by Alicia Wolfe
I moved to the window behind the desk and ripped open the drapes. Sure enough, Ruby was just pulling her flying broomstick into position on the other side of the glass. Her red hair streamed out behind her pretty, pale young face, and I could see how cold she was, but also how fearless.
I hadn’t wanted to enter the penthouse this way because I knew there would be some hellacious wards on that window, but tripping a magical alarm didn’t matter anymore. Without hesitation, I picked up the desk lamp and smashed it against the window with all my strength.
Green sparks flashed. A magical blast flung me backward over the desk. I crashed against the door—which bucked against me. Hard. The gargoyles had hit it again.
Stumbling forward, I glared backward to see that cracks had formed in the door, then looked at the window. Through it, Ruby gave me a look and tapped her watch.
Gritting my teeth, I returned to the window.
“Bastard better not do that again,” I said and laid my palm flat against the glass. I’d have to use more magic. That both thrilled and terrified me.
“Cru’nom’shundra,” I intoned, holding an image in my head of two spears flying.
The protective energy suffusing the window dispersed; I could see the green glow ripple outward. After that, it was easy. I reached out, unlocked the window, and swung it open. Frigid air gusted in, flapping the papers on the desk and making my hair stream behind me. I ignored it as I climbed onto the windowsill.
Boom!
The doors crashed open.
Without looking back, I jumped onto the broomstick behind Ruby, and she took off into the night. Only when I was settled did I glance back. I saw a strange dark figure standing on the roof of the penthouse building, wind whipping his cloak around him. A shiver ran through me.
Just who was that guy and what the hell was he doing lurking on the roof? Was he another thief? He certainly wasn’t one of Hawthorne’s guards. But somehow he didn’t look like a thief either. I sensed powerful magic about him.
I didn’t have time to think about it for long, though. The four gargoyles had knocked the door off its hinges, and I’d stupidly left the window open. If I’d been thinking straight, I would have closed it and ensorcelled it to resist them. If I could have come up with such a spell, anyway—something I doubted. Those things were strong.
The gargoyles flew out of the window and blasted right for us. Their eyes shone like death.
Chapter 2
“Did you get it?” Ruby shouted over the wind.
“Focus on your driving!”
“I’m not driving, I’m flying,” she said.
“Good, because you’re a terrible driver!”
“If those gargoyles don’t get us, I’m going to kill you.”
“Just make sure they don’t.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The little buggers were right on our heels like a cloud of angry bees, but unlike bees, they didn’t sting. They didn’t need to. One good strike from one could cave in our heads, and I’d spent way too much time on my head over the years to see it bashed in by a lump of ugly stone.
“Go faster!” I screamed.
“I’m trying!”
The broom rocketed forward, and I had to grab tight around Ruby’s waist or be thrown off. My stomach flipped.
“Watch it,” I said.
Ruby’s laugh carried over the wind, and I resisted the urge to curse. Her sense of humor sucked.
She’d built leather seats onto the back of the broom, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as her Salem ancestors’ brooms probably had been, but that didn’t help the sensation of vertigo that sucked at me when I glanced down to see fifty stories plunging straight to the street. Damn, I hated heights. Especially when I wasn’t in control of the situation. Ironic that once, long ago, I could fly under my own power.
Ruby turned sharply at the next intersection, and I gritted my teeth as my stomach lurched. I glanced back.
“They still back there?” Ruby shouted over her shoulder.
“Yep.”
I didn’t tell her how close they were. That would only distract her. But they were close, and it was certainly distracting me. I could almost reach out and touch them.
I racked my brain for some spell that would slow them down, but my mind was blank. Ruby was the real spellcaster, anyway, not me. I knew just enough magic to help steal things. Because of my half-shifter abilities, I got to do the actual burgling while all Ruby had to do was cast a few spells and hang out on her broom. Not a bad gig, really.
Except for times like now.
