Alex didn’t want to think about that.
A ghost breakthrough into the real world would have caused too much trouble for light and dark wizards alike.
Thinking of ghosts as merely the imprints of dead people’s souls was a mistake.
Truthfully, they are imprints. But not of the soul. They’re the very last feeling the person experienced before death.
Not all feelings are calm or neutral. The stronger the emotion, the more powerful the ghost.
Knowing as much as he did about necromancy, Doom had an excellent idea of the damage ghosts like that could do. Especially if they were formed by vengeance.
It wasn’t so bad if the vengeance was aimed at a single person or family. It was worse when the whole of humanity found itself in the crosshairs.
And that’s just human ghosts. Things got really bad when it was a creature summoned by the dying emotions of an orc drug addict. Definitely not nearly as cute as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who was eventually destroyed by just four nerds and a green poltergeist.
“What the hell?” Cherry snapped her fingers right in front of Alex’s nose. “What’s up with you today? Are you that nervous about the second tour?”
Oh, yes. The second tour. The day after tomorrow. At the Arena. The great stadium that had hosted performances by music legends like Lady Gel, Pop Floyd, Little Mephisto, and other groups and singers Alex had never heard of.
Thanks to Robin and Anastasia, he only listened to old-school rock from the 2000s and 2010s, sometimes even twentieth-century rock dinosaurs.
Sadly, rock in the modern world seemed to be dead. Or maybe twitching in its final throes of agony somewhere deep underground.
According to the official statistics, fewer people listened to rock than listened to symphony orchestras.
What a tragedy.
“…been like that the whole night!”
Alex shook his head and blinked twice. He’d thought he was standing in the hall watching the cops celebrating, but he realized he was actually in the Schooner’s kitchen, its holy of holies. That was where Diglan worked his magic, both metaphorically and literally. No one but the one-legged pirate was usually allowed in. All the slicing, dicing, pouring, frying, boiling, and sprinkling devices worked on their own, leaving Diglan with nothing to do but taste the food when it was ready.
The Schooner’s clientele came for the great dining as well as the drinks.
“Thank you for agreeing, Alex,” the boss said with a grateful nod.
“No pro—… Hey, wait! What did I agree to?”
“You said you’d take Archibald, my son, to the theme park tomorrow. I can’t do it myself—I’ll be hosting some important visitors who want to talk…and pad their pockets. The inspectors.”
“Archibald…” The name rang a bell for Alex. “The ten-year-old brat from your marriage?”
“He isn’t a brat. He’s my son.” For the first time in his six weeks of employment, Alex saw Diglan’s eyes flash with anger. “And I’m really happy his mother and that wimp of a stepfather are letting me see him this time without me taking them to court.”
The story of Diglan and his ex-wife was an ugly, if standard one. They met in college. Neither had anything. He wanted a better life for her. She was fine with that.
But for what he wanted (and what he did to accomplish it), Diglan found himself in prison, where he lost a leg. The underground prison was far, far worse in the old days.
His first stint wasn’t actually that long—just seven months. His wife (Rebecca or Becca, though Alex wasn’t sure) never came to visit him. Once out, Diglan learned that she’d married his roommate two weeks after he’d been found guilty. Diglan’s son, Archibald, was born a month later. It had taken Diglan almost eight years in court to see him for the first time.
Life in Myers City was hard on ex-cons. And even harder on wizard ex-cons.
Doom had learned all that about his employer when Diglan got drunk on Archie’s birthday and told it to a gleaming gift box on his lap. That was yet another day when he was kept from seeing his son—Becca-Rebecca had taken him to visit her parents in Old Earth.
“What’s in it for me?” Alex couldn’t have cared less about Diglan’s reasons, be they related to business or anything else. Maybe he doesn’t love the boy as much as he says, otherwise he’d make time for him. The fact that Doom was in charge of a bunch of adolescents didn’t make him the new Mother Teresa.
