With carbonation burning its way to my stomach, I faced my desk with the stiff posture of a solider preparing for battle. “Peasblossom, would you read our to-do list, please?”
“Sure. Wouldn't want you to have to put down your soda—your second soda.”
“I’ve been up since six a.m. and it is now three o’clock in the afternoon. I have spent the last nine hours studying three boxes of files that Anton messengered over. Hundreds of people, employees, enemies. Do you know how to make a sylph bard angry?” I snorted. “Anton does.”
“Oh, fine, if you’re going to whine about it.” Peasblossom put down the piece of chocolate she’d been consuming, reconsidered, and picked it back up. The square of Hershey’s dwarfed her head, and she grunted as she lugged it across the desk and resumed eating as she read off the list. “Call the leannan sidhe.”
“Done.”
“Identify rash on young Michael’s back and advise mother as to treatment.”
“Rug burn. Tell Michael’s brothers to stop dragging him around the carpet when they play capture the supervillain.”
“Figure out how baby Eloise is getting out of her crib and advise mother as to preventative methods.”
“She’s two. She’s hefting herself out with her Goddess-given strength. I took her mother a basket of chocolates and helped her transform the crib to a toddler bed.” I paused and looked at Peasblossom still munching on the piece of chocolate. “Where did you get that?”
The pixie froze, then narrowed her eyes at me. “What, she’ll miss one lousy piece?”
I kept staring at her. Waiting.
Her little chin jutted out in defiance. “One measly bar?”
“She’s about to learn she has a climber, Peasblossom. Have a heart. She needs all the chocolate she can get.”
“Meet with possibly evil vampire prince turned probably evil businessman about his book of definitely evil blackmail?” Peasblossom read loudly.
I looked at the clock on my phone. If I left now, I’d arrive at Anton’s office by sunset. “Get in the car.”
“I don’t like driving,” Peasblossom complained, rolling onto her back and holding the half-eaten piece of chocolate over her head. “Can’t we ask Mother Hazel for a gatestone?”
“No.”
Peasblossom let out the exasperated sigh of a put-upon teenager and hugged the chocolate to her chest. After dragging her feet the entire trek to the side of the desk, she hurled herself into the air with the attitude of someone being horribly inconvenienced and dropped onto my shoulder like a wet towel. “She’d give you one, you know. She practically said she doesn’t mind you being an investigator.”
I closed the door without locking it and got into the Focus. “She did not. She paused longer than usual between admonitions that I’m wasting my skills.”
“Same difference.”
“I’m not asking for a gatestone. Besides, I made this.” I held up a small bag of herbs and crystals and hung it from the rearview mirror. “It’s a luck charm. If I’m right, it should bless us with green lights and thin traffic.”
“But it won’t do anything about construction, will it?” Peasblossom pointed out.
No, it wouldn’t. There was no magic strong enough to overcome the necessary inconvenience that was construction.
I pulled out of the driveway, careful not to run over the possum meandering along as if he owned the property, and headed toward the highway. “Why don't we use this drive time to our advantage? Read the files out loud and we’ll discuss points as they come up. You’ll see, this will be productive.”
It wasn’t productive. What it was, in fact, was two and a half hours of hearing all the different ways Peasblossom could annoy me with her voice. Reading too slow, reading too fast, pausing too long between words, putting the accent on the wrong syllable. Then there was her attempt to make boring parts “sound exciting” and her insistence on providing a running commentary that had more to do with how Flint might have seduced someone than any evidentiary value.
By the time we arrived at Anton’s office, my finger was cramped from hovering over the button that would have rolled Peasblossom’s window down and sent her flying out of the car. With near-Herculean strength, I pried my hand away and opened the door to escape. That Peasblossom flew behind me instead of perching on my shoulder told me she’d tormented me on purpose and was more than aware of how close I was to snapping.
The Winters Group building sat in the central business district of Cleveland. An imposing tower of row after row of dark windows, it gave the impression of staring down at you, as if the master of the building himself watched from behind every black, reflective surface. The uppermost floor boasted windows four times the size of those below, and didn’t reflect any light. I guessed those windows marked the floor of the building inhabited exclusively by the vampire.
I paused before entering the building to straighten my red trench coat, a stiff breeze making me wish it reached all the way down to my ankle instead of cutting off at mid-thigh. Peasblossom landed on the back of my neck and grabbed two handfuls of my hair to wrap around her.
“Hurry up, I’m freezing!”
“All right, I’m going!”
My fingers had just brushed the silver handle of the door when it flew open, cracking against my knuckles. I hissed as a woman barreled straight into me. She must have been heavier than she looked, because all I got was a fleeting look at blonde hair and a slim black leather coat, and then I was toppling backward. I hit the ground with an undignified grunt, wincing as my hip impacted against the cold cement.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you.”
“It’s all right,” I said, forcing a smile as I looked up into wide blue eyes. I wanted to point out that the doors were heavy, solid glass and it was hard to believe she could have missed me in my vibrant red coat, but she looked genuinely distressed. “No harm done.”