“Lose them in traffic,” I suggested.
“What traffic?”
She was right, damn it. The upper reaches of the city were reserved only for the vehicles of the wealthy, and though a few enchanted cars, animals and dirigibles tore through the canyons of steel and stone, there weren’t many at this hour, certainly not enough to be called traffic.
“How are they even seeing us?” Ruby said.
She had used a spell to cloak her broom; otherwise, we would’ve been set upon by the cops’ aerial division, mounted on their griffons. They kept a close watch on the upper levels. The gargoyles’ eyes could see through her spell, though, just like I could.
“Hawthorne’s got some powerful magic,” I told her. “Magical barriers and everything. I’m glad we spent the money on those extra spellgredients.”
“Better be worth it.”
I thought of the golden antler. “I think it will be.”
She swerved a hard right at the next intersection, then ducked down an alley. She took one cross-alley, then another. Before long, I was dizzy with the twists and turns, only half convinced I knew what direction we faced. Finally, I swiveled my head to see the gargoyles streak by the alleyway Ruby had just turned down. They hadn’t seen us enter.
“I think we lost them,” I panted.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I think we lost them.”
Ruby slowed the broom and wiped her forehead. “Man, that was tense. Are they really gone?”
“We’ll find out in a moment.”
My heart thumped rapidly in my chest as we waited to see whether the gargoyles would return and set after us again, but the little stone bastards didn’t come back and no cry of alarm went up from the aerial police division. I slumped in relief, and I could see Ruby begin to relax, too.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Magical flying gargoyles that have enough autonomy to pursue a flying target through a crowded city—that’s some major mojo right there. A lot more than necessary to protect a scrying mirror.”
“Don’t forget the magical barriers and alarms, too.”
“What gives? None if it makes sense.”
I patted the golden antler against my thigh, but she was half turned around on the broom and probably couldn’t see it very well. Noticing the puzzled expression on her face, I said, “I’ll tell you later. But there’s more to this than the mirror, although I’m not sure what. We might have stumbled onto something big. Let’s just get the meeting with the client over with. Then we’ll discuss what’s what at Jason’s.”
“Deal—hey, look.”
Ruby pointed to something above us. Craning my head, I saw a great skyscraper in the distance framed between the walls of the alley. An elaborate and beautiful palace jutted from the top of the building, its slender white towers blazing with lights. There were a dozen castles atop a dozen buildings in Fae New York these days, but that was the castle—or Palace, as it was called. The home of the Fae Queen herself.
Magic had always existed, but in the shadows, hidden from most of humankind. As a half-shifter, I’d known about it, even been part of it, but I couldn’t have revealed myself to the average person because we weren’t supposed to exist. When the Fae had come, though, they brought a great deal of magic with them, more than could be hidden, and they didn’t even try to conceal it. Their magic had changed the world.
“Lot of activity going on th
ere,” I said, noting the specs that must be winged horses and other flying steeds of the Fae nobility swarming about the Palace.
“Wonder what the Queen’s up to?” Ruby said.
“Yeah. Interesting that it’s happening tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the Fae Lords was supposed to be at the party at Hawthorne’s.”
“Huh.” She tapped her chin and seemed to mull on it, then shook the thought away. “Well, whatever it is, it can’t have anything to do with us.”
I thought of the figure crouched on the roof of Hawthorne’s penthouse. “Yeah,” I said. “Nothing to do with us. Let’s get a move on. This broom’s killing me. Seriously, sis, you need to invest in better cushions.”
Half an hour later, we sat at the breakfast table of our client, Dorrie Weisman, who lived in an apartment across town. She laughed and clapped her hands when we showed her the scrying mirror.
“You did it,” she said. “You really did it!”
She hugged me, then Ruby, and we tried not to look embarrassed.
“All in a day’s work, ma’am,” I said, tipping an imaginary cowboy hat and speaking in what I thought was a Southern drawl.