“A week off work.”
“Um…” Doom mumbled at being offered a month of free rent in the Schooner’s attic.
Why a month? Because…
“A month,” Alex said.
“What?”
“A month.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a month,” Doom replied, rolling his eyes. The ask-me-raccoon game seemed to picking up steam in Myers City. “Thirty-one days off work. Well, I can make it thirty for you in exchange for some spending money. A hundred credits should work.”
“So…you want a month off instead of a week? And a hundred credits on top of that?!”
“Exactly,” Alex said with a calm nod. “Or you can get another babysitter. Not a highly-qualified Black Magic Professor at First Magic University, a full-fledged dark wizard, a fifth-rank necromancer, a fifth-rank blood magician, a fourth-rank malefic wizard, a third-rank sorcerer, and…well, just a nice guy. Me.”
Diglan winced.
“Damn major.”
“Oh, I’m with you there.”
Cherry shifted her gaze between the two of them, then asked a question.
“What major?”
Damn raccoons.
Chapter 61
“Can I ride the roller coaster?”
Alex, looking as if he were carrying a cement cross toward Golgotha, waved a hand to transfer the remaining twenty credits to the boy.
“You can even stay there for the night,” he mumbled.
“My dad wouldn’t like that.”
Alex was about to yell that his dad’s heart could be devoured by hell’s worms but contained himself. He needed a month off at the Schooner.
“Go, you pirate spawn.”
“Thanks, Uncle Alex!” Archie quickly hugged Doom (who was still wondering how the boy had come to have an uncle with the same name) and dashed off toward the line for the roller coaster.
It didn’t matter that the boy was ten and the roller coaster ride required adult supervision for kids younger than 16. The fast-developing youngster was just two heads shorter than Doom (not surprising, considering what a big man Diglan was) and easily mistaken for a very skinny young adult.
“I hope the voluntarily childless are allowed to cut in the line for heaven,” Doom whispered to himself.
The theme park situated atop the causeway stretching along Amalgam Street Beach was packed that bright Saturday afternoon. (The same could not be said about the beach, empty but for a few surfers in wetsuits and even fewer freezing, goosebump-bespeckled Instagram models in bikinis.) In the crowd of noisy, yelling kids and their noisy, yelling moms, Doom felt like he was in Dante’s hell. Although that version of hell had nothing in common with the real abyss, it still made him uneasy.
So uneasy that Alex kept his hands in the pockets of his (formerly Gribovsky’s) shabby jeans. Slipping his hood over his head, he approached a small kiosk.
“Ice cream? Soda?” a pretty girl of about fifteen asked him. She was below the legal age, but Doom couldn’t have cared less. It had been over four years since he’d last bedded a girl, and that felt totally crazy.
“One coffee,” he said through gritted teeth. No time at all for the brown-eyed girl with very big… pupils. “Black. Strong. Dark roast. If you have virgin blood, throw some in there.”
“We don’t serve vampires.” The girl, apparently a high-school student working there part-time after classes, instantly pulled back into the depths of the kiosk.
Alex didn’t hear her at first. When it sank in, he cursed—it wa
s early spring, and the sun hardly ever showed above the city. Vampires could use that kind of weather to walk among the living.
“There’s not a cloud in the sky,” he said, pointing up. “I’m not a vampire. And virgin blood…”
The girl’s blush intensified, telling Alex that the cute young thing with the big…pupils had never been with a man.
Right, I’m not in High Garden. It’s completely different here.
“I’m no bloodsucker.” Alex showed her his left wrist, which was missing the magic seal the city government placed on all undead.
For three gold Abyss coins, you could have the seal completely removed. But that wasn’t something anyone shared with outsiders.
“One black coffee.” The schoolgirl, now pale and distant, placed the cup down. “A credit and a half.”
“A credit and a half?!” Alex replied, all but collapsing in shock. “For that much money, I—”
“Hey, kid, let’s go! You’re holding up the line!”