“Oh, look at your beautiful coat.” She helped me up and brushed the dirt from my arms and back. “I’m so sorry.”
“Really, it’s all right.” I smoothed my hair down, discreetly feeling for Peasblossom to make sure she was okay. A reassuring pat against my neck assured me she was. I exhaled a sigh of relief.
The woman kept brushing off my coat, as if getting every speck off the material was necessary to excuse her faux pas. She stopped a split second before it got awkward.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, waving a hand at me and wiggling her fingers at each body part in turn as if to specify she meant all of me.
I held on to the smile despite the throbbing in my hip. I had the stray thought that if I’d torn my leggings, I was going to be really upset. “Absolutely.”
She smiled back. “Oh, good. Again, I’m so sorry.”
As soon as she left, Peasblossom poked her head out from behind my hair just enough to speak into my ear. “What a weirdo. Was she brushing you off or checking for loose valuables?”
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” I muttered. “At least she didn’t ask me if I wanted to buy a watch.”
Even with the security badges Anton had left at the door for us, it took several minutes to pass the security checkpoints posted at every level. By the time I got to the top floor, I was just grateful there hadn’t been a body cavity search.
The lounge area outside Anton’s office door was nicer than my house. Stark, perfect white walls contrasted with the black leather chairs that looked so soft my hand twitched to touch them. The small table in front of the chairs was painted black wood, the top marked with a checkered pattern of different textures. My hip throbbed, stressing how very, very comfortable the chairs looked. Before I could sit down and experience the joy for myself, a door swished behind me.
Peasblossom squeaked, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream. Her reaction killed the readied greeting before it left my lips, adrenaline spinning me around in time to see a man with thick orange-blond hair and a long matching beard barreling toward me.
He wore an expensive suit like Anton, but unlike the vampire, this man wore a ridiculous amount of jewelry. Chains hung around his neck, a heavy watch circled his wrist, and a ring squeezed every finger. He jingled when he walked, and the furious pace he’d set made quite a racket. I recognized him from the file. Isai, Anton’s personal wizard.
“You,” he snarled. He slashed a few sharp gestures in the air.
Instinct jerked my hands up. “Armatura!” My shields snapped into place, the ring on my finger humming as blue energy spilled over my entire body.
“Apstergeo!” He tore through the layer of protective blue energy like a child through a stubborn candy wrapper, raking a spell down my body. Vibrant gold light lit up my mind’s eye, claws slicing my spell to ribbons. I stumbled from the force of it even as some faraway part of my brain registered the lack of pain.
The spell didn’t hurt me, not beyond destroying my shields.
It did, however, piss me off.
I gritted my teeth and called another spell. Fire tickled my palm, a comforting warmth begging to sail through the air and bite into my attacker. I doubted I could stop him, not without destroying a good bit of the building in the process. But I could hurt him. I stopped myself before I could give in to the petty urge.
“You fool,” Isai bit out. “You incompetent wretch. How could you miss such an obvious spell? How could you not expect it?”
My temper notched higher, and the spell flickered. “How silly of me not to expect an attack from the personal wizard of the man who hired me—outside the office I was to meet him in, no less.”
The wizard sneered. “I did not attack you, you simple-minded female. I removed the spell someone else put on you. The spell someone else was using to spy on you. The spell you brought here.”
My blood ran cold and the fire spell dissipated with a faint hiss. “What?”
“You didn’t feel it, did you? You had no idea.” His nose wrinkled with disgust. “You have been hired by one of the most powerful men in the world—in two worlds. Do you really think no one is watching? Do you think no one will attempt to spy on you, follow your ‘investigation?’”
I ignored the insinuated quotes around “investigation,” as my mind raced over recent events, trying to figure out what he was talking about. I’d come straight from home. Who could have—
I froze. The woman who’d run into me. All the time she’d spent brushing me off, the way she’d waved her hand in my direction. I gave myself a vicious mental kick. Fool!
I wanted to defend myself, Goddess knew I wanted to defend myself. But I couldn’t. He was right.
But he was still an ass.
“You’re right. I should have expected something like that. It was a mistake, one I won’t repeat.” I wrenched my spine a little straighter, bracing myself. “Now I understand how humiliated you must have felt. Standing outside a vault that had just been robbed, and still caught unaware. A powerful wizard, taken out by a blow to the head. Like swatting a fly.”
Isai’s eyes widened. “Your insolence will be the death of you.” The rings on his fingers clinked together as he grasped at empty air, probably imagining my throat in his grip.
“Seems like your job was to know if someone messed with your wards, and if they did, get there to stop them before they made off with anything,” I continued, my heart lodged in my throat. “Maybe if you’d been half as good at your job as you want me to be at mine, your boss wouldn’t need to hire a ‘simple-minded female.’”
He raised a hand, and my stomach rolled on a violent wave of nerves. I unfastened my coat and groped for the notebook in the side pocket of my waist pouch, grateful I hadn’t put it in the bottomless main pocket. My hand shook as I slid the little pen from the plastic spiral that held the pages together and opened the notebook with trembling fingers.
“I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind? Anton says you’re the one who warded the hallway. Is it possible you made a mistake?”