Dorrie beamed. She was a pretty young woman, and she’d recently been a maid at Hawthorne’s penthouse until he developed an unhealthy fixation on her. She’d quit, but had been plagued by nightmares about him spying on her. After consulting with a psychic—who were totally legit these days; at least a lot of them—she discovered the reason she’d been having the nightmares was because Hawthorne, the creep-fest, was magically spying on her.
Luckily, the psychic knew about Ruby and me, and she’d recommended our services to the maid. Stealing magical items from assholes was what we did for a living.
“I’m so happy it’s all over,” Dorrie said. Quickly, she wrote a check and passed it to Ruby, who made the check disappear—probably the first magic trick she’d ever learned.
“Don’t go,” Dorrie said. “I want to celebrate. Care for a bottle of wine?”
“I would love s—” Ruby said, but I shook my head and she fell silent.
“We really can’t,” I told Dorrie. “And Ruby’s only twenty.”
“Only till next month,” Ruby protested. I swear, she was only four years younger than I was, but sometimes she acted much younger.
“We’ve got to make tracks,” I said, ignoring her. “Hawthorne might still be looking for us.”
Dorrie sighed. “Can I see it?”
I fished out the scrying mirror from my backpack and let her hold it.
“This is what he was spying on me with?” she said, and we nodded.
“He’s a turd sandwich,” Ruby said, and I was impressed. Still, maybe she’d been spending too much time around her big sis.
“Last chance,” I told Dorrie. “We’ll still let you have it if you want.”
Rudy and I offered two pricing structures to our clients: our fee for furnishing the item to them and the price for just making sure the asshat who was using it against them couldn’t do it anymore. That cost a lot less, but we offset the loss by selling the stolen item to a fence.
“Tempting,” Dorrie said. “I’d like to see how he feels waking up in the middle of the night, knowing someone was watching him. But nah, I wouldn’t want to.” She studied us. “I just want to make sure that you’re not reselling it to some jerk who’ll do the same thing Walter was.”
“Don’t worry,” Ruby assured her. “We would never do that. Most scrying mirrors are used in magical rites to commune with other dimensions and things, not playing Peeping Tom. We’ll make sure it winds up with a mage or someone who will use it properly.”
Dorrie nodded and hugged us again. Tears of relief glimmered in her eyes. At seeing her emotion, my own throat closed, and my voice was a little raw as I said goodbye. Ruby gave me a knowing look as we bundled onto her broom—leaving from the fire escape, where the broom had been tied off—and headed into the madness of the city.
“She was nice,” Ruby said, leading.
“Yeah.” My throat was still a bit closed, and I didn’t trust myself to say anything more. Seeing Dorrie had triggered something in me—a vulnerable young woman trying to overcome being abused by a magic-user. Yeah, that hit a little too close to home. Trying to hide my emotion, I cleared my throat and said, “Let’s go see Jason.”
Ruby half-turned, a grin on her face. “You big softie.”
I punched her shoulder. “Just drive, Ginger Witch.”
She laughed, flipped me the bird, and gunned the metaphorical motor. The broom shot forward, bound for Jason’s.
Our main fence for the past two years, Jason Mattox specialized in finding homes for stolen magical items. I’d picked him because, unlike a lot of fences, he didn’t just resell the item to the highest bidder. He made sure the item wouldn’t be misused by the buyer first, which was something I respected—and required. Like Ruby told Dorrie, we weren’t just in this for the money. We were trying to make a difference. Magic had brought a lot of wonder to the world, but it had given unfair advantage to some assholes who really didn’t deserve it, too. Ruby and I liked to think of ourselves as doing the world a tidy service. While making a tidy profit, of course.
We found Jason at his cluttered shop in Queens. New York had changed a lot since the coming of the Fae—the Arrival, people called it, or sometimes the Fae-rival—but Queens was still Queens. Jason operated out of a pawnshop, and Ruby and I didn’t bother entering from the front. Ruby parked on the roof and tied the broom off, just like cowboys used to tie off horses, only with less tobacco spitting, and we entered from the rooftop entrance. We knew the secret code.
