by C. C. Mahon
“Then what?”
He inhaled noisily, clenched his fists, and blew slowly as if to calm himself. “The problem is I almost lost control of my bear. A metamorph must always be in control. Manage their emotions. But lately, it’s been…difficult.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been looking into it. I’m not the only one with problems. We think it’s because of the leak. If the ambient magic becomes too strong, it feeds our animal at the expense of our human side.”
“Is that why you lost your temper last night?”
He nodded. “My bear refused to let a wolf enter his territory.”
“He did let Jenny’s coyote in,” I said.
“I’ve known Jenny for a long time. Wolves are new to the city. They are also ’young’ as metamorphs. And they stole these powers with Carver’s spell. All this is a lot of unknowns and instability.”
“I see… What if I tell the wolves not to come to the club anymore? All they have to do is drink at the Take a Chance…”
“Wolves are not the problem. I have to learn—relearn—to control my bear with this new level of ambient magic. Until it is done…” He shrugged.
“And if the level of magic continues to increase?”
“I may have to go back to the desert.”
“Customs put Vegas under quarantine,” I remarked.
“Rumor has it that the area extends to Boulder. I’ll have to find a corner of desert somewhere within these limits.”
“If the other shapeshifters are in the same situation as you, the desert will quickly become overcrowded,” I said.
“Not for long.”
He meant that the strongest, or most aggressive, metamorph would eliminate the others. A bloodbath…
Would they limit themselves to the desert?
Should we expect to see coyotes, pumas, and wolves on the streets of Vegas?
In addition to the zombies?
Nate pulled me out of my dark thoughts. He reached out his big hand to me, and I held it tight.
“I’ll let you know when things are better,” he said.
And he left, leaving me alone with a club that opened less than an hour later and no bouncer.
In my small desk, at the bottom of a drawer, I had kept a few CVs. I took out the one I was interested in: “Eupraxie Konstantopoulos.”
Eupraxie was a gorgon. She had tried to get the bartender job a few weeks earlier, but she had never served a cocktail in her life. I had kept her CV because a woman with snakes on her head and a look that could turn someone into stone could always be useful. If memory served, Eupraxie was looking for work because her husband had just left her. Had she already found a job? I picked up my phone.
Twenty minutes later, Eupraxie rang the intercom.
It was still daylight, and the gorgon had come “incognito,” wearing wide sunglasses and a very chic scarf to cover her snakes. In her fitted pantsuit, she looked like a 1950s’ movie star.
I let her in and explained the situation to her. “I know you wanted the bartender job, but I need a bouncer. Do you feel like it?”
“Ah!” said the gorgon. “I knew I didn’t need to buy a spell to get a job.”
“Buy a spell?”
“It’s the new trendy business. With this raw magic floating all over the city, any low-level wizard can make spells that he previously failed. Some take the opportunity to start their own business: $70 for a love potion, a lucky charm, or a minor revenge, $100 to get a job, $300 to get rid of a rival, and $500 to win at the casino. My neighbors’ son came to talk to me. He had a flyer with the prices. I told him to go to hell.”
She went through her pocket and took out a paper carefully folded into four parts: the prospectus in question.
“You told him to go to hell, but you kept his ad,” I said.
She chased the remark away with a negligent gesture from her hand. “You never know what life will bring.”
“Except when you spend $500 to win at the casino.”
“Vegas has never been soft on cheaters. You’d end up buried in the desert. By the way, what is your policy for free riders?”
“No one is buried in the desert,” I hastened to answer.
“Can I petrify them?”
“Depends. How long does the effect last?”
“Well, that depends on where you keep the bodies. In the desert, erosion is right in a few decades. But in a museum…”
“OKAY, OKAY. No petrification.”
“I must be able to defend myself,” Eupraxie protested. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are pretty nervous right now.”
No kidding?
I thought for a moment before suggesting, “I can provide you with a Taser if you promise to use it only in self-defense.”
“It doesn’t work on trolls.”
“If a troll bothers you, you send it to me, okay? Your primary role is to filter humans without powers and to warn me of any trouble. For the rest, we have Guild protection spells all over the building.”
“I felt that when I walked in,” said Eupraxie. “It tickles a little. When do I start?”
I looked at my watch. “Now.”
14
Like every night since the Strip explosion, the club was packed. Many customers gathered in front of the counter, and it was not uncommon to see chairs rearranged around tables to accommodate large groups. During the night, a table caught my attention. It was located in the corner of the back room. The young gothic girl who had explained to me the fight between Nate and the wolf was sitting there. But every time I passed by, a different customer was installed in front of her. Young, old, of every imaginable genus and species. And if I passed a little too close or lingered, I would see them stiffen up.
What was that kid up to in my club?