“My wards were perfect!”
I nodded, making a note on the first clean page of the notebook. “Well then, perhaps you dropped the wards? I heard Flint’s voicemail today, and I have to say, even in a recording, he sounds very persuasive. Perhaps he talked you into dropping your…wards?”
Too late, I realized I’d gone too far. A roar ripped from Isai’s throat, and a spell exploded from his fingertips. I dove out of the way, feeling the tingle of magic hurtle through the air so close it burned. My notebook fell from my hand in a flutter of paper as I rolled, coming up with a defensive spell already rolling over me.
Isai made a strange choking sound, and a second later, a familiar Dacian accent cut through the cloying press of magic in the air.
“Enough.”
Anton’s voice froze me in place. I stared with my lips parted in shock. Isai knelt on the floor, pressing his hand to his side. His face remained a mottled red, his eyes burning with hatred as he continued to glare at me even as blood seeped from between his fingers, staining his rings with a red shine.
Penetrating abdominal trauma, right lumbar region. He’ll have to heal soon. Hope that Anton didn’t puncture a kidney.
I shook off the semi-hysterical diagnosis and held my breath as Isai wrenched his glare from me to Anton. So much hatred. It was a wonder the vampire didn’t spontaneously combust. Adrenaline coursed through my system, demanding fight or flight. I clenched my hands into fists and forced myself to hold still and wait.
Anton drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blade of his dagger. “Heal yourself and join us when you’ve recovered your sense of decorum,” he said to Isai without turning. “Mother Renard and I will review the crime scene as planned.”
He never looked back, never gave the wizard a second glance. Instead, he picked up my notebook and handed it to me, the picture of gentlemanly consideration, then took my arm and led me out a door to a staircase. I followed without a word, but had to stop at the bottom of the first set of stairs when my legs threatened to give out from under me.
Anton’s gaze weighed on me with near-tangible force. I leaned on the wall, giving myself a firm mental lecture on picking fights with magically superior bullies and trying to talk my legs into supporting me a little longer.
“You are either much more powerful than I suspected,” Anton said after a moment, “or you are unaware of the change in your circumstances.”
“What?”
I’d resisted the urge to sit on the steps—barely—but I still wasn’t ready to risk continuing down the stairs. My legs were as stable as those inflatable waving tube people that businesses were so fond of using for advertising, and my back itched with the anticipation of an attack still to come.
“As I understand it, you only recently completed your initial training as a witch, expanding your knowledge base and learning the rudimentaries of magic. Your actual repertoire of spells and your control over them is still in the early stages, is it not?”
He wasn’t wrong. Mother Hazel had been adamant that knowledge was more important than magic. She’d spent the majority of my apprenticeship making me an expert on “everything.” Sure, she’d taught me the basics of spellcasting, but I had a lot to learn. Or, rather, a lot to practice.
How a vampire knew about a witch’s training I didn’t know. The only people in a position to have told him such things would be me, Peasblossom, and Mother Hazel herself. I hadn’t told him. I didn’t see Peasblossom flying all the way here without me to have a chat. I narrowed my eyes. “Have you—”
“As I understand it,” he continued, “magical ability for a witch is much like a body of water created by an outside force—I believe you call them patrons, or gods. Some witches are puddles, some lakes, and some great oceans. But regardless of how much water a witch holds, what matters is her control, her ability to focus it to accomplish her goals. After all, if one wishes to put out a candle, unleashing an entire ocean on it and destroying the city that contained said candle wouldn’t do, would it
?”
I blinked. “I… I think that's the best analogy for magic I’ve ever heard.”
He tilted his head, studying me a little closer. “Tell me, Mother Renard. Are you a puddle or an ocean?”
Alarm bells went off in my brain, filling me with a sudden and complete conviction that it was best if Anton didn’t know the full extent of my power. After ignoring the little voice during my interaction with the wizard, I was now prepared to listen. “Isai is an ocean, isn’t he?”
Anton’s facial expression didn’t change. “In terms of magic, Mother Renard, Isai is the seven seas.” He shrugged. “Or he was, before I confiscated his book.”
I wilted against the wall. “I should probably start thinking of what to get him as an apology gift, then.” That’s two in as many days. Wonderful.
The vampire’s eyebrows rose as I resumed walking down the stairs. “Apology gift?”
“My mentor is adamant about them. She said when you live as long as a witch does, it doesn’t behoove you to make enemies, so when you think you’ve made an enemy, you should attempt to make recompense. Mend bridges, so to speak.”
“Interesting.” He glanced at me. “I do not think you will mend the bridge with Isai. He’s rather…emotional.”
“Most wizards would be, when their spellbooks are being held hostage.”
“It’s been very motivational.”
“I suppose.” A grimace tugged at the corners of my mouth as I recalled something he’d said before. “What did you mean, a ‘change in my circumstances?’”
“I refer only to the fact you prodded Isai into attacking you. Logic dictates either you felt you could best him in a duel, or you believed he wouldn’t kill you.”
My mouth went dry. Well, when you put it like that. “I… He started it.”
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