Slade’s eyebrows met in the middle, his eyes narrowing. “Very well,” he said, “In that case, this meeting is over. You may collect your weapons from the door and leave, however I warn you… come back to this place again, and there will be no discussions—only death.”
“So that’s it, then?” Draven asked, “You’ve declared yourself our enemy?”
“It looks that way.”
“What’s stopping us from killing you right now?”
Slade stood, slowly. “You could try…”
I took Draven’s hand. “Let’s just go,” I said, “This isn’t something we want to do.”
Draven’s eyes remained fixed on the mage, even as he moved to the back of the room to pull his sword from the cupboard. I grabbed my dagger, left the room, and quickly moved toward the same exit we’d used to get in. Once I was on the street, I didn’t stop walking for a full block before I finally turned around to Draven, pushed him against a wall, and glared at him.
“Wanna tell me what that was all about?” I asked.
“He suggested you were a prostitute,” Draven said.
“Don’t you think I could’ve handled that myself?”
“I do, but I wasn’t thinking.”
“Your not thinking almost got us killed. I really can’t believe you’d have done something like that. You, of all people.”
He clenched his jaw. “Me of all people…”
“Yes, you. You’ve always been a pillar of confidence. A bit of an asshole, sure, but a confident one. You never do anything without thinking about it. You take risks, but they’re always for a higher purpose. Almost slamming that mage with magic didn’t serve a higher purpose and speaking for me was not cool.”
Draven licked his lips. “I know… I’m sorry. My composure broke. The thought of what he’d suggested he would do to you on that bed… it made my blood boil.”
I swallowed hard, instantly disarmed. I frowned at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “I would never have let him talk to any woman like that. You have to believe me when I say, standing up to him was always something I would’ve done… but with you, especially.” He let out a sigh. “I snapped.”
I could feel my grip on him slackening. I didn’t try to grip him more tightly again. Instead, I let my hold on him slip. I understood, now. He was jealous.
Draven was jealous.
I didn’t have to say it, and neither did he. We didn’t need to talk about it, we didn’t need to dress it up and give it a parade. We both knew exactly what had happened and why it had happened. He hadn’t meant to speak for me; he was defending me.
Gods, his feelings. Draven has feelings.
For a while I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t think he felt anything but anger, and the guilt he’d told me about. But here he was, standing in front of me right now, jealous at the thought of me being with another man. I couldn’t say part of me didn’t like it… even just a little.
Draven placed a hand on my waist. It was warm, and soft. He’d managed to slide it under my shirt to touch my bare waist. My skin warmed at his touch, delightful tingles pulsing through me. I wanted to kiss him. This time for real. This time, not because one of us was in a life-threatening situation.
Movement in the alley beside us, however, stole my attention away.
I drew my dagger in an instant and aimed it at the darkness. Someone was there, the shadows clinging to their body. “Show yourself!” I growled.
A pair of hands went up, then someone walked into the light. He was pale, and skinny, wearing sweat pants and a black hoody with the hood up. He looked young, too young, like he was in his teens; or maybe he was in his twenties, but he’d bloomed late. Really late. Hanging from his neck was a massive gold chain with the letters ARS stamped into a gold block.
“So, I see this sexy lady and her boo step into the GG, and I have to ask myself,” he said, “Why in the world would a pair of dope ass Aevians wanna chill with a creep like Slade? He’s gotta have somethin’ they want, right?”
“Who are you?” Draven asked.
“Little while later, these Aevians walk out of the place lookin’ all glum and shit. This tells me a couple of things. Number one, they didn’t get what they wanted. Number two, Slade still wants something from them.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know that?”
He grinned wide, flashing a set of gold-plated teeth. “Slade ain’t no punk, mami. If he thought you were his enemy, he’d have straight up murdered yo’ asses. Ain’t nobody got time for others around here.”
I glanced over at Draven and then back at this mysterious young… whatever the hells he was. “Alright, you’ve got my attention. Who are you, and what do you want?”
“You can call me Romeo, sweetness. And what I want is to help you.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Romeo sweetness. Bit of a mouthful, but sure.”
“No, not… not sweetness. Just Romeo.” He stared at me like I was thick, but I’d just made his persona crack for a second and seen what was underneath. This guy wasn’t a threat.
“Romeo. Got it,” I said, “So, what can you do for us?”
His smile returned. “Check it out, so I heard Slade is in business with another one of your people. I heard they’ve got mad grief with the status quo and wanna make some big changes in the way things work. Maybe just so happens I might know a thing or two about what they’re planning. I could be persuaded to talk…”
“You people are like vultures,” Draven said, “You always want something in return for your services.”
He was starting to sound like me. Or maybe I was starting to sound like him?
“Yo’, chill homie. You telling me you’ve ever worked pro bono in your whole entire life?”
I pulled Draven aside and whispered. “This is how these people operate, Draven. They work for favors. If he has something that can help us, we should listen.”
“What if it’s a trap? What if he works for Slade?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t know if we have any options here.” I glanced over at Romeo again. “What do you want in return for information?”
