Eden's Pawn: Shadow Games Book 1

by C. B. Miller

  Dane held up hands, eyes closed. “No, no, no. The man she met with is an unknown quantity, I’m afraid to say. He’s vanished along with the eyes we assigned to watch him without a trace.”

  “But you know where she ran off to.”

  “Ahhh, now we are getting somewhere. Yes. I’d be willing to exchange that information. A good faith trade.”

  My pulse quickened, and I could feel the twinge of hope rekindle in my chest. I took a deep breath and gave him a dubious look. After all, there was no reason to trust him.

  “Uh-huh. Ok, I’ll bite. What do you want?”

  “Negotiations, the part I like the most.” Dane’s smile changed from his normal salesperson friendly to something much more predatory as his lips pulled back. His gaze switched to me, “there are definitely things that I want, but I doubt this information is of equal value. I’m sure you know something that I would find valuable to trade.”

  There were many things I could share with him, probably both of us, that he’d be interested in. I wish there was some sort of explanation why these ass-holes were allowed to so blatantly operate in the city. I wanted nothing more for him to step out of line so I could crush him. He was irritating, to say the least, but his ‘cause’ was responsible for more than a few of my friend’s deaths.

  His predatory expression vanished, replaced by his bland, patient, friendly persona like neither of us witnessed the ugly monster beneath his mask. Then again, we all wear masks.

  “What if I could point you towards a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded company that was run by a bunch of werewolves? Would that be worth your time?”

  “Hmm.” Dane stepped back and put a hand on his chin, making a show of looking away while he considered the information. “Ok, yes. Ok. Ahh definitely.”

  He pondered it for a nearly a half minute before nodding. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “We have a deal then. A fair trade.”

  I gripped his hand to shake it and felt the tendrils of power snaking through his hand into me. The power wrapped around my mind and hardened, demanding my obedience to our arrangement. Something told me that lying or concealing anything about what I was about to tell him would have painful consequences.

  The tendrils of magic woven around my mind shattered a heartbeat later. Dane sucked in a short gasp, and his jaw slackened slightly.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Dane. You talk about trust, and then you do something like that?” I tsked a few times and shook my head slowly. “Don’t worry, buddy. I wouldn’t lie to you. Just like I know, you’re not going to lie to me.” It was my turn to bare my teeth.

  He tried to pull his hand away, but I held it fast, applying just enough pressure to keep my grip without hurting him too much.

  “I’ll go first.”

  I kept a firm grasp on him and pulled him closer as I recalled the tale of the night I met Eden and found out that the things that go bump in the night were real. Part of the discovery included the fact that the entire upper management of our small startup IT firm was comprised of werewolves. One night a few of us wound up in the middle of their feud with Eden, and they decided to kill us. When I finished, I let go with a smile. “Obviously, that didn’t work out so well for them, and that’s how I came to work for Eden. See. Trust. It’s not that hard.”

  Dane nodded numbly for a moment and shook once to regain his composure. “Very well, I have to admit that was more than I expected. You mentioned that you killed three werewolves. All on your own.”

  I paused, unsure of how truthful to be, considering the danger it could put my friends in. I hadn’t hidden much about that night, other than the real names of those that survived the night. And the ring I’d taken off of the CEO’s corpse that has something to do with lightning magic. I felt like there was more to it than I knew thus far, and it’s been an unexpected ace up my sleeve more than once. I’d like to keep it that way.

  I softened my tone as I spoke. “I did have help from one of my more determined friends with the last one. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t bust your balls too much when it comes to trust. If I had trusted them to have my back in the first place, the night would have been much smoother.”

  “You are positive that werewolves are still currently involved in their operations?”

  “Positive.”

  That was one thing Eden had me keep an eye on. The computer security expert they hired after me to run things was lazy, and I still had fingers all over their network. For now, at least.

  “So, now that I’ve gifted you a basket full of puppies….”

