by D. N. Hoxa
I’d stared at the stupid photograph all night long and tried to find a hidden message Sasha could have left me in it, something she didn’t want her students to see. I found nothing. In the end, I was forced to admit that the only possible meaning to her message was to speak to the other high priests in Richmond who were in that picture in the hope of finding the answer. She knew I was wanted by the Ministry. Maybe she took that into account when she sent me after Gwendolyn and Cornelius. Hopefully.
Nana had told me that all the high priests of Richmond came from one Enclave, but I’d never actually seen a picture of it. Maybe Sasha didn’t want me going after these two. Maybe she wanted me to find the other people in her photograph. Eight complete strangers and I didn’t even know their names. Gwendolyn Love would tell them to me, if nothing else. She would have to—I would make sure of it.
The Love Enclave was located in the busiest part of the city, a huge, four-story building made of stone, closer to the other houses in the street than any other Enclave to any building. Nana said Gwendolyn owned the buildings on either side of hers, so that’s why she could afford to stay in that place and watch everything around her wither from her magic. She had no care for the environment and the law had no care for high priests’ whims. I could feel the power of her Guard as soon as I approached the gates of her castle. Two security cameras moved and the lenses in them rolled, probably zooming in on my face. I didn’t have to ring any bells—whoever was watching me would know I was there and let Gwendolyn know. Hopefully, she didn’t pack her things and leave her students to fight me before giving me another picture. I swore I would set her fucking castle on fire if that happened. Something was going on in this city, and I was going to figure it out before Nana died just so she could look me in the eye and tell me that I had been right all along. So she could finally accept me for who I was and give me my powers back.
Too much to hope for, but here I was.
Gwendolyn’s castle was about twenty feet away from the gates. Her front lawn was perfectly straight, not a blade of grass out of place. The huge yellow door opened and out came a man dressed in a black suit wearing shades as dark as mine. I couldn’t tell what he was, but I could see the shapes of his weapons under his jacket as he moved. His hair was cropped short, and his nose hung like a hook over his thin lips. Taking in a deep breath, I waited for him to come to the gates, half of me hoping he’d turn me away and half that he’d let me in.
He didn’t ask for my name or the reason why I was there. He didn’t even ask me to surrender any weapons. To do that would be to admit that Gwendolyn was vulnerable and weak, that any weapon could defeat her. Good thing, too. I wouldn’t want to part with my chakris. The man just unlocked the gate and pulled it open to let me in. Every instinct in my body wanted me to turn around and run away, but I resisted. The only other person I knew in that picture was Cornelius Graneheart, and even Gwendolyn was a better option than him. Suck it up, Ruby. It wasn’t going to last forever, just a few minutes.
The man in the suit still said nothing as he locked the gate again and headed back for the castle. I followed him.
“Thanks for letting me in, man. It’s nice to meet you, too. Quite a fancy workplace you got here,” I said, trying to ease my own mood, but I got no reply. The man kept walking and the closer I got to the castle, the more I was sure I was going to throw up. When he opened the yellow door and waited for me to walk inside, I had to hold my breath for a second or the incredibly strong smell of roses was going to knock me out.
The hallway of the castle was huge. White marble floors that glistened under my feet held three different tables with a huge bouquet of roses on each one. I’d be lucky if I didn’t pass out. It was just too much.
The man didn’t stop to give me a second to adjust to the smell and the bright lights—he kept on walking to the elevator at the other end of the hallway. Four doors polished to the point of shining under the strong overhead lights lined the hallway, but none of them were open. Everything was so perfect—the carvings on the ceiling, the wooden panels on the walls, the clean elevator doors—a headache was developing fast. I was regretting having eaten that hotdog on the way here.
The elevator was spacious and had a huge mirror on the back wall, one that showed a version of me I didn’t like very much. I was pale, my wet hair tied behind my head, my shoulders more tense than I would have liked them to be when meeting Gwendolyn Love. I tried to relax, but it wasn’t working.
“You’re a real talker, aren’t you,” I said to the guy in the suit, who pressed the golden button for the fourth floor. He turned to the side so he could see me and folded his hands in front of him. “Oh, no, don’t stop. Come on, your voice is so melodic.” I grinned when the corner of his lips turned up just slightly. See? I could be funny when I was nervous. And scared.
“You’re taking me to see Gwendolyn Love, right? I mean, you didn’t even ask me or anything.” Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t running into another surprise like I did at Sasha’s.
“You’re to address her as Master Love,” the man finally said.
I laughed. “I knew it. Your voice is melodic!” It really was nice.
Finally, he smiled all the way. “Just don’t piss her off, will you?”
“Oh, boy,” I breathed. “Can’t make you that promise. But she’s here, isn’t she?”
He nodded, just as the doors of the elevator slid open. “She’s expecting you.”
I couldn’t even feel relieved. Goddamn it, someone needed to teach that woman that just because you filled a room with a thousand roses, it wasn’t going to smell good. It was going to make people nauseous. I had a pretty strong stomach and the room kept on spinning. I also had allergies, but it seemed roses weren’t a trigger. I had yet to start sneezing.