“Yeah, hurry up. Take your coffee and move!”
Slowly, Doom turned to the fat man addressing him and noticed the mother of his (surprisingly lean) kid on his arm. Alex already had a couple ideas for how to curse the couple when—
“It’s on me.” the words came with a peach-and-daisy smell, and a wave of peach hair drifted past his eyes.
Shit.
“Come on, Professor.” Taking the cup as the whole line watched, Miss Perriot walked toward a table canopied by a giant umbrella, pointless in the cool weather. Just as pointless as Alex refusing her.
The esper was dressed appropriately for the weather in jeans, sneakers, a warm coat, and a pink pullover. But even in her oversized clothes she looked stunning enough to make several guys stumble as they walked by. One even dropped his ice cream…
“Oh, sorry, dear. I guess I was daydreaming.”
…right onto his girlfriend’s shoe.
“Daydreaming? About what?”
“Um…that giant inflatable bear. You’ve got to have big lungs to blow that thing.”
“They’re pumped, not blown. Shit. My new shoes!”
Doom took his cup and glanced inside.
“I thought you didn’t like coffee,” Leia said, adjusting her peach hair. The color was far from the weirdest or creepiest body modification espers went for. Doom had once met an esper guy who had small tentacles in his eye sockets. That had been wild.
“I don’t.”
“Then why—”
Waiting for the moment when the fat couple with their skinny kid were walking by, Alex overturned his cup.
As though by magic (somewhat black magic), the drink didn’t spill onto the table. Instead, the liquid dumped over the couple’s heads, producing screaming and yelling.
“A bit of relief,” Alex said as he exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “They were getting under my skin back in the ticket line.”
Leia kept drinking her latte with a neutral facial expression as she watched the couple trying to wipe each other clean with paper napkins.
“That’s kind of pet—”
She stopped short when she noticed that the stains weren’t wiping off. As the couple worked, they just spread to take the shape of obscene words and symbols.
“Oh lo—” Leia stopped herself again. “Oh, excuse me.”
“It’s okay,” Doom replied with a wave. He was in no mood for another argument with Leia.
“Is it really that painful?”
“Have you ever been burned with an iron?”
“Um… When I was little, I touched a boiling kettle by accident. My mom hated electric kettles, so she used a plain steel one to boil water for cezve over the stove.”
“For cezve? I thought real coffee fiends boiled the water right in that thing.”
“That was another of her quirks,” Leia replied with a disarming smile.
Blowing on her coffee, she took a sip, holding the cup with both hands and both pinkies in the air. It was adorable.
“Ten times as much.”
“As much as what? And…why look under the table?”
“Raccoon check.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Alex replied. “Symbols of faith being held to my body hurt me ten times as much as a red-hot iron. Hearing words of faith is six times as painful.”
Their eyes met. Alex could tell that Perriot understood—he knew how much red-hot irons hurt by experience.
That was his rite of passage into the Tkils gang. Alex had the scars to prove it, just like many other things in his life.
“Every time you hear them? Oh go—… Oh. Excuse me.” Leia hastily cupped her mouth with a hand, but Alex just waved again.
“No, not every time.” He slipped both hands into his jeans pockets and spread over the chair back like a spineless amoeba. “Only when they’re coming from a true believer.”
He glanced at the thin silver chain peeking out from beneath Leia’s collar. She automatically touched the spot where the cross probably was, hidden by her clothes.
“What are you doing in the park?” she asked, apparently to change the subject.
Doom shrugged.
“I could ask you the same.”
“I asked first,” Leia smiled.
“Are you flirting with me?” Doom arched his right brow, and the esper’s smile faded instantly.
“Just keeping up the small talk.”
“Small talk?” Doom repeated. The damn raccoon seemed to have infected him too. “Well then. What am I doing here? Taking my boss’ kid on a Saturday walk because his dad’s occupied by the worm of bribery as it gnaws its way through the heart of our glorious city.”
