“Not that breaking into a powerful elemental user isn’t tempting and all,” Isak interrupted. “But I think the Jade Palace would have something to say if we randomly started attacking someone who belongs in their borough, even if that someone’s living in Ember’s Landing.” Isak frowned. “And a djinn…that’s a powerful being. How’d you get mixed up with someone like that?”
Aspen leaned back, suddenly feeling defensive. “None of your business.”
“Yow, kitty’s got claws,” Eve said, grinning. Aspen gave her the finger.
“So you don’t think we should try to stop him?” Aspen said pointedly to Isak. “You don’t think we should put an end to this right now before it can really get started?”
“You make it sound like he’s already guilty,” Isak said. “And I’m a little more concerned about the ‘why’ behind this than the ‘who.’ If Hugo really is stealing magic, then what is he using it for? That’s what we need to find out tomorrow.”
But Aspen didn’t really care all that much about tomorrow. She felt certain she could put an end to the magic thievery and get back to the way things were, but Isak had brushed her idea aside by pretending he was thinking logically about it. Who cared why Hugo was doing what he was doing? And who cared that she wouldn’t try to approach him if Isak wouldn’t help her. And with Lucien AWOL she was once again left with very little that was in her control.
She hated that.
“Anyway, I should probably get in touch with Xavier tomorrow, tell him what’s been going on—”
“No,” Aspen said. “Don’t go calling Saint Xavier.”
Isak swelled with anger, but Aspen didn’t care. Isak she could deal with. She didn’t trust the guy, or if she did it was only a little. It was probably Xavier’s fault he was such a jerk. But if he got Xavier involved it was all over.
“What is your problem with him?” Isak demanded. “I know he’s not the nicest guy, but he’s not out to get you.”
“Says you.”
Isak was standing. “Says me? Darn right says me! I’ve had about enough of listening to you bad mouth Xavier left and right. You, who has no clue what that man’s done for me and for the boroughs. More than Lucien, I can tell you that. And yet you sit there and talk about him like he’s some big criminal!”
Aspen nearly told him. She wanted to explode in Isak’s face, yell at him that she knew exactly who Xavier was, and had for much longer than he had. She could imagine the devastated expression he’d have as she tore down his big freakin’ hero right before his eyes.
But…it seemed too cruel. As much of a brainwashed jerk Isak seemed to be, he was a product of his master. Telling him was unnecessary. In fact, he probably wouldn’t believe her, and that was one less semi-ally she could rely on until this was all over. Better to deal with Xavier by herself once Isak was out of the picture.
“What if it was him?” Aspen said. “What if it was Xavier who was stealing the magic?”
Isak had gone very still. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, what if your precious Xavier was the one stealing magic instead of Hugo, would you have the guts to stand up to him?”
“What is your problem with him?” Isak thundered.
“Why don’t you have one with him?” Aspen yelled back.
The ground beneath her feet warmed as sparks of magic began to fly from beneath Isak. Aspen thought for sure he was going to reach across the table and try to strangle her, but instead he stormed off into the spare bedroom, slamming the door behind him. There was booming silence.
“You’re such an idiot,” Eve said.
“I’m sorry, what was that, witch?” Aspen said, now directing her fury at her.
Eve smirked as Aspen stood. “Oh, sit down and stop trying to pick a fight with everyone.”
“I’ve taken out much stronger creatures than you.”
“I’ll bet,” Eve purred. She leaned back in her chair, eyeing Aspen as she slowly lowered back into her seat. “I’ll say, I’m impressed. Thought for sure a little Norm like you would be dead by now.”
“So sorry to disappoint.”
“On the contrary. How dull would my life be if I wasn’t being woken up in the middle of the night by delinquents?”
“We’re not delinquents.”
“You’re on the run. Sounds like you’re delinquents to me.”
A car honked outside and Aspen tensed. Eve smirked, as if that proved her point. Aspen cursed herself. If there was anyone after them she’d get less warning than that.