Roses everywhere. Dark red, beautiful ones, but so, so many. The room was absolutely perfect. High ceiling carved with baby angels holding bows and arrows with heart-shaped tips, and huge windows that seemed to suck in all the sunlight from the rest of the neighborhood. Dark red carpets covered the marble floor here and there, and the white leather furniture looked comfortable enough to sleep on. But the man in the suit didn’t stop there. He took us to the right of the room, past about a million roses, through a door and into a smaller room with a very long dining table with twenty-four chairs and—you guessed it—two dozen roses on top of it.
“Please wait here. Master Love will be with you in a minute,” the man said and stepped back.
“Thanks,” I said as his footsteps echoed in my head. The entire castle felt so empty even though it was filled with so many beautiful things. There were two closed doors on either side of the room. I was going to take the chance to explore a little, see what I could find before she could find me, but I never got the chance.
The door on the left opened, and Gwendolyn Love in all her glory walked inside.
“Ruby, my dear! Welcome!” she said, her voice high-pitched but you couldn’t ignore the power that rang through it.
I almost rolled my eyes. She’d seen me twice before, in obligatory meetings at Nana’s Enclave, and she barely even looked at me then. Now, I was dear? That alone added to my unease, but I smiled. She really was a sight to see. Her long, blonde hair fell in waves all the way to her hips. Her white dress hugged her hourglass figure perfectly and revealed just a little too much cleavage, as did the cut up her thigh. It was really hard not to stare. She waved at me with fingers perfectly manicured to match the color of the roses on the table. Her eyes were green today, though I could have sworn they were blue the other times I’d seen her. Could have been the light.
“It’s good to see you, Master Love,” I said in my sweetest voice. I’d have loved to tell her how she needed to just loosen up and live a little—and what the hell is up with all the roses?—but I needed her to cooperate so I was on my best behavior, despite my personal feelings.
“Oh, you’re such a sweetheart,” she said, waving me off. I almost expected her to
blush. “Sit!” she ordered, waving at the first chair at her table, and she sat with me. I felt like I was sitting on needles, but it was rude to ask to stand. “I was so sad to hear about your status with the Magian Ministry. So unfortunate.”
My wanted status, she meant. I forced myself to smile. “Then you also must have heard that I’m being accused unfairly.”
Her big green eyes widened and her bow of a mouth opened. She had such good control of her facial expressions that you’d be tempted to believe in everything she said if you didn’t know her.
“Oh, no, I’m afraid I don’t, but I’d love to hear the story.” Ah, I fell right into that.
“Maybe another time.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m sure you know that I must report you to the Ministry. I would be committing a crime if I didn’t.”
All blood left my face in a second, and she laughed.
“I’m kidding. I’m kidding, silly!”
She wasn’t. She wasn’t kidding. The question was, did she already make the call, or was she going to make it after I left? Fuck, I had even less time than I thought.
“You should have seen your face!” she continued to laugh, waving her hands at my face. “Tell me, dear, did I ever tell you about the time I had David Hollaway right here in this dining room? It was right after he won his second Oscar.”
Oh, God. Please don’t tell me you fucked him on this table! Just to be sure, I put my hands on my lap and cleared my throat.
“As you know, Master Love, Nana is missing and I’m trying to find her,” I said, putting as much conviction into my voice as I could. It was hard to try to focus now that I knew the Ministry could be on their way, and I didn’t even have an exit plan. If they popped up behind me, which way was I going to go? I hadn’t seen any stairs, but there had to be an emergency exit somewhere.
The smile dropped from Gwendolyn’s face as if what I’d said was that unexpected. “Yes,” was all she said.
“I went to see Sasha Fortine last night, hoping she could shed some light on the situation, but it seems she left, too.”
“I’m not sure how I could help you with that, Ruby. I am truly sorry to hear about Nana”—she put both her hands on her chest and closed her eyes—a true Oscar-worthy performance—“but I’m afraid I don’t know anything about what she was involved in.”
Expected, but I couldn’t keep from getting angry at her accusation. She never liked Nana and the feeling was mutual, but the woman was kidnapped, for God’s sake. Gwendolyn could hold off her accusations for another time, surely.
“She wasn’t involved in anything. Someone took her from her Enclave, and you could be the only one who could help me.” She wasn’t happy about my tone of voice. She made sure I knew by the way she raised her brow, but fuck it. Who knew how much time I had left? I took out the envelope with the photograph and put it on the table. “Sasha knew I would go to look for her, and she left this for me with her students.”
Gwendolyn took one look at the picture, just for a fraction of a second, then leaned back and folded her arms in front of her. She looked at me with a new light now, a bit disappointed that she hadn’t been able to get me to talk to her, probably to buy time so that the Ministry could get here and catch me unprepared.
“You’re in this picture, and I need your help to figure out who took Nana and what Sasha is running from.” Because she was running from something, all right. A high priestess never left her Enclave unless it was a life or death situation.
