The Obsidian Order Boxed Set

by martinez, katerina

  He paused. “As it happens, no. I can’t.”

  “You can’t just go to the dining hall and ask?”

  “There are less than a human’s handful of people in this entire fortress that know I can speak, and honestly that’s four too many. So, no, I can’t just go to the dining hall and ask for food. I have to eat scraps like a common stray. It’s degrading.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a blue teleportation orb. The tiny little sphere felt powerful in my hand. It even vibrated slightly. The thing was brimming with magic, and now that I was a gold prospect, I was allowed to use it. “What do you say?” I asked.

  Rey paused. “Alright, fine. But they better be good anchovies.”

  “We’re going to New York City. We’ll find good anchovies.”

  The silver tabby walked over to where I stood and settled between my feet. “I would argue with that, but I’m not going to.”

  “So? Where are we going?”

  “Bastet still lives in downtown Brooklyn. She only moved about twelve blocks down; wanted to make sure her cats would follow her.”

  “Wouldn’t they follow her anywhere?”

  “Have you ever tried herding cats? No. They wouldn’t, and I doubt if she would’ve wanted to start from zero. Now, do you actually know how to use the teleportation orb? Or are we going to wind up on Mars.”

  “I know how to use it. I just need a location to focus on.”

  “Twelve blocks south from where Bastet used to live. There’s a pizza place called Charlie’s. Red store front; it has a huge open till late neon sign on it. Think you can land in the alley right next to it?”

  I tossed the orb into the air and painted a picture in my mind using Rey’s words. The orb hovered in midair, but it didn’t immediately explode and become a portal. It wouldn’t until I told it where to go. I could see the red store front in my head, I could smell the pizza, the pepperoni. Then the teleportation orb grabbed hold of my conscious mind and pulled me through it.

  I zipped through a tunnel of flashing lights, racing across the world at the speed of thought. At the end of the tunnel of swirling blue light, I saw a clearing, and in that clearing, Charlie’s pizza place. It took up a small unit on the ground floor of a low-rise residential building. I could see the people walking around on the street, the cars hissing along on the road. It was raining a little.

  As I concentrated on the image further, I saw the alley off to the side, and I willed my mind to go toward it. When I found a good spot, I locked it in my mind, and then I was hurled back into my body. My stomach lurched when I returned, but only for an instant. The teleportation orb then exploded in front of me, creating a vortex of blue light.

  “After you,” I said to Rey.

  “No way,” he said, “You go first.”

  “Pussy,” I quipped.

  Rey was about to speak, but I threw myself through the portal before he could open his mouth. My body felt like it had been wrung out by two pairs of giant hands, but I emerged exactly where I’d wanted to be. I could feel the rain falling lightly on my head, on my face. When I turned around, I saw the street and the people walking there, the cars passing by. Above and beyond the building on the other side of the street was the city’s huge skyline of twinkling buildings. It was night time, when New York was at its most beautiful.

  The portal flashed again, and Rey hopped through. He quickly scrambled up a dumpster to get his paws out of the wet concrete. With a thought, I made the portal collapse into itself and become a blue marble again. I slipped it into my pocket and took a breath of city air; car exhaust, human urine, and pizza.

  “Well, we didn’t end up on Mars,” Rey said, “So, I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “You’re turning into a real smartass, you know that?” I asked.

  “I’d rather be a smartass cat than a dumbass Aevian.”

  “Good one.” I headed toward the mouth of the alley, where a steam vent billowed. Immediately I was greeted by the smell of pizza, pepperoni, tomato. “Where’s Bastet, anyway?”

  Rey pointed with his paw at Charlie’s pizza place. “She lives on top of it because she loves the smell. First floor, apartment 1C.”

  I nodded and walked into the street. Around me, the world was alive with sound and movement. From people hurrying home after work, trying to beat the rain and fill their stomachs, to others hanging out at a bar, the sound from inside drifting out onto the sidewalk. Passing an electronics store, I spotted a huge TV showing different scenes from a movie I had no idea existed.