“What was his problem?” Aspen said, nodding to the bedroom Isak had stomped into.
“You mean besides you insulting his master?” Eve tapped the side of her head. “Girl tip: if you want the guy to like you, maybe don’t insult the man he practically sees as his father.”
“We’re not together,” Aspen said quickly. Too quickly. Eve’s lips curled into an almost Cheshire-cat grin.
“Right…keep telling yourself that. It’s what I did, up until the day I woke up and realized I was in love with him.”
“And look how that turned out.”
Eve shrugged. “I still care for him a lot. He’s the only reason you’re in my place as it is. But he and I…we’re too different. We wanted different things, had different fires burning inside us. Not like you two. You’re both volatile enough to handle one another. I could see that from the first minute.”
“What did you mean Xavier is like his father?” Aspen said, desperate to steer this conversation anywhere other than her non-existent relationship with Isak.
“What part of that doesn’t make sense? You remember the group of us back then?”
“Oh, I remember.”
Eve’s subtle smile was back. “Yeah, I’m sure you do. Couple of us had homes. More of us didn’t. Those of us who didn’t got by the best we could, but it was hard. Dangerous. A few of us aren’t around anymore.”
Eve tapped the table with a fingernail, gazing at the refrigerator as though it were a window to the past. “Then one day this Mage shows up out of nowhere. We couldn’t believe it. And more unbelievable, he wanted Isak. Said he had potential. That was the last I saw of him for a few years.”
“And what happened to you?”
“Moi? I managed to get by until one of the local covens found me. The one in New Salem over in Brooklyn.”
“I thought all witches lived in a coven.”
Eve cocked an eyebrow. “What you mean to say is, ‘Why aren’t you over there with them, you devil-horned, raging harpy?’”
“You said it, not me.”
“Touché. I’m on my Rumspringa, per se. Got a year to decide if I want to go back to the coven or not.” Eve’s eyes wandered to the door where her succubus boyfriend probably lay stewing in bed. “Still haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“You have any idea what happened to Isak during those years he was with Xavier?”
The question was out of her mouth before Aspen could stop it, before she could question why she cared.
“He was with Xavier, I assume, doing whatever it is Mage’s apprentices do. Training, spellcasting, learning the fine art of verbal sparring with unruly little thieves. He never told me any specifics. All I know is that Xavier took him in when no one else would. That’s all that really matters to Isak.”
Just like Brune, Aspen thought. And just like Brune, whom she would be forever grateful for, she would never stand for anyone speaking bad of him. Perhaps she had pushed Isak a little too far…
“My advice?” Eve said. “Keep your mouth shut about Xavier if you want to make any points with this guy. Not that it’d even work between you two, even if you are a perfect disaster for each other,” she said offhandedly.
Aspen ground her teeth together to resist skewering Eve from across the table.
“Well,” Eve stood. “Best get you tucked away or Isak will get mad at me, even if he’s pissed at you. Can’t have that. And you…” she wrinkled her nose. “You need a show
er. And new clothes.” She picked at the slowly unraveling threads trailing from the bottom of Aspen’s shirt. “Seriously.”
“Nobody asked you,” Aspen said, snapping off the thread.
“You did whenever I could smell you through the front door. Shower’s in there.”
Aspen hated to admit it, but the shower was heaven. It was as if the entire crappy last couple days simply sloughed off her skin and swirled the drain, leaving her with clean skin and fresh possibilities. Sure, she might be wanted in a couple boroughs, and sure, Hugo—or, okay, maybe something or somebody else—was out there right now stealing more magic, but the steady drum of blissfully warm water on her head, slowly straightening the gnarled tangles in her hair, convinced her that she didn’t care at the moment.
After turning off the water and convincing herself not to switch Eve’s shampoo with a bottle of hair dye she’d seen beneath the sink, Aspen emerged to find a fresh pair of new clothes stacked just inside the door.
“Much better!” Eve exclaimed when Aspen came out fully dressed a few minutes later.
