Sleight of Fantasy: Sasha Urban Series: Book 4

by Dima Zales

The needle flies true, and it better: I’ve practiced needle spitting this way for enough hours to win a gold medal in it—assuming someone would make such an insane sport part of the Olympics.

  Packing everything I need to repeat the effect in a short while, I join Felix and Rose for brunch.

  As it sometimes happens when I have something new to perform, I’m only partially there as we eat and Rose tells us the PG version of her trip. Most of my brain cycles are busy fantasizing about the upcoming performance and the expression on Ariel’s face when she sees it.

  I soon realize I’m actually nervous about the performance. I guess I really want to make Ariel happy, at least for a few seconds, after everything she’s been through.

  When we finally leave, I’m not surprised to find Kevin and the fancy limo waiting for us downstairs.

  At this point, I wouldn’t be that shocked to learn that Kevin sleeps here. I’m beginning to think Nero is using him to make sure I don’t get into more trouble. It’s his way of ensuring that his goose keeps laying golden eggs—even when she gives him stocks as a joke, apparently.

  The trip to the rehab facility is similar to the brunch: my mind is on the upcoming needle-swallowing, with everything secondary, even the majestically futuristic streets of Gomorrah.

  “Wait here. I’ll go get Ariel,” Felix tells me when we enter the Star Wars cantina-like lobby of the facility.

  “Sure,” I say, the sight of elves, dwarfs, orcs, and a slew of other exotic creatures finally dragging me out of my performance musings.

  “Sasha,” says Ariel’s voice next to my ear.

  I turn around.

  Ariel is grinning at me, and she looks good—supermodel good.

  Or more to the point—the cured kind of good.

  “Hey, you,” I say, unsure how one talks to a friend in rehab.

  “Don’t you ‘hey you’ me,” Ariel says, her grin widening. “Come give me a hug.”

  I gladly comply, and hugging her makes some deep-seated anxiety in my chest melt away.

  “You smell so good,” Ariel murmurs, her lips brushing sensually against my ear as she gives it a nibble. “I’ve missed you.”

  “What?” Startled, I extricate myself from the hug. “I what?”

  She cocks her head.

  My thoughts spin at a thousand miles per hour. Is she still under mind control—but by a horny teenage boy who can see through her eyes and speak through her mouth, Baba Yaga style? Or is the vampire-blood withdrawal messing with her libido and sexual preferences? Will she become a sex addict now, like Kit?

  Wait a minute.

  “Kit?” I say sternly, narrowing my eyes at “Ariel.”

  Sighing, the woman in front of me transforms into the mischievous Councilor.

  “Ariel wasn’t herself these last few days, so I didn’t get a chance to interact with her and learn the proper behavior patterns,” she says apologetically in her anime-character voice.

  “You think that’s the problem?”

  “Sasha,” Felix says breathlessly from behind me, and I turn around, alerted by some strange note in his voice.

  Sucking in a breath, he rattles out, “Ariel isn’t here.”

  A wave of dread hits me.

  “Explain,” Kit says imperiously, stepping toward Felix.

  “They couldn’t find her this morning,” he says. “They pulled up the security footage, and it shows Ariel waltzing out of this place a few hours before we arrived.”

  “They just let her leave?” I ask.

  “This isn’t a prison,” Kit says. “Unless we explicitly agreed to be held here, we can leave whenever we want.”

  “They should’ve had her under mind control longer.” Felix looks around the place with narrowed eyes.

  “There’s a protocol for that too,” Kit says. “They have to let you exercise your will when they think you can handle it.”

  “But she clearly couldn’t yet,” I say sharply.

  Kit looks uncomfortable—an expression that seems foreign on her face. “I’m sorry about my unfortunate impersonation earlier,” she mutters. “I didn’t know she’d be missing and—”

  I wave off her apologies, trying to analyze the implications of this development.

  “She’s an addict,” I say to Felix. “So it’s logical to assume she’d go seeking a fix.”