“Fair is fair, mami. Information for information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Yo’, it’s simple. I wanna know more about those stones people are talking about.”
“You want us to tell you what they are?”
“Nah, I want you to tell me everything there is to know about them. What they do, where they came from, how to find them.”
“You’re shit out of luck,” I said, “We don’t know a lot about the stones either. We’re still figuring stuff out.”
“Shit, that true?” Romeo asked Draven.
Draven stared at me, his dark eyes uncompromising. He shut them, then rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He turned to look at Romeo, glaring at him like he was about to attack. “Fine. An exchange of information, and nothing more. I don’t relish the thought of doing business with mages.”
Romeo smiled widely, his gold teeth sparkling against the light from the street. “Hey, we ain’t all that bad, are we?”
On the outside, I was stone cold. Inside, my blood was boiling. Was Draven holding back a secret? Okay, that probably wasn’t too big of a surprise. Draven had held things back from me before. But the thought that he knew something about the stones that he was keeping from me wasn’t a comforting one.
I was meant to be a gold prospect. No, more than that, I was meant to be his apprentice, his shadow. Why would he deliberately keep stuff from me after all we’d been through?
“Come with me,” Romeo said, “I got a crib nearby we can chill at. We’ll be safe there.”
Draven nodded and followed Romeo as he pushed deeper into the alley he’d emerged from. I grabbed his arm and stared at him. “What’s going on?” I said, my voice a harsh whisper.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
The question hit me in t
he chest, hard. I had to think about it, and I hated that I had to think about it. I did trust him, didn’t I? We’d been through a lot since we met. At first, we’d been cold acquaintances at best, enemies at worse. Now we weren’t just mentor and apprentice, I liked to think we were a little more. Friends? Maybe even a little more. I did trust him.
Didn’t I?
I swallowed hard. “I do,” I said, after a pause even he would’ve felt.
“Good. Let’s go and get this over with. The longer we spend out here in the company of mages, the more dangerous things get.”
Realizing I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I followed Romeo and Draven through the tangle of alleyways. Rats and cats popped out of dark corners in equal measure. Steam vents seemed to follow us wherever we went. All the while I felt like invisible eyes were watching us, scanning us, sizing us up.
It wasn’t strange to feel like this in the middle of the city. I’d spent the better part of my life with this feeling hanging over my shoulder like a dark cloud. We weren’t of this world, Draven and I, and sometimes it felt like this world rejected us, conspired against us.
Then again, there could’ve been real eyes on us. I’d rarely been to Queens before. I didn’t know this neighborhood, its people, or its supernatural population. Once again, I found myself thumbing the rock in my pocket, making sure I was always touching it.
Romeo led us into a grey, metal door on the side of a low-rise building near a street. The air itself seemed charged, like it had its own essence; one that gave me a little too much anxiety. In the distance, sirens blared.
“This way,” Romeo said, pointing at the corridor beyond the door.
Draven went first. I followed, then Romeo who shut the door behind us. I wasn’t sure where we were. There’d been no markings on the building, not from the alley we’d moved in through. It was also dark, almost too dark to see. Romeo fixed that in a second by switching on the lights, and then it became clear where I was.
Pictures of gold vinyl records hung on the walls. I didn’t recognize the bands, but I knew what having a platinum record meant—they’d sold a whole bunch of album copies. One of the nearest doors was marked Sound Room 1, the next Sound Room 2.
We were in a recording studio.
Romeo opened the door to Sound Room 2. Inside I spotted a huge console covered in buttons and knobs. A large window overlooked a room filled with instruments. Romeo took a seat on the red leather sofa and crossed one leg over the other. He gestured with his hands.
“Yo’, take a load off. Chill,” he said.
Draven sat down on one of the chairs in front of the console. I sat on the sofa next to Romeo; close enough that I could stab him through the thigh at a moment’s notice if I had to. He didn’t try inching toward me.
“Is this your studio?” I asked.
Romeo pointed at one of the records hanging just over the door we’d entered. The letters ARS were inscribed on the white sleeve the vinyl record sat inside. “It’s not my studio, but that’s my album.”
“ARS… what’s that short for?”
“It ain’t short for anything. Means art in Latin.”
“Okay… why art?”
“Because magic is an art. That’s something all the dope mages know, something we live by.”
“Magic is a tool,” Draven said, “We use it to do the things we want to do.”
“Maybe to you… but it’s so much more than that. My magic is, anyways.”
I’d never heard of this guy’s music before, though by the look of him I probably wouldn’t be interested. Still, I was starting to realize something about him. There was more to him than met the eye.
Underestimating him would be a mistake.
“So, here’s how this is going to work,” Draven said, taking control of the situation. “I want you to tell us what you know about Slade and the Aevian he’s aligned with. I want you to tell us what they’re up to, sparing as few details as possible.”
“In return,” Romeo said, “You’ll tell me more about those stones.”
Draven’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. Tell us what you know.”