“What are these?” Aspen demanded, fingering the unfamiliar shirt and jeans.
“They’re called ‘something that fits you.’ More or less. You’re lucky I had some clothes left over from a few years ago. You’re like a stick figure come to life.”
Aspen hated to admit that the new clothes did feel better. The jeans didn’t have holes. The shirt didn’t hang off her body like a burlap sack. Thankfully, Eve hadn’t confiscated her jacket, and Aspen triple-checked everything was still in it when she got it back.
“See?” Eve said cheerily when Aspen was finished with her inspection of her new garments. “Aren’t I right?”
“Where am I sleeping?” Aspen said, ignoring her.
Eve pointed. A pile of blankets lay in front of the couch, a much better sleeping arrangement than a few other places she’d been forced to stay. Aspen tossed the blankets into a semblance of a bed. She turned to Eve. She took a deep breath.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I still don’t like you.”
“Likewise. And I think you’re rotten for Isak and as a Norm and don’t have any business being around supernaturals like us.” She shrugged. “Yet here you are. I’ll guess I’ll live with it.”
Aspen thought that just might have been the nicest thing anybody had ever said to her.
It took Aspen forever to fall asleep, and even when she did her dreams were nothing but vivid visages that jolted her awake every couple hours. Faces in the darkness. Images of Mages and dead, lifeless bodies that withered away to dust the second she tried to touch them. She saw Lucien in trouble, and Brune thrown out on the street, left to fend and beg for himself while a sea of indifferent faces brushed around him.
She saw her parents, then watched their skin blacken and split before disintegrating to ash, only to have Xavier’s face replace where they’d stood.
“Run, little girl. Run, little Norm. You are not one of us. You will never be one of us. You will die all afraid and alone—”
“Aspen!”
Aspen awoke to find herself pinning someone down, knife to their throat. Isak blinked up at her. He didn’t look terribly surprised at finding himself in this situation.
“Isak?”
“Morning. Remind me to poke you with a stick next time. A long stick.”
Aspen scrambled off him and Isak stood and brushed himself off.
“Sorry,” Aspen said. “But don’t do that.”
“I won’t. I should have known better.”
Aspen looked out the window. It was still dark out. “What time is it?”
“Early. I don’t like being seen where we’re going.”
Aspen paused before picking up her jacket and swinging it on. “And where is that?”
“Downtown. We’re going to visit a demon.”
The Dream Dealer
Aspen’s head was on a constant swivel as they left the twisting turns of the alleyway and came out on the other side of the river in Ember’s Landing. Staying at Eve’s place had been safe enough. That had been on the outskirts of the borough, but she recognized where they were now.
“You didn’t say we were coming back here! What if somebody sees me?”
Isak didn’t look the least bit flustered as he took off under the gathering dawn and crisp air, across the bridge and into the cluster of streets. “Another reason we’re leaving early. And I didn’t think you’d come if I told you where it was.”
“I wouldn’t have!”
“And now you see the glorious reasoning to my plan.”
Aspen cursed him under her breath. But it seemed, for now, they were in the clear. No one else was out. She didn’t see any wanted posters with her name on it. No packs of shifters out prowling for her blood. Everything seemed as normal and uneventful as she remembered.
“Detour,” Aspen said.
Before Isak could protest, Aspen took off another direction. The familiar lilt and tilt of the streets sang to her feet as she walked until she stopped between a pair of buildings, watching the shop across the road.
“What are you doing?” Isak demanded behind her.
“Checking in on a friend,” Aspen answered, eyes not leaving the shop. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
“Says the girl who was worried about being caught.”
There. The light in the shop downstairs flickered on. Right on time, as he was every morning. Only when Brune’s gargantuan figure moved past the window did she let out a sigh of relief. They hadn’t evicted him. Yet.
“Care to explain who that is?” Isak said, watching Brune move around the shop.
“My friend. My family.” Aspen didn’t say more. Isak gazed at her for a moment. Then he nodded.
“Is he okay?”