I gave up my role as a waitress and, at the same time, my appearance. I choose to adopt the one of a grungy teenager I sometimes met in the neighborhood. I waited at a distance from my prey’s interlocutor to get up. This time it was a middle-aged woman—at least she looked like one. What she really was, I didn’t know. I intercepted the woman as soon as she left the back room. “Excuse me,” I said in a shy voice. “I heard about a girl selling… Hmm…you know?”
“Are you talking about Chloe? She’s in the back, over there.”
“And, uh, is she good?”
The woman laughed a little and tapped her pocket. “I’ll tell you that in a few days.”
I let her go and headed for Chloe’s table. I settled down in front of her without a word.
“What do you need?” asked Chloe immediately.
“I’m not sure…”
“What’s your problem? Wait, no, no, let me guess. You’re not old enough to play in a casino, so it’s not a gambling spell. At your age, you only think about love. So either you want a love potion or it’s for revenge. Anyway, I hope it’s not for exam success, because that’s so bourgeois!”
“How much for revenge?”
“Depends on the target and the damage you want to inflict on it.”
“Let’s say a human. And I want him to get exactly what he did to us.”
Chloe’s smile widened. “Backlash is my specialty. On humans, it’s easy. What did he do to you?”
“He caused an accident,” I said. “My sister lost an eye. What can you do about it?”
“The principle of the backlash is that the spell recreates exactly the conditions of the offense. So the guy will have the same accident as your sister, with the same consequences.”
“Can you really do that?”
She spread her hands with an air of false modesty. “I’m good at it.”
“And bring someone back,” I said, “can you do it?”
“Someone who dumped you?”
“No. Someone dead. Can you bring him back?”
Chloe’s smile faded. “Necromancy?” she whispered. “Are you kidding me? I don’t touch these things.”
“Why not?”
“Because to bring back a dead man, you need two things: a new life and a piece of soul. Life, you have to take it from someone else. Identity doesn’t matter, but the life must be of the same caliber: one woman for a woman, one old guy for an old guy, and if you want to bring back a kid, you have to kill another. That alone is risky.”
“What about the soul?”
“That’s the worst. You have to give up a piece of your own soul. A little bit of soul, every time. And this stuff doesn’t grow back. That’s why the most experienced necromancers are out-and-out psychopaths. Seriously, don’t touch that stuff.”
“I am glad to see that you have a conscience,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
I let my illusion dissipate. Chloe recognized me and paled under her makeup.
“Erica…I…I wasn’t doing anything wrong…”
“You sell spells on the sly,” I said.
“Nothing bad…”
“Have you registered your activity to Customs? And what does the Guild say about it?”
“We don’t need to talk to them about it. With all the magic going around town, it’s not my few spells that will tip the balance…”
“Have you sold a ‘backlash’ to a battered woman recently?”
Her face closed. “Professional secrecy.”
“What about a girl who lost her legs in a car accident?”
“Look, if you want, I’ll give you…uh…ten percent.”
I shook my head.
“Fifteen percent?” she said. “Twenty?”
“I’m not going to report you,” I said. “But I don’t want you to do your business in my club anymore. Come with me.”
I went up to the entrance, where I found Eupraxie working. She had taken off her scarf, and her snakes were dancing on her head like reeds in the breeze.
“Everything going well?” I asked.
“Everything’s perfect,” Eupraxie said.
“This is Chloe. She also developed a small spell business. But instead of going door-to-door like your neighbors’ son, she moved it into my club without telling me. Take a good look at her. She’s not allowed to come in anymore, and if you see her doing business in a hundred-yard perimeter of the club, you let me know right away, and I’ll call Customs.”
Eupraxie nodded joyfully, and her snakes swung under Chloe’s nose as if to get a better look.
The kid walked away without further ado.
15
I went down the stairs to the bar, lost in my thoughts.
Was I right to let Chloe get away with it so cheaply? Some of the spells she was proposing had a high power of nuisance… But Chloe was apparently not the only one selling paid love, luck, or revenge. And as she said, given the amount of magic available, it would not upset the city’s balance. At least I was hoping so.
What worried me more was this necromancy thing.
I had asked the question at random, thinking that she might be selling zombie bacteria in addition to spells. After all, why not? I didn’t expect a crash course on necromancy.
I always thought it was a legend. And I wasn’t sure yet that it wasn’t.
In the main room, I looked for Barbie. She was serving three groups and taking four orders at a time and would not be available for a while. Johnny did not have, to my knowledge, any magic skills, and Gertrude was off duty. Which left me with Matteo.
The kitchens smelled like oil, spices, and coriander. A small hurricane moved between the workstations, chopping, grabbing, and preparing the dishes all on its own.
“Matteo,” I said, “do you have a moment?”
The hurricane stopped by my side. “What?”
He was obviously still in a bad mood. But for the moment, he seemed to keep a semblance of composure.
“Do you know anything about necromancy?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “Who died?”
“No one. It’s a theoretical question. Is there such a thing?”
Matteo grabbed his knife and went back to chop vegetables but slower this time.
“It’s rare,” he said, “but it exists, yes.”