“The opposition manifesto. Word for word.”
“I always liked those idiots. Let’s bring down the government! Freedom of association and assembly! From each according to something, to each according to something else. Anarcho-Communists. That’s what they really are.”
Leia said nothing.
The majority of opposition members were espers.
“So,” Alex said, holding up his hands, “I answered your question. Now, Miss Perriot, would you please be so kind as to answer mine? Why have you been following me since I left the Schooner?”
Chapter 62
Turning at the first intersection while enduring Archie’s death grip, Alex had spotted the BMWi, conspicuous among the street traffic and apparently following him.
It turned out that Miss Perriot wasn’t just an expert in invisible makeup; she also knew luxury magic sports cars. And she was a great driver.
On the ring road, he tried to shake her off his tail several times without giving away that he knew she was there, but he couldn’t make it happen. And he was someone who’d spent his entire childhood and adolescence racing, either as a chaser or a chasee. The second role tended to be more common for him with the increased prevalence of the cops. Damn city mayor and his idea of hiring more blue uniforms.
“You knew?” Leia flashed surprise before hiding her eyes by looking down at her cup. “Sure, a black wizard from Old Earth must get a gut feeling when they’re being watched. I heard you even revived the Inquisition over there.”
The Inquisition. Another broad topic for discussion.
“Please don’t change the subject, Miss Perriot. Yes, I saw you. Although both of us are nearly outlawed thanks to our innate gifts, I’m still not much into girls chasing me. I’d rather have it the other way around. And when I’m almost run down by a car that descended, however remotely, from the ones they assembled in Nazi concentration camps, my national pride takes a hit, as well.”
“You hate BMW?”
“Honestly,” Alex said with a frown, “I adore them. I used to drive one myself until I wrecked it. Since then, I’ve only had Aston Martins.”
Leia smiled slightly. Every judge of city sports cars worth their salt knew that racing an Aston Martin was like…coming to a gun fight not even with a knife, but with a banana peel. All you
can do is hope someone gets hurt slipping on it.
“I had no idea the black wizards on Old Earth were so well-off. Then—”
“Stop changing the subject,” Alex interrupted. “Let’s start again. Why were you following me?”
They had a brief staring contest. Alex knew the popular belief that you’re not supposed to look a witch in the eyes. Or a black wizard for that matter. But Leia was neither a witch nor a female wizard. An esper is…kind of the bald man’s accomplice from that X-logo movie. A magical mutant, to put it simply.
As for Alex, he’d only learned about his other magic source (apart from his black magic one) recently and didn’t want to call on it unless absolutely needed. Every time he did, he disturbed the sharp, broken shards of memory that sat so deeply in his heart.
On the other hand, the pain they caused reminded Alex he still had a heart.
“I was leaving work—”
“On a Saturday?” Alex interrupted.
Leia squinted.
“Are you interrogating me?”
A young family walked by their table right then, the father and mother in their late twenties, the nice little girl wearing brightly colored sneakers and holding cotton candy. The expression of pure joy on her face disgusted Alex.
If he’d been an old-school wizard, he would have cursed her cotton candy to taste like swamp water.
Leia comparing him to an interrogating cop got to Alex.
“Forgive me,” he said sincerely, apparently shocking and disarming her. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Um…” The esper was at a loss for words. “Never mind. What was I saying? Oh yes. As I was leaving work, I saw you with the boy. No, I didn’t think you were a pedophile, and I didn’t think you were going to sacrifice him, either. That’s Archie, right? Diglan’s son?”
Alex was about to ask a question but checked himself. Leia had been working at First Magic University for a while. It wasn’t surprising that she would know about the Schooner and even the name and some personal information of the owner.
Archie sometimes, if seldomly visited his father at the Schooner. The ex-wife did everything she could to keep the boy away from Diglan.
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