  It hit me then that I hadn’t watched TV in months. That was something Fate and I had done a lot of while we were living together. It had been one of the best ways for us to pass the time, and learn the different cultures of this world. Sure, we fell into it with some kind of innate understanding of their languages and dialects, but beyond that, everything we knew we learned by observing the humans and their ways.

  I reached the door to the residential part of the low-rise. It was shut, an intercom system guarding the way in. I tried 1C, but the button didn’t make a sound. I tried the door, but it was locked.

  “I may have suggested we use the gantry,” Rey said.

  “Relax. I lived here for years, remember?”

  I drew my fingers along the length of the intercom, pressing every button as I went for a split second. Some made a sound as I touched them, others didn’t. Rey watched me, then lost interest in my face and turned to look at the street, his tail swishing gently. The door then buzzed and unlocked. I opened it and headed inside, smirking at Rey.

  “Oh, sure. I could’ve done that,” Rey said.

  “But you didn’t, so…”

  The inside of the building didn’t smell as bad as my old one did. All of the mailboxes seemed to be intact, too. I was about to head up the stairs, when I found the first cat. He was sitting on the stairs, watching us both; a little ginger guardian. I walked up to it, but as soon as I got too close, it hissed and swiped at me.

  “Do I need to do this again?” I asked the cat.

  “You don’t know anything about our kind, do you?” Rey asked, shaking his head.

  “Alright, fine. You deal with this.”

  Rey approached the other cat with his tail held high. He sat in front of the ginger cat and licked his own paw. The ginger cat hissed at Rey, its ears arching back, a growl in its throat. Rey paused, then lunged, slapping the other cat in the face three times in quick succession. The ginger cat retreated and went bounding up the steps at full speed.

  I waited a second. “That didn’t seem to go too smoothly,” I said.

  Rey turned his head. “Sometimes you’ve gotta bash a few skulls to get what you want, kid. A good lesson to learn. C’mon, she’s waiting.”

  I followed Rey up the stairs and to apartment 1C. The door to Bastet’s place sat at the end of a dark hall. A single ceiling lamp flickered, trying its best to shed a little light on the pastel green walls that were covered in scratch marks. There were cats here, too—lots of them. They lounged around like they owned the place; grooming, sleeping, and shedding everywhere.

  The door to apartment 1C opened before I reached it, and Bastet stepped out with a scowl on her face. I paused and watched her from where I stood. She was one of those girls blessed with a perfect light-brown complexion, and wavy black hair that did what it was told. Her eyes were dark and smoky, she was wearing ripped-up skinny jeans and a long-sleeved black top with a huge, purple, cartoon cat’s face on it. The knife in her hand looked way too sharp to be a kitchen utensil.

  “Is that… for me?” I asked, pointing at the knife.

  Bastet aimed the tip of the knife at me. “It will be if you don’t give me a good reason why you haven’t come to visit.”

  “I… got abducted by aliens?”

  Her scowl twisted into a smile. She lowered the knife, and the tension I was feeling fell away. “Were they smoking hot aliens with washboard abs and twelve-inch—”

 
“Bastet!”

  “I was going to say probes. Now, come and give me a hug!”

  Smiling, I walked over to her. She was quick to wrap me up in an embrace. I heard her sniff my hair. “Why does your hair always smell so scrummy?”

  “It’s magic, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  She pulled away and smiled widely. “And you brought Rey,” she squealed. “How’s my fifth favorite cat?”

  “Fifth?” Rey asked, incredulousness in his voice.

  “Don’t take it personally, Mister scruffy-kins. Why don’t you come on inside? You’ll catch your death out here.”

  “It’s not that cold.”

  “I was talking about him, not the cold.”