“I’m going to tell you again—I know nothing of what they were involved in, and I can’t help you,” she said through gritted teeth. Her power radiated from her so suddenly that it made me lean back.
“At least tell me the names of the other people in this picture—can you do that?”
She shrugged. “It’s been so long, I can’t remember.”
The need to shout at her was strong, the need to punch her in her perfect face stronger.
“One high priestess was kidnapped from her home, and another was scared enough to leave her Enclave unattended to get away. Whoever we’re dealing with here is powerful. You should want the person responsible found as much as I do.”
Gwendolyn laughed. “Are you suggesting that I’m in danger, Ruby Monroe?”
Yes, damn it! “I’m suggesting that we don’t know what this person is after, and we can’t know for sure unless we find him.”
“I’m no weakling, dear. And I’m not as old as the other high priests. So sweet of you to worry about me, but I will be fine,” she said, and I wanted to strangle her with my bare hands. Instead, I got my phone out of my pocket and unlocked the screen. The picture of the runes burned into Nana’s hallway was already there as I’d left it.
“These are Egyptian runes, left in the place where Nana was taken.” That got her attention, and she actually looked at the phone for a good moment. “Can you read them, or do you know someone who can?”
As if she’d just remembered herself, Gwendolyn pulled back and looked at me wide-eyed, her perfect mask slipping her grasp for a second.
“No,” she said. It was so final that I knew it would be useless to keep asking.
I stood up. “A name. Just give me a name. Please, Gwendolyn. Come on, you must want to help me. Otherwise you wouldn’t have let me in!”
She stood up, too, looking at me like she was deciding which spell to hit me with first. My fingers itched to grab my chakris, but I resisted. I didn’t want to give her a reason to attack.
“Drop this, Ruby. Disappear like you did before. This isn’t a game,” she said under her breath.
“You know I won’t do that.” Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered to come back to Richmond, let alone willingly come to meet Gwendolyn Love.
“Things you can’t possibly understand are at play here. You’re going to get yourself killed,” she continued.
I put the phone in front of her face. “Do you know what these runes mean?”
She shook her head. “I don’t need to. Whoever is crazy enough to use Egyptian runes must be avoided at all costs. You have a chance to get out now.” It could have been just another trick of the light, but she almost looked afraid.
“A name. Tell me who these people are. Any of them,” I said, showing her the picture next.
She closed her eyes and her extended lashes practically touched her cheeks. When she opened them again, she was completely composed.
“Christopher Ford, our high priest,” she said, her voice sharp once again. “Now leave.”
“Christopher Ford, as in the Christopher Ford from the Order of the Magians?” I’d heard about him. The Order of the Magians was the body that put to trial every magian who’d committed a crime, no matter who brought them in: the Ministry or the humans. They were fully independent and didn’t report to anybody. They managed magian prisoners and executions, and they were ruthless. They were what awaited me if I ever got caught.
“Don’t come back here, Ruby Monroe,” Gwendolyn said. “Go.”
I didn’t say thank you—I didn’t need to. She might have given me a name—the name of probably the only person I had no hopes of ever meeting to ask about anything—but her urge to get me to leave was a clear indication that she had, in fact, called the Ministry before she met with me. Probably as soon as she saw my face on the camera. I didn’t know how long I had to get out and disappear, but I started running for the elevator at full speed. The guy with the suit was waiting for me there. I no longer saw the roses or smelled them. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and figure out a plan of action.
The man called the elevator up as soon as he saw me, and by the time I reached him, the doors opened. But before I could step inside the car, a loud explosion came from behind me, followed by a very loud scream.
The blood in my veins turned to stone. The explosion had come from somewhere in the back of the main room, right from where I’d come from. I started to run back with my heart in my throat and my chakris in my hand.
The man in the suit was right behind me, holding his guns, but I wasn’t sure our weapons were going to be of any use.
The door through which Gwendolyn had come into the dining room was open and black smoke was coming through it. Time seemed to move in slow motion, but this time it wasn’t an illusion caused by a mage. It was real and I smelled the smoke, felt the desperation, knowing that even if I had wings, I would be too late.
I slipped through the door and into another corridor with doors on both sides, but the smoke was coming from the first to my left. Heavy chanting I’d never heard before shook me to my core. I approached the door carefully and tried to see inside, but the smoke was everywhere. I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt and tried to move inside, but I couldn’t. Something was stopping me, something like a force field, a Guard as thick as a concrete wall.
But I could see.
The shape of a man wearing a cloak that covered him completely, and the blonde hair of Gwendolyn Love over his arm.
“Stop!” I shouted as loudly as I could, but when I tried to breathe again, I ended up coughing and gasping for air.
A blink was all it took, and the shape was gone, replaced by grey smoke. And the Guard was gone, too. Its energy disappeared and nothing stopped me from getting inside the room. The room was all but invisible, but the source of the smoke was obvious. The hardwood floor in the middle of the room had a hole in it and around it something burned. The man in the suit was opening the windows, coughing together with me as he tried to make sense of what had happened, but he couldn’t. Neither could I.