  I felt a jolt of adrenaline surge through me as Dane’s smile returned. “Yes, while I’m not trying to hide anything for you - I think you’ll appreciate this little tidbit of irony? The best way to find Megan is to type into your favorite search engine, ‘Wizard Safehouses in Chicago’ you’ll find the house she ran off to. It’s the Chicago address, not any of the burbs. I don’t want to steer you wrong.”

  He looked around slowly and focused back on me a few seconds later. “You aren’t just looking for the wizard. There’s a vampire, goes by the name Elizabeth. Long red hair, pale, square jaw, about five-foot-seven and maybe one-hundred and ten pounds soaking wet of pure evil. We haven’t been able to get close to her; she has a rather large pack. She’s involved in human trafficking and one-hundred percent in this mage’s pocket.”

  “Sounds like a veritable ray of sunshine. Where can we find her, or is there an app for that I’m missing?”

  “Unfortunately, there’s no app or website, and we’ve seemed to lost track of her. Still, you aren’t the only person that’s been looking for her. Putting out feelers and generally making herself a beacon. I’m sure if you reach her before Elizabeth does, you all can have a happy little accident.”

  The urge to strangle Dane grew with every passing second. It amazed me that someone this irritating worked as a face. Then again, he probably knew just how much he was angering me. I let my frustration at his winding speech go as I blew out a long, slow breath. “Ok, so where might I find this other person at? And maybe a description of them if that isn’t too much.”

  “Of course. You’re looking for a blonde woman, blue eyes, fair complexion. She must work out or lift weights. Something because she’s stacked.”

  My face tightened as he spoke, and I realized I’d seen this person recently. Jamal’s wight, MacKenzie, but what the hell was she doing looking for this vampire?

  “And where might I find this beacon she’s lit?”

  “A club called the Black Mamba, it’s -”

  “I know the place,” I interjected. My heart skipped a beat at the mention of the Black Mamba. All of this was getting way too messy, way too fast.

  “Well then, you’re welcome.”

  “Thank you. It’s been a pleasure, but we should get going.”

  He put his hands on his knees as he leaned over to look me in the eyes. “Before you go, here’s something that is going to blow your mind.”

  He paused, and I waited for him to run off or maybe a sniper to fire as he waited. “I know you have to be wondering why there are so many Hunters gathered in one spot for weeks. Flaunting our presence, yet we’ve done nothing.”

  “Recently,” he added as I glowered at him.

  I motioned for him to get to the point.

  “The little secret is, we need you. More specifically, we need the Accords. The Council has something unique here, and as much as we hate to admit it, humanity needs the two of us to work together.”

  “What could possibly unite us?” I said skeptically.

  Dane’s face went blank for a moment, and he twisted toward me. “I hope you never find out.”

  He spun on his heel and didn’t look back as he strode down the sidewalk. I could feel the weight of Alex's eyes on me as we pulled away.

  Alex’s frustration was palpable as she pounded her fist into her hand, "Is he what I think he is?"

  “Yep. He’s a Hunter.”


  “And he’s your friend?” She growled.

  I sighed, my mind only half on the road as I navigated the stop and go traffic.

  "Not exactly." I pulled to a stop at the light and looked at her, “He’s not my friend, but for whatever reason, The Order has decided to pass along information to me through him. He hasn’t been off-base yet. That doesn’t mean I trust him.”

  "The Black Mamba is off limits… By order of the Council and the High Lord himself. You know how they operate. They're kind of the punish first and ask questions later crowd. I think we are in deep enough trouble already and taking advice from The Order. "

  "We'll be fine."

  "This isn't a situation where begging for forgiveness is better than asking permission, Kaedin. Something tells me you don't have a fast track to the High Lord for an audience either. We can just stake out the place or maybe call in his enforcers. There’s no way we can risk going in there ourselves. There’s too much at stake."