  She’d gestured across my shoulder with her eyebrows. I turned my head, but besides Rey and the other cats, there was no one there. Maybe the hallway was a little darker than it should’ve been, maybe the shadows were a little long, but it was empty. Still, a shiver ran up and along the length of my spine, as if an icy finger had brushed against it.

  I shuddered and stepped into Bastet’s apartment.

  Inside, music was playing, and something was cooking. The air was heavy with the smell of chopped onions. Bastet moved past me and headed into her quaint kitchen. She had a large pot on the stove, steam rising from inside.

  An entire row of little bowls filled with dry cat food lined one of the far walls. No matter where you looked, there were at least three cats chilling out. The apartment didn’t smell like cats, though.

  “Nice place,” I said, looking around.

  “Thanks, sweetness. It’s tiny, but it gets cozy on those cold nights. My babies and I are pretty happy here.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  She dropped a chopping board’s worth of minced beef into the pot and glanced over at me. “You’re looking a lot more like the man these days. What happened to you?”

  I checked myself out. “Like the man?”

  “The Order sank its fangs into you, didn’t they?”

  I shrugged. “I guess they did. It’s not that bad there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so… it’s better than being on the streets.”

  “All of my little ones would disagree, but then again they’re cats. They’re much better suited for the cold, wet streets than us monkeys.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Rey said, hopping onto the counter to investigate the food cooking in Bastet’s pot. “I’d take a warm bed over cold concrete any day of the week.”

  “Oh, but you’re my spoiled little baby, aren’t you?” she asked, rubbing him under the chin. “Aren’t you?”

  Rey shut his eyes and purred. “Yes… I am…”

  “He’s so adorably cute. I’m glad you brought him to me.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  Bastet narrowed her eyes. “I can sense your wonderful mind at work… you didn’t come here to have a giggle with an old friend, did you?”

  I shook my head. “I want to ask you about something.”

  “I think I know why you’re here,” she sang, waving her knife around as she buzzed about her kitchen. It was definitely a combat knife, the kind that could leave a mighty gash in a person, and she was cooking with it.

  “Can you help me, then?”

  She stopped and looked at me, a smirk on her face. “You know I’ll always help you, precious. I have to ask you, though… do you think you’re ready to dive into my world? You might not like what you find in there. The water’s frigid, and dangerous.”

  “I’ve dealt with my share of dangers in the past.”

  “Yes, but we’re pretty dangerous. Actually, we aren’t just dangerous, or lethal, or deadly. All the killy words. Mages are insidious. They get into your head, twist your mind inside out. And then if they’re curious enough, they’ll want to cut you open to see what makes you tick—to see if they can learn anything from your cooling corpse.”

  “You make them all sound like homicidal maniacs.”

  “I was going with mad scientists,” Rey said.

  I glared at him, but said nothing.

  “Oh, I’ll just go back to being seen and not heard, shall I?”

  “Try not being seen either. The grown-ups are talking.”

  “Grown-ups,” Rey scoffed, turning around and heading for one of the bowls of cat food.

  I had no reason to jerk his chain, but it was so easy to do, I couldn’t help myself. “Alright,” I said to Bastet, “So, mages are insidious bastards who will probably try to cut me open if they get their hands on me.”

  “Oh, definitely. You, with your glowing hair? Yeah, they’ll wanna know what’s so special about that, let me tell you.”

  “That doesn’t scare me. Anyway, I don’t have another choice.” I walked over to the window and looked out at the New York City streets. “Somewhere, out there, the guy I’m looking for is making deals with mages and rallying an army of vicious maniacs to his side. I need to get ahead of this, and I need your help. Are you going to give it to me or not?”

  Bastet grinned. “Of course, sugar. The real question is, what are you going to give me in return?”

  I wasn’t sure what was in the pot of chili Bastet had cooked, but it was incredible. It was so good, I practically cleaned the bowl, making sure not an ounce of sauce or beef was left. I set my bowl down on the coffee table, since Bastet didn’t have a dining table we could eat at, and settled back into the sofa.