Romeo scanned us both. He looked relaxed, but I could feel the tension in his body even from where I was sitting. It was in his body language, the way his hands were perfectly at his side, the way his stare was as sharp and intense as it was. He was ready to strike at any moment, but I could tell he would only strike in self-defense.
Still, I kept my guard up.
“Okay,” Romeo said, “So, check it. Little birdie tells me Slade has been creeping with an Aevian. Call him Val, or something. This Val’s been going around saying he’s got these mega cool stones that can do all sorts of shit, including mind-control. He’s also said he’s got people on his side with mad clout—some kind of brotherhood.”
“Crimson Hunters…” Draven said, shaking his head.
“Right, something like that. Anyway, so that kind of news has us weirdo types frontin’. Some of us call bullshit on that, saying we’d know if there were magic stones on earth. Others, though, well, they’re looking to make a little green out of the situation, if you know what I mean.”
“Green?” I asked.
He rubbed his thumb, index, and middle fingers together. “Money.”
“I know what it means,” I said, stopping myself from throwing the word dumbass at him. “How the hell are mages gonna make money from the stones? Are they gonna sell them?”
“I’ma give you two words, and I don’t want you to take offence when I use them, know what I’m saying?”
Draven cocked an eyebrow. I waited patiently.
“Dog fights,” Romeo said.
What Romeo had just said didn’t properly sink in, until it did. My stomach twisted inside out and jumped up and down. All the blood drained from my head, making me feel like a balloon that was floating away on a breeze.
“Dog fights?” I asked, forcing the words out. I shook my head. “Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Romeo leaned forward on his seat, his expression grave. “Think about it. You people fall through the rifts, and you can’t remember nothing right? Maybe you’re lucky and you find someone else like you, and they help you out. Maybe you’re unlucky and you’re picked up by a mage with one of these stones, he makes you pass out with a little magic, then you wake up in a fight club.”
“Does this happen?” Draven asked. His entire body was stiff and tense, like he was ready to kill this mage for being the bearer of bad news. “Does it happen already?”
“Fight clubs? Sure they do, but it’s mostly consensual—y’know, unless someone’s being blackmailed into fighting. This is worse. Ain’t no mind more fucked up than an amnesiac’s, right? So, these people won’t know any better. They’ll think that’s their life.”
“This… this is barbaric,” I said, “How have I never heard about this?”
Romeo scoffed. “Like anyone wants word of this getting out.”
“How do you know about it?” Draven asked. “Are you involved?”
“In fight club? Shit no. I keep my nose clean, homie. I’m all about my music and spreading the good word. I make my money legit.”
“Spreading the good word?”
“Magic, homie. I put my magic into the mic, it makes people feel good when they hear it.”
“Magic…” I said, “You use magic in your music?”
“Wouldn’t you? If you thought you could lift someone up a little more than listening to normal music could, someone struggling out there, having a bad day… if you thought you could make them happier, wouldn’t you?”
“But you’re manipulating them with magic… isn’t that what we literally just talked about?”
He shook his head. “Don’t get it twisted. I ain’t nothing like those weirdoes, got it? They wanna exploit. I wanna uplift. Now… Slade? He’s one of those guys in it for the green. I don’t know if he’s into those fights, but he knows a chance to destabilize the government
when he sees it, and that’s why he’s siding with Val. If he had it his way, the government would burn and he’d be king of the ashes.”
“That makes him especially dangerous,” Draven said, “He probably considers himself a revolutionary, a hero of the people. If he wants the stones power to mind-control, he’ll use it on the people in the upper echelon.”
“Sounds like him,” Romeo said, “What I also know is he and Val meet up to talk business most nights. If you wanna get the jump on him, you’ve just gotta follow Slade. Just so happens I may know where the location of their next meet is, and when.”
“Would you be willing to tell us?”
Romeo grinned. “That’ll cost you extra.”
“What will it cost?”
“A memory.”
I tutted. “Shit out of luck there, my friend. My memories are locked out; I don’t remember a thing about wonderland.”
“Wonderland… I like that.” Romeo’s gold teeth flashed. “Well, maybe it so happens I can help with finding some of those lost memories.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What did you say?” I asked, but Draven intervened.
“You can have some of mine,” he stood up. “Let’s get this over with.”
We left Romeo’s studio with a tip on where we might find Valoel, but all I could think about was what he’d said. As I headed into the streets, flashes of my people beating each other bloody like puppets made of flesh and bone invaded my mind. It was horrifying, and I couldn’t believe Valoel would side himself with the people capable of doing something like that.
Then again, I didn’t know him. I had no idea what he was capable of or even who he was, besides the fact that he called himself my brother and seemed to know a great deal about me. More than anything I wanted to know who I was, where I came from, and he had the answers. The only problem was, he happened to be a psychopath with visions of world domination.
In exchange for the information Romeo had given us, Draven had talked about the stones. Lucky for me, he hadn’t said too much about them that I didn’t already know, but there had been at least one secret he’d been keeping from me.
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 47