  "That's a good idea, calling in enforcers, but that's a little heavy handed and might scare Elizabeth off. Besides, there's no need."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm kind of allowed there. And if this person is getting inside, I want to know how and why."

  Alex scoffed, and when I didn’t respond immediately, she jabbed a finger in my rib.

  "Care to explain."

  "Not really."

  It's hard to explain why the Council owes a nobody like me a favor that I cashed in to declare my friend's bar a safe zone without going into details I wasn't ready to share with someone I just met.

  I looked at her and put my hand on her shoulder. "It'll be ok, really. As long as you’re with me, you're good there. If you like it, I might be able to get you on the guest list after this is all over."

  She eyed me warily, "You expect me to believe there's some mystical ok guest list, and you're on it?"

  "Is that really the weirdest thing to happen in the last twenty-four hours?"

  "You keep some strange company Kaedin."

  “You have no idea. Before that, let’s see if I need to turn in my nerd credentials and find Megan.”

  ***

  We stopped to get coffee, and I began to rethink even a temporary partnership with Alex when she ordered a tea. I wanted to hit up the Great Divide, but it was across town, and if Dane’s tip ended up being a bust, it wasn’t worth wasting the time to get there. I took a sip of my coffee and instantly changed my mind. This stuff was one step below gas station swill.

  I hated the fact that finding Megan wouldn’t have been that difficult without The Order’s ‘help.’ The hedge wizard community as a whole was super connected via the Internet. News of Bertha’s sanctum and bookstore going up in flames was all over public social media groups, and it took me less than ten minutes to figure out that Rachel was under a wizard’s protection by the name of Gregory. Another ten minutes and it turns out that modern-day spell slingers are just as addicted to the Internet as everyone else. And while vampires, were-creatures, and the like generally protected their supernatural status ruthlessly, wizards were far more carefree with demonstrating their abilities. Wizards lacked the flash and bang, in addition to the sheer power of other beings. This placed them on the fringes of society, normal and supernatural alike. These factors all made Gregory easy to find and verify after looking up some public records.

  That reminded me that I needed to review my own information and scrub it.

  Gregory’s home was in Rogers Park on the Northside of Chicago, and far enough I was happy we weren’t walking. We scoped it out the neighborhood and his house on the Internet. It was a small gray and white two-story house, complete with a white picket fence. A small set of stairs led up to a small porch and the front door, and the sidewalk twisted and ran down the side of the house. It looked like the Midwestern dream family starter home. We drove past the house and parked down the block. A few people were walking the streets, enjoying the dying grasps of summer before autumn’s chill took total control, but none stood out to either of us as a potential threat. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary until we were two doors down from the hideout, and Alex halted to tie her shoe. I pretended to be bored as I looked around. The closest people consisted of a young couple, a man and a woman, walking a stroller, one of those dual wheeled monstrosities that was nearly the width of two people, and an older woman walking a freshly groomed, obese golden retriever with a bright purple collar. Nothing about them struck me as dangerous or out of place.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  Alex rose and gave me a fake punch in the arm while laughing. “There’s a veil around the house.”

  Alex snaked her arm through mine and put her head on my shoulder, “The couple with the stroller is a lookout, and they have wards on the house. All the things a rational person with magic would do to dissuade people from noticing anything interesting about the house. The spell work isn’t powerful. I’m not the best at sensing, not one of my discipline. That was Emily’s thing...” Alex trailed off at the thought of one of her circle members.

  “Couldn’t have mentioned that in the car?”

  “Like I said that, it’s not one of my stronger skills. I needed more than a second or two and to be closer. We need to keep moving.” She gently pulled, and we strolled forward at a languid pace.

  “So, run in like we own the place?” I said.

  “Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Alex cracked her knuckles and started off at a brisk pace toward our target.