  “Gaius,” Felix says, his face twisting in very un-Felix-like hatred. “She’s probably looking for that asshat.”

  “Gaius?” Kit’s left eyebrow rises impossibly high on her forehead—no doubt a trick of her shapeshifting abilities.

  “He got Ariel hooked,” I explain.

  “Or at least imbibing his blood is how Ariel got to this place,” Felix says.

  I’m about to yell at Felix for defending Gaius, if that’s what he meant, but something about Kit’s expression stops me.

  “He was here earlier today,” she says, her eyebrows furrowed so closely together they almost form a cross. “I thought he was here for me, but now I don’t feel so special anymore.” Her heart-shaped lips form into a pout.

  “Gaius was here?” Felix and I say in unison.

  “A few hours ago,” Kit says. “He told me he recently got back from Russia, and we flirted for a bit. I then reminded him that I’m planning to check myself out today, and we agreed to meet in Brooklyn.”

  “Excuse me?” Felix manages to look even more confused than I feel.

  “I had a whole week of celibacy,” Kit says defensively. “Vampires make voracious lovers, so when one as old as Gaius offers a dalliance—”

  “We don’t care about your sex life,” I interrupt, then take a breath. “We want to locate Ariel, and they have a history.”

  “Do you think Gaius could’ve gone to see Ariel after he saw you?” Felix asks Kit.

  “Easily,” she says. “He could’ve gone either before talking to me or after.”

  “What would it have been like for Ariel to see him?” I ask, frowning.

  “Difficult.” Felix puts a hand on my shoulder. “Like seeing a lake of vodka would’ve been for an alcoholic.”

  “More like walking, talking uncut heroin,” Kit says, her face exaggeratedly serious. “Her willpower would’ve been severely tested.”

  I take a calming breath. “We need to find her. She probably left with Gaius, so we can start by locating him.” I pointedly stare at Kit.

  She stares back, her expression turning sneaky.

  “Where exactly is your date with him?” Felix asks. “When is it?”

  “I could let you tag along when I go meet him later today.” Kit twirls her bleached hair around her finger. “We can all have an orgy, if you’d like.”

  “No, thanks, but can you please take us there anyway?” I ask, though a sinking feeling that isn’t psychic tells me a “please” isn’t going to cut it.

  Sure enough, she says, “I’m going to need a favor in return.”

  “I don’t make deals for generic favors,” I say firmly, and Felix nods in approval. “Learning from my mistakes and all that.”

  “So sad.” Kit lets go of her hair. “I’m not sure how you’ll locate Gaius without me.” She transforms into an old lady and in a raspy voice adds, “And if you’re thinking of following me when I leave this place, I hope you remember that I can look like anyone.”

  The idea of following her did cross my mind, but she has a point. She can get lost in a crowd better than a trained spy.

  “You can still get a favor,” I say. “We just need to agree upfront what it is.”

  “That’s not as fun.” The old-lady Kit pouts.

  “How about a seer vision at some point?” I suggest. “I can glean ten minutes of the future for you.”

  She raises one silver eyebrow, and her forehead crisscrosses with deep lines.

  “Or something computer related,” Felix graciously chimes in, and she crinkles her nose in disgust.

  “Fine.” Kit turns back into her younger self. “A vision would work, p
lus another triviality. I need a place to crash for a few days.”

  “You do?” Felix looks her up and down incredulously. “You’re a Councilor. Don’t you have a mansion somewhere?”

  “It’s complicated.” Kit examines the futuristic tiles of the rehab floor. “Someone—let’s call them ‘the enabler’—is there, which would not be good for the addiction I’m trying to curb.”

  “What about the dalliance with Gaius—isn’t that also bad for your addiction?” is what I don’t say. Nor do I ask her how she managed to find someone with a stronger sex drive than hers—assuming that’s what makes “the enabler” an enabler. Though, he/she could just be a succubus or something like that. Having met one, I can see how a person could become a sex addict if there’s a succubus around.

