imperative and when was it merely a justification for doing what you wanted?
I had never been one for violence, never tortured or physically intimidated anyone before my magic had shown up. That wasn’t who I was, so how could I reconcile that fundamental part of me with this willingness–no, this eagerness–to perform such an extreme and inconceivable act?
If the trauma of the accident had flipped my recessive magic gene to “on” when I was thirteen, what was the primal urge inherent in my blood magic? Because the only answer I had was “rage.” Was that the common trait to all Jezebels? A burning rage that elevated us beyond the everyday fire elemental, beyond the Hot Heads and the Van Goghs? A fury so inherent to us that it was part of our blood?
Jezebels took magic and it was a horrible, painful thing for the victim, but others sought to use us, so was our magic a defense mechanism? Was I a warrior? An assassin? Did I stand for good or for evil? Did I even have a choice?
I didn’t have answers, but I had an address and the power to make sure no more of the missing experienced the horror of losing their magic.
Time to make a choice I didn’t hate myself for.
I drove home to pick up a few key items, debating whether or not to tell Levi. My big fear was that his team was a giant unknown. Even if they were as well trained as Miles’ security people, would more people all going in blind turn this into another bloodbath, like the one at the lab in Hedon? I could slip in and out like a shadow, get the lay of the land and then call in the cavalry with solid intel. But if I was captured, or worse, then no one would come for those kids. Meryem would be doomed.
I pulled up in front of my apartment. Decisions had always been fairly black-and-white for me, but how to save these people was fraught with a dozen shades of gray. I closed my eyes, running the pros and cons of every option, listening to my gut. I’d trusted it before and I had to keep believing it would steer me true.
I left urgent messages for Miles and Levi detailing where the lab was and that I’d meet them there. Choice made, I sprinted up the stairs and into my apartment, noticing the dried blood on my fingers when I unlocked the door.
My stomach heaved and I ran to the bathroom sink, scrubbing my skin raw. If I’d had time, I would have done the same to my entire body. I threw on leggings and a tunic-length shirt, stuffing my hair under a knit cap. A trifecta of black clothing.
Pulling a metal trunk out from my closet, I gathered up a couple pairs of magic-suppressing cuffs, a pocket-sized Taser, a small high-powered flashlight, and my sonic weapon, stuffing them all into the pockets of my leather jacket. Any other weapons I’d manifest on site.
Arkady ran into me as I was clunking down the stairs in my motorcycle boots.
“Where are you off to?” he said.
“Work.”
He blocked me. “I did four years in the army.”
“Yeah. You went in right after high school.”
“No Google searches for you, huh? You jumped straight to the full background check?”
“I like to know my neighbors. What’s your point?”
“My point is I know that flat-eyed determined stare. You’re off to do something dangerous. Let me help.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. And I’m not about to put you in danger.”
Arkady put his hands together in a begging motion. “I’d kill for some danger. The most lethal thing in my life right now is my sparring partner’s gym bag. Besides, you’re strong but you’re not as trained or competent at fighting as I am. And I’m very good at following orders.”
I’d told Talia the truth about having magic and she didn’t want to believe me. Levi had shut me out, and the Queen, well, I didn’t want to dwell on that. That left Priya as the only person in my life I didn’t have secrets from and to whom my magic was irrelevant. All she cared about was me, Ash.
She had my back. That was priceless.
Miles or Levi might not get this message for hours. This might come down to me alone and it would be good to have someone in my corner. Despite my best attempts, I liked Arkady. But could I trust him?
Did I dare because this wasn’t about me, it was about Meryem and the others? What would give them the best shot?
“I’ll give you the details on the way over.”
“Sweet!” He flung an arm around my shoulders. “But we’re totally going to have code names.”
“This can’t be right.” I tugged on the glass front doors to Mindscape, an escape room in a fairly rural area outside Vancouver. A sign taped to the door proclaimed it permanently closed and thanked patrons for their business. All was dark and quiet inside.
We checked the back door. It was steel with reinforced strike plates on the door frame and jambs.
Arkady studied the lock. “No way through without some heavy duty tools. I bet the door has rebar through it sunk into the frame. They really don’t want uninvited guests.”
“So why leave the front doors as is?”
“It’s a funnel. If you know the boobytraps and pitfalls, all good. Otherwise, you’re fucked. There’s something here worth protecting. Your call.”
“There aren’t any security cameras on either of the doors,” I said, “so they’re pretty confident that whatever they’ve got inside will take care of things.” Could Arkady and I handle whatever awaited us?
I left more messages. Why was everyone’s freaking phone turned off? I even contacted Levi’s assistant who told me that they were in an emergency meeting. I stressed the urgency of Levi getting the voicemail I’d left him.
“I’m going in.” I was haunted by the sound of Sharp’s screams. If there was the sligh
test chance of preventing any more magic loss from innocent people, I had to take it. “Last chance to turn back.”
Arkady raised his hand. “Dibs on picking the lock.”
He made short work of the front door.
The only light into the reception area filtered in from the drizzly outside and it had the musty smell of a place that had been closed up for a while. There were four doors in the lobby. One led to the bathroom and the second to a staff room. Both were dead ends.
That left the escape rooms.
Arkady lowered the flashlight that he’d stopped by his apartment for. “If we get separated, our earpieces will keep us in range.”
He’d equipped us with the same mic and earpiece gizmos as Miles had given me. I was going to get myself a couple pairs after this. No reason why only boys should have these toys.
“Alcatraz or Cannibal Row?” he asked, referring to the two escape room options.
The poster for Cannibal Row depicted a hooded participant in a bloodstained basement. Behind him was a crazed-looking man holding a severed foot in one hand and an ax in the other. The Alcatraz poster showed a long line of open jail cells with hardened prisoners closing in on a fleeing participant.
“They’re both such appealing choices,” I said. But I’d met my quota of severed limbs for the month. “Island Prison for a hundred, Alex.”
Arkady held the door open for me. “Ladies first.”
I swung my beam around the starting room for the Alcatraz game, which was an empty jail cell. There were numbers painted on the walls, a prison sink with a twisted tap, and a bunk with a scribbled notepad on the mattress. Arkady and I scoured the room for the hidden doorway to the next room.
He punched the walls with his stone fists but failed to make a dent.
I twisted one of the taps. “It’s loose.”
The door to the room slammed shut. There was a hiss and a gas seeped in from the baseboards. We pulled our shirts up over our mouths and noses but the gas stung. My eyes were swelling and there was a bitter taste at the back of my throat.
“We got the upgraded package,” I croaked.
Between the two of us, we pulled, pushed, and pried every single thing in the room. The door we’d come through had disappeared. The gas swirled thicker and thicker, our flashlights growing weaker. It grew harder to think, harder to stand, and harder to breathe.
Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 1) Page 25