“Why rare? That must interest a lot of people.”
“We vampires don’t talk about it. We are almost immortal, and we only care about our immediate gain. But I’ve heard stories, of course. It is said to be extremely difficult, and the price to pay is prohibitive.”
“The soul thing?”
“That and the murders, yes.”
“But why is it difficult?” I asked.
He thought for a moment before explaining. “I believe the problem is the amount of energy needed to bring the mind back from the other world. It takes a lot of concentration, a strong will, and a good mastery of magic. After all, we are talking about bringing the conscience of a deceased person back into their corpse. Not all minds necessarily agree.”
“Why not?”
“I guess some of them are happy in the afterlife?”
“But in theory, with all the magic that goes around town, one could bring the dead back to life?”
Matteo’s knife stopped. “Boss, are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m not going to bring anyone back from the dead,” I said. “But last night, all the residents of the morgue came out of their refrigerators, and I wonder what happened.”
“Is Marcellin recruiting?”
“He says he isn’t. And he didn’t seem to know about it. It took Dale calling him to send his people to pick up the undead.”
“So you think we have a necromancer in town?”
“Why not?”
“It is still more likely that it is bacterial contamination.”
“I suppose time will tell us.”
“I heard you fired Nate?” asked Matteo without transition.
“On the contrary, he is the one who resigned. He’s having problems controlling his grizzly.”
“Is our big teddy bear in a bad mood?”
“In a nutshell, yes. How are you doing? Is this influx of magic a problem for you?”
“For the moment, it’s fine. I just…I feel a little nervous, that’s all.”
I noticed that.
“Is that why you and Lola had a fight?”
I could have sworn I saw him blush.
I used not to go into my employees’ private lives. But I could no longer resist the temptation. “Are you two serious?”
His expression saddened. “‘The future will tell us.’ But don’t worry, I’m not going to ditch you like Teddy Bear.”
To change the subject, I told him about my confrontation with Chloe.
“She talked about betting spells?” said Matteo. “If my father finds out about this, I won’t give much of the kid’s life.”
“I thought your family was only interested in the emotions of the players?”
“Emotions feed them, yes. But the money pays the employees and keeps the casinos up and running. If gamblers start using magic to cheat, my old man won’t let it happen. Especially right now.”
“Is he in a bad mood, too?”
“You have no idea how much. Anything that could compromise his business puts him in a bad mood.”
I thought of Eupraxie’s neighbor with his flyers. I should talk to her about this. These new witches were kids, and they didn’t seem to appreciate the consequences of their small businesses.
I went back to the main room to give Barbie a hand and had no more time to think about zombies, necromancers, and spell dealers. I still kept both eyes open but noticed nothing suspicious for the rest of the night. Nothing except for a few nervous customers and some others more euphoric than usual. Magic seemed to affect everyone but not always in the same way.
When the last customer left, I grabbed a chair and straddled it. I sighed. “Another hell of a night,” I said. “Well done, team. You did a good job.”
Behind the counter, Johnny smiled. “You’re welcome, boss. I like to work like this. It keeps me from thinking too much.”
�
�Any problems?”
He shrugged and jabbed his chin forward, as he sometimes did. “Not strictly speaking. But when you’ve spent seventy years in the shoes of a bird…let’s just say you don’t come out of it unscathed.”
“Still growing feathers? Can I help you?”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m going to go back to my cozy little nest and rest a little bit. Tonight I’ll be as good as new!”
He started cleaning his bar, and I got up to help Barbie clean the tables.
“What about you?” I asked. “How are you?”
“The usual,” said the harpy. “I quit smoking.”
Barbie quit smoking on average once a month. She would quit quitting after a few days, much to the relief of the rest of the team. Deprived of tobacco, the harpy was always in a dog-like mood.
“You seem very cheerful for someone in withdrawal,” I said.
“It’s only been a few hours. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
16
The room was tidy, the money in the safe. We were about to go back up when the intercom rang.
“Boss,” said Eupraxie, “someone is asking for you.”
“Who?”
“A Susan? She says you met her last night at the morgue. What do I do?”
“I’m coming up.”
Susan had put on clothes since the day before, but I recognized the old woman who had been shot by an overly nervous cop. On the sidewalk, under Eupraxie’s watch, Susan seemed very frail, tired, and desperate.
“No one wants me anymore,” cried the old woman.
I laid my hands on her thin shoulders in a futile attempt to comfort her. But she seemed inconsolable.
“Marcellin said we’re not zombies. We had to leave again. So I went home. But my daughter freaked out when she saw me, she kept crying, and my son-in-law kicked me out…”
“How did you find me?”
“Marcellin gave us this…”
She handed me one of the club’s business cards.
“Did Marcellin tell you to come to me?”
“He said you were going to take care of us. I didn’t want to bother you, but since my daughter doesn’t want to see me anymore…”
She burst into tears right there, at my club’s door.