  And speaking of Cognizant who might turn one into a sex addict… How come I still don’t know what Nero is?

  “You can stay on the couch in our living room,” Felix tells Kit. “I think you’ll fit.”

  “You won’t even know I’m there,” Kit says and shrinks her height by a foot—I guess to show us what she’d do if she didn’t fit on the couch.

  “Right,” I say, unable to shake the feeling that we just got outmaneuvered in this negotiation. “When are you checking out?”

  “How about now?” She grows back to her normal size. “I’m craving brick-oven pizza, and there’s the best place right next to our destination.”

  Without waiting for our opinions, she heads for the door.

  “I guess she doesn’t need to formally check out,” I whisper to Felix as we follow.

  He just shrugs.

  When we get outside, Kit already has a ride waiting for us, so we all get in and drive off.

  Felix asks Kit about the rehab, and she raves about the place like an infomercial. After a minute, I tune her out because something occurs to me.

  I have my own way of tracking Ariel—my power.

  Evening out my breathing, I slip into the needed focus—and find myself in Headspace.

  Floating among the shapes, I debate summoning Darian again, but decide that Ariel takes priority.

  So how do I get a vision about Ariel?

  I think about her, but nothing changes.

  Crap. This seemed to work before.

  Unless I have to think about her deeper than just her name?

  I picture her flawless beauty. I recall her tenderness toward me and Felix, and the mama-bear fierceness when someone tries to harm us. I can almost relive the child-like excitement on her face when I finish one of my magic effects. A smile touches my nonexistent lips as I think about her Batman obsession. At the core, Ariel is decisive, spontaneous, and adventurous, but there’s a darker side to her too, like the addiction—

  A new set of shapes appears in front of me.

  Does that mean what I just did worked?

  I zoom in to make sure the vision is short, then touch the nearest shape.

  Spiraling into it, I get ready to figure out what kind of trouble Ariel got herself into this time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I’m bodiless, which means I’m having a vision of a moment in time when I’m not at the scene.

  The room is small and plain—just four windowless cement walls and a white door.

  Her expression meditation placid, Ariel is sitting on a metal chair with her eyes closed, all by herself.

  And that’s it.

  She just keeps sitting there.

  I snap back into the reality of the futuristic car ride, with Kit and Felix still chatting in the background.

  They didn’t notice when I slipped into the vision—proof that the lightning from my hands is getting too fast to spot.

  What did this vision mean?

  Why was Ariel sitting like that?

  Was she meditating?

  If so, why do so in such a boring room?

  My chest squeezes. Is it possible that Baba Yaga has kidnapped her again? Would Ariel’s eyes have been all-black if she’d opened them in that vision? That would’ve been a tell-tale sign of Baba Yaga’s control.

  Or Ariel could’ve just been meditating.

  Also, I have no idea when that vision is going to take place. Though I usually foresee the near future, it’s feasible I just glimpsed something from next year, or later.

  “Hey, Kit,” I say, interrupting Felix mid-sentence. “Are there meditation rooms in the rehab?”

  “Sure,” Kit says. “Tons.”

  “What do they look like?” I ask, hopeful.

  She describes something spa-like, and I frown.

  Felix gives me a puzzled look. “Why are you asking this?”

  Sighing, I tell them both about my vision.

  “Have another one,” Kit says. “See if she opens her eyes in that one.”

  “Or save your power in case you need it in an emergency,” Felix says. “If you saw the far future, it means Ariel is okay and we have a ton of time to help her. If it’s the near future, finding Gaius could help. It can’t be a coincidence that she disappeared just when he turned up.”

  Damn it. They both have good points.

  “I’m going to try another short vision,” I say. “This way, I can attempt to see her eyes and leave myself some juice for later.”

  Matching actions to words, I get into Headspace and dwell on Ariel again.

  Shapes nearly identical to the ones from before turn up.

  Great. So having a vision about a specific person is similar to summoning another seer—I just think about their “essence.” But how do I zero in on a specific time and place?