  The couple stopped to mess with the inside the stroller as soon as we took off. The stroller was covered from our angle, and I couldn’t tell if there really was a child inside or something worse. The man pulled out a cell phone and began to quickly type on it while the woman was pointing at us and yelling at him. I couldn’t make out what she was saying as I followed Alex through the gate and into the yard. Alex leaped the first three steps, and I ran into her as she halted, nearly falling as we collided.

  “Umph” Alex’s eyes were fixed on the house.

  I peered over her shoulder to see why Alex had stopped and froze. Standing on the short porch, looking down on us from a half-dozen steps was a young Asian man pointing a shotgun at us.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Go away, whoever you are.” He snapped. His slight frame, tailored shirt, and skinny jeans gave him the air of a professional assassin. The way he trembled and the barrel drifted in his hands gave his inexperience away. At this range, a shotgun made a good equalizer when it came to starting or ending a fight.

  I waved from behind Alex. “Oh, hey. We don’t want to bother you, good sir. We just simply wanted to know if you heard the good word of our lord and savior, the Great Pastagedeon?”

  His lips pulled back, and his head tilted slightly, “The wha….”

  I poured my energy into speed and burst up the stairs, checking him with my hip and clothes-lined him. The shotgun blast went high and wide to the left, sending shot into the wooden support pillar and ceiling. My fist connected with his gut before he hit the floor, driving the breath from his lungs as I snatched the shotgun from his grasp. I stepped back, pointed the gun at his head, and relinquished my vampiric swiftness.

  He hit the floor with a thud and cried out wordlessly in pain.

  I cocked the shotgun, loading another shell into the chamber.

  A wave of fatigue rolled over me. The unavoidable cost of tapping into the vampiric gift of speed, which is why I avoided using it. The entire fight lasted less than a second, and I felt like I just ran a 5k in record time.

  Alex ascended the stairs as the man gasped for air, “Are you, Gregory?”

  It was a cool trick I learned in college that had saved my ass more than once in recent history. There is this thing call switching costs or something like that at least. It takes the brain some time to process the information as it has to switch from verbal processing to physical action. It’s a short period of time, a really really tiny bit of time, but i
t is one reason to keep people talking if they are threatening you with a weapon. If you can hit them while they are talking, it is really hard for them to switch to stabbing or shooting you during that tiny window of opportunity. With vamp speed at my disposal, that window was a lot larger, but it was not a party trick I could often. If they are taking and shooting, they were already planning on shooting you anyway.

  It took him a few seconds to regain his breath, and he looked up at Alex, wide-eyed. “Who are you?” His eyes flick to shotgun and then to me. “You... you can’t have her!”

  “Are. You. Gregory?” She asked again.

  The front door was to my back and I shifted to the corner of the porch, keeping the shotgun leveled at him and the front yard in my peripheral vision. Alex cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck as she loomed over the man. The pops didn’t sound right. It was like there were too many joints being cracked at once.

  He sucked in a large breath and panted, “Yes.”

  “Good, we need to talk to Megan then. I assure you we are only here to talk. Do we have your permission to enter your home?” Alex’s voice dropped an octave as she spoke.

  Gregory scrunched his face and raised his eyebrows at her request. He sputtered and opened his mouth as the front gate swung open. The couple burst into the yard with the stroller, and the woman pointed a wand at us.

  “Don’t do it, Greg!” She yelled and advanced a few steps. She stopped at the sight of me holding the shotgun on Gregory. Her partner locked the stroller’s wheels before he rushed to the woman’s side and brandished a long dagger, and from thirty feet away, I could see symbols etched into the blade. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as the tension between us thickened. Motion in the stroller drew my eyes, and a baby’s cry added to the chaos.

  Something about Alex looked off. I glanced at her, and it suddenly made sense why the cracking noises from her sounded strange. Both arms were several inches longer, and she had two extra lengths on each of her fingers. Three-inch, black talons jutted from each of her fingertips, and he hands were splayed out to her sides, in everyone’s view. She loomed over Gregory and grinned.