  “That was good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Cooking is one of my passions, didn’t you know?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Have you ever cooked a dish before?”

  “I’ve never been able to cook. It’s just not something I’ve ever had the time for.”

  “Most of us have time, all of us have excuses.” She winked.

  “Yeah, maybe…” I looked over at her. “So, you know why I’m here…”

  Bastet tapped the side of her nose. “I’ve heard little whispers. The city talks, and I listen. I figured it wasn’t long before you decided to come around and talk to me.”

  “Valoel…”

  “Huh. I didn’t know his name, only that he was like you, and that he was curious about us. Some people call him the raven.”

  “Is that all it takes to get talked about around here? Curiosity?”

  “It does if you’re from wonderland.”

  “Wonderland?”

  “The place you come from, obviously. We need a name for it, don’t we? From the other side of the rifts, it’s just a mouthful.”

  “Does that mean I’ve come up in your discussions with friends?”

  “Oh, please. I don’t have mage friends anymore, only acquaintances. I learned a long time ago, mages aren’t exactly the best company to keep. They’re always after something.” She shuddered.

  “Sounds like someone I know.”

  “Yes, but I’m charming. I make it sound fun.”

  “Do you? Because it still sounds like I owe you every time I ask for help.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Ever heard of the term you scratch my back, I scratch yours? It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Like, I just gave you food, but I didn’t ask you for anything in return. That’s because I’m nice, and this is personal, and intimate. But if you want business, then I’ll put my business collar on and we’ll get down to it.”

  “Business collar?” I shook my head. “Never mind. Alright, I do want to talk business. I want to know more about Valoel. Anything you can tell me.”

  Bastet looked to the side and frowned. “Not now,” she hissed.

  There wasn’t anyone there, not even cats were sitting on that part of the couch. That was weird enough since they dominated just about every other inch of the apartment. “Everything okay?” I asked.

  She turned her head to me and smiled. “Of course, silly. Now, I have some information that could help you. Before you ask, no, I’m not one of the mag
es he’s approached, and yes, I know of some of the ones he has. I may even be able to tell you the name of at least one mage that has joined his band of merry men.”

  “What do you want in return?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “A lock of your hair, my dear Seline. And this is to repay the last favor I did for you.”

  “I thought Rey covered that?”

  She shook her head. “No, no. Rey covered the first favor I did, remember? With the stone? A lock of hair repays the makeover I gave you. Then you can owe me again.”

  “You’re worse than a loan shark!”

  “Could I be a loan cat instead?” she asked, pretending to claw at the air. “Remember, it’s just business. So, what do you say?”

  I chewed the inside of my lip. “What are you going to do with my hair?”

  “A little bit of this, a little bit of that…”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

  “Pretty sure you’re talking about stage magicians there.” I sighed. “It’s just, my hair is special… and I don’t know what giving you some of it will do to me. I’ve heard you talking about eating ghosts… are you some kind of necromancer that’s gonna do weird shit to my spirit or something?”

  Bastet stared at me, then she broke out into a fit of laughter that saw her grabbing her own belly and flipping over the back of the sofa. It was an exaggerated kind of laugh, but it was entertaining to watch; especially when she got up, looked over at me, and fell to the floor again, still laughing.

  When the laughter finally subsided, she pulled herself up over the back of the sofa and looked across at me. “Oh, honey…” she said, shaking her head. “Necromancers wish they were me.”

  “I… don’t get it.”

  She stood and walked around the back of her sofa. “See, I’m a special kind of girl. Different.”

  “But you can see ghosts, right? Weren’t you just talking to one?”

  “I can see ghosts, yes, and I can eat them too. But no, I wasn’t talking to a ghost just then—I was talking to Sharri. She likes to drop in unannounced sometimes and give me her opinions when I don’t want them.”

  It looked like she’d directed that last comment at someone to the right of her, but again, the space was empty. “Sharri?” I asked.