  I’ll have to ask Darian when I reach him again.

  For now, I just touch the nearest shape—and get the same exact vision of Ariel sitting there, eyes still closed for the duration.

  As soon as I’m out of the vision, I share my frustration with Felix and Kit.

  “For all we know, Ariel has a secret meditation retreat,” Felix says reassuringly.

  “Yeah,” Kit says. “Your seemingly identical vision might be her relaxing in peace a month from now.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “I just wish I could see her eyes.”

  Our ride stops and we exit, heading for the huge building with the hub at the top.

  As we walk, Kit and Felix talk me out of attempting more visions until we get some answers from Gaius.

  Instead, Kit demands to hear my whole story from the beginning, and I give in. By the time we reach the gate leading to Earth, I get to the point where I was in front of the Council.

  “You were there for the proceedings,” I say as we enter the labyrinthian corridors at JFK airport.

  “Yeah, and just so you know, I voted to get Chester off the Council,” she says matter-of-factly. “And I voted against giving Baba Yaga the newly opened slot. I’ve gathered she’s also not your friend?”

  “Thanks,” I say. “The last thing anyone needs is Baba Yaga on the Council.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time before that woman gets what she wants,” Kit says. “She’s persistent and powerful, so the only hope is that she won’t live long enough for another seat to open up. That happens extremely rarely. But if it does happen, she’d be the strongest contender.”

  “Not good,” I mutter.

  “Yeah,” Kit says. “You better take it slow when it comes to Nero’s Mentorship. As long as you’re under his wing, you have nothing to worry about.”

  Great.

  Nero’s slave forever.

  Exactly what I need.

  “So who got the spot, then?” Felix asks sheepishly.

  “Hekima,” Kit says. “With him being an illusionist and running Orientation for so many years, he deserved the honor.”

  Interesting. No wonder my fellow students seem afraid of Dr. Hekima—and I equate teenage fear with respect.

  The man is now on the Council.

  “So what happened next?” Kit demands. “After the Jubilee?” She winks—I guess to remind me of when she
tricked me into a kiss.

  I openly tell her the rest of the story as we walk through the secret passages, but when we come out into human crowds, I switch to a version with Cognizant business edited out.

  We walk up to the limo.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Kit loudly enough for Kevin to overhear.

  “One Hotel,” she says. “Right next to the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  Kevin nods and herds us into the car, where over snacks and drinks, I finish telling Kit my story.

  We park next to a swanky hotel and leave Kevin waiting as we go up the granite stairs.

  While Kit speaks to the concierge, I carefully examine the industrial-themed, plant-covered lobby. The only people in the lobby are a pair of bouncer types sitting at a table that looks like it came from a barn.

  Could this place have a room such as the one I saw in my vision?

  The rustic chic décor around us suggests it’s feasible.

  “Gaius isn’t here yet,” Kit tells us with a large dose of irritation. “I get that I’m here early, but—”

  “We can wait,” Felix says, looking up from his phone. “According to their website, there’s a pool on the roof, with views of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  “I’d rather get that pizza.” Kit looks around. “After I use the little girl’s room, that is.”

  “The bathroom is downstairs,” the concierge says. “Just take the elevator down.”

  We follow the directions, and the downstairs bathroom surprises us by being unisex.

  “Smart,” Kit says and enters the place.

  Felix looks at the entrance suspiciously. Feeling momentarily mischievous, I grab him by the elbow and drag him in.

  His eyes widen as though he’s seeing inside a strip club’s locker room, but to me, this unisex bathroom looks a lot like a regular ladies’ room. It must be the tall, thick walls of the individual stalls that make this place “gender neutral.”

  “See you in a second,” I say and go into the stall closest to the door.

  Felix grumbles something unintelligible, but I hear another stall door slam shut, so I figure he’s also making use of the facilities.

  I finish my business and get up—but then the mother of all psychic dreads catches me with my pants down.