“For now.”
“Then we’d best work to keep it that way.”
It occurred to Aspen as they continued walking that Isak seemed to be in the same curt, abrupt mood he always was. He didn’t bring up her comments about Xavier last night, not even when she had pointed out what Brune meant to her. If anything, she could almost swear his attitude was a bit more…approachable. It was as if showing him where she lived had put them on level ground, put her life into a perspective he could understand.
They paused at a corner before crossing the street. Aspen suddenly began to crouch as a shifter emerged from a house beside them. But the man merely yawned and ignored them as he walked the other way.
Isak was smirking at her again.
“I know I’m paranoid, shut up,” Aspen said.
“The most paranoid person I know. But justified, in this case. We’re almost there.”
Aspen caught his eyes flickering toward her every so often. She was about to check if she had a booger hanging from her nose when Isak said, “By the way…Are those…new clothes?”
“These? Oh, yeah, I guess. Eve gave them to me.”
Isak looked as though he’d run face first into an electrical pole. “I could have sworn she hated you.”
“Oh, she does.”
That only seemed to make him more confused, and Aspen didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of the hate/hate, semi-helpful relationship she had with the other girl. She wasn’t sure she understood it herself.
“Oh. Well…you look good.”
“Thanks,” Aspen said after a beat, deciding that he wasn’t making fun of her and choosing to take the compliment for what it was.
“You ever meet a demon?” Isak said, switching to a subject Aspen was more comfortable with.
Aspen thought about this. Only low-level demons were allowed in the city, and unless you had a particular reason for seeking one out, most sane people kept their distance.
“I’ve met a demon-kin,” Aspen said, recalling the ageless, eerie Caretaker at Lucien’s house.
“Close, but not the same. The demons who possess demon-kin feed off that singular human’s
life energy to survive. Regular demons have to eat other ways. They feed off human energy, and they love twisting you to their will. Watch what you say because they’ll always try to rope you into an unbreakable contract with them. Once you’re tied into that they can call on and feed on you whenever they want. Sort of like a Vamp’s blood bond.”
“Sounds lovely. So why are we visiting one?”
“Because most demons are also ancient and know a crap-ton about everything. When you deal in information, memories and dreams, you tend to pick up a lot. Here it is.”
Aspen stopped when they turned the corner. An ice cream shop sat across the street, some of the white paint curling off the wood. It seemed much smaller than it had when she was seven. She was surprised it was still in business, but it had been popular that day. She remembered that, even if the other details surrounding her visit were fuzzy; like the stench of the alleyway filth as she was pushed into it; the dark smoke, rising over the rooftops in the distance.
“Aspen…” Isak was grimacing like he too had some less-than-desirable memories he was conjuring up about this place. “You okay? I forgot, this was where…”
Aspen closed off the memories like a steel door slamming shut. “I’m fine. Is this it?”
Isak paused before jerking his head to the side. “That is.”
They crossed to an unassuming store beside the ice cream place. The flecked lettering over the striped awning read: Needful Things: Dealer in Exotic and Eccentric Merchandise.
“That means he deals with—” Isak said.
“I got it,” Aspen said.
All manner of glittering trinkets had been hung in the water-stained windows. The front door was propped open, the inside softly lit.
When Aspen stepped inside, she felt a sudden rush of something she couldn’t quite place—a yearning for another time, another place, a nostalgia she couldn’t quite hang onto, along with the faintest curl of sulfur that quickly disintegrated on her tongue.
Isak leaned over. “I wouldn’t touch anything.”
That would be easier said than done. The shop was an exemplary example of madness manifested in clutter form. Brass compasses were displayed beside sundials and petroglyphs. Severed mannequin heads stared eyeless at them from one corner, a bubblegum machine in the other. There were fossils and cracking yellow documents that looked extremely valuable alongside game consoles and softly tinkling bands of real strung diamonds. And teeth. Necklaces full of them. This was the den of a hoarder. A scavenger. A collector of fragile, broken things.
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