Trundling down the narrow stairs, we found Jason hunched over a bench in the large storeroom in back of his shop. Strange objects on benches and shelves cluttered the dingy space—weird gears, things with too many limbs in jars, a doll pacing back and forth under its own power—and many of them emitted a magical crackle of energy. One of Jason’s underlings must be minding the store up front.
Jason rose and smiled at us when he heard our footsteps; well, mainly, he smiled at Ruby. Sweat shone on his dark-skinned face and glistened on his firm biceps.
“Whatcha working on?” Ruby asked with deceptive casualness, sauntering up to him and peering down at what he’d been studying. She made sure to do it slowly, letting him get a good look at her cleavage as she bent over. I tried not to laugh.
She had bumped him lightly as she passed him—very deliberately—and he seemed momentarily tongue-tied.
“Well—I—I, mean—” He swallowed. Obviously trying not to look at Ruby, who was partly bent over right next to him while she pretended to examine the item he’d been working on, he said, “It’s an enchanted clock. Ancient, like three hundred years old. Long before the Fae arrived, but it still possesses magic. At first, I thought it was very cunning clockwork, but after looking at it, I can now positively say it’s magic.”
“What’s magic?” I said, drawing closer and looking at the beautiful old cuckoo clock.
“This,” he said, touching something on the side of the device.
Instantly, the cuckoo door popped open and tiny figures burst out on a little dais. Dressed like old-timey Europeans, they danced in a circle, men and women, and I gasped at how intricate and graceful their dance was, almost as if the figures were alive, the dresses swooping and swishing, the men smiling and nodding. Music accompanied the dancing, too, waltzy old orchestral music. At last, the dancers quit dancing, bowed to each other, and vanished inside the clock. As soon as they were gone, the music stopped.
“Magic did that?” Ruby asked, wonder on her face.
Jason smiled at her appreciation. His chest sticking out a little, he said, “Isn’t that wild? I didn’t think an animation spell could last this long, not in a simple clock, but the proof is right there. I’ve done some tests. No one has renewed the spell in at least two hundred years.”
Ta
pping her chin, Ruby squinted at the clock, then moved around the bench to examine it more. She moved her hips just slightly more than necessary, and I had to resist a grin. Jason noticed her hip-swaying, too, though I didn’t think he realized it was intentional. Ruby, I realized, was beginning to be a total slut.
I approved.
“I think it’s the wood,” she said.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “The…wood?”
Her cheeks flushed. Tapping the clock, she said, “The wood, you idiot.”
“Oh. Right.”
“It’s some sort of oak, but I don’t recognize the kind. Maybe if—”
I cleared my throat, and Ruby frowned at me.
Sighing, she said, “I think what my very rude sister means is that we should do business first, then examine the clock.” To me, she rather pointedly said, “Maybe Jason and I can examine it in private while you go do broody loner half-shifter burglar things.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Jason, are you ready for some business?”
Reluctantly, he nodded, switching his attention from Ruby—this clearly took some effort—to me. “Whatcha got?”
I showed him the mirror, and he quickly examined it, seeming only somewhat impressed, and named a dollar figure. It proved higher than I was expecting, but I tried to raise it anyway.
“That was my final offer,” he said firmly, not going for it.
I opened my mouth to argue, then caught Ruby’s narrow-eyed look. I huffed. “Fine. Accepted.”
Why was she sticking up for Jason? She should be using her hold over him to exert a higher price for us. Someday, I would have to teach her better.
He gave me the money, and then set the mirror down on another workbench so he could examine it more thoroughly before he sold it. He liked to know exactly what he had before letting it go. He was more of a collector than a seller and part of him hated to let go of the items, I knew, but business was business, and he did it briskly.