Heart of the Thief

by Katerina Martinez

  “I take the fact that you’re still alive to mean that the spell I gave you worked?” she asked.

  The key. I’d almost forgotten about that. It felt like a lifetime ago that I’d broken into a Demonologist’s house and stolen a key from his room of horrors. “It worked,” I said, “I got the key. I ran into a little setback after, but that’s no biggie.”

  It looked like Axel wanted to interject, but he kept quiet. That was good of him. It was already bad enough he’d insisted in tagging along. He was a stranger here to those that didn’t recognize him, and a threat to those that did.

  “That setback wouldn’t have anything to do with this tall drink of darkness, would it?”

  “It would, but he’s cool.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. The son of Asmodius is the last person I ever expected to find waltzing into my workshop.” She leaned forward on her desk. “The fact that he’s here, however, means he was able to slip past my ward. You helped him do that. Which means you’re either working for him, or he’s working for you.”

  “You know I do my best work alone.”

  She paused and examined us both. “Anything to say, mafia boy?”

  “Boy?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. He looked over at me. “Are you seriously thinking of hiring this girl?”

  “Uh… yes. Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.

  “Because she’s a child!”

  “Fuck you, I’m nineteen,” Danvers said.

  “Then what’s with the schoolgirl uniform?” Axel asked.

  “It makes me look like a child, duh.”

  Axel shook his head. “That makes no sense.”

  She shrugged. “It’s pretty easy to understand. This operation I’m running here sometimes gets on the Magistrate’s radar. When those wonderfully charismatic Legionnaires show up to rain on my parade, you can bet your ass they overlook the good little catholic girl who just wants to get her ass to confession.”

  “And they believe that line?”

  “They believe whatever I make them believe.” She turned her eyes on me. “He’s a bit of a stiff. Why’d you really bring him here?”

  “Like I said, I have a job offer.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What’s the job?”

  I glanced at Axel, then back at her. “Eliphas’ treasures.”

  Her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t immediately say anything. All around me, the sounds of beakers clinking, and bubbles bubbling dominated. The air was thick with all the powerful odors I’d picked up on the way in.

  “That’s not a job,” Danvers said, “You’re talking about a heist.”

  “I know what I’m talking about. What I need to know is if you’re in or not.”

  Danvers leaned back in her chair again and studied me. She wasn’t using magic—if she was, I’d have known—but she didn’t have to in order to read between the lines. I could see the penny dropping in her mind.

  “I have a better idea,” she said, pointing at Axel. “How about we turn the prodigal son here into a vegetable, and then ransom the cure off to his father instead?”

  “You can try it,” Axel warned, his stance shifting so that he was ready to attack or defend himself.

  “Everybody needs to cool it,” I said, “Nobody’s getting turned into a vegetable. I want to do the job.”

  “You mean you were told to do this job. I know you well enough to know that a heist like this is totally out of your modus operandi. They caught you, and then they put you up to this.”

  “That’s not entirely wrong, but you’re not getting the whole picture.”

  “Oh, really? And what’s the whole picture?”

  “Enough of this,” Axel said, raising his voice. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care why she thinks you’re special enough to involve in this mission, but I’m not gonna stand here while you mock me.”

  “Somebody’s got an ego,” Danvers said, rolling her eyes.

  “This isn’t about ego, it’s about professionalism. The only reason why I allowed this meeting to take place was because she suggested this job was dead without you, and I decided to believe her. I don’t doubt you have abilities that could help us pull this off, but if you can’t be a professional, then this meeting is over.”

  “And then what? Are you gonna have your guys storm this place and shut my workshop down? Trust me, it won’t end well for them.”

  He shook his head. “No, but we will leave, and you’ll be missing out on the payout of ten lifetimes.”

  Danvers cocked an eyebrow, then glanced over at me. “Ten?” she asked.

  “The drowned queen,” I said, “It’s real.”

  “You have proof?”

  Axel hesitated, then dropped his guard to fish the coin out of his pocket. He showed it at her from where he stood. She wiggled an eyebrow, and he brought it over to her for closer inspection. Danvers placed the coin under a magnifying glass and took a moment to check, turning it around from time to time before looking up at me again.

  “If it’s real, this thing alone is probably worth more money than I’ll ever need in this life. Why should I give it back, let alone help you?”

  Axel aimed his fingertips at her. “You’re going to give it back because I’m not like those two-bit mages you’ve got working for you out there. I’ve trained with the best. I’ve taken down way more dangerous people than you. If you want to test me, go right ahead, but you’d better drop me on your first try, otherwise neither of you are making it out of this alive.”

  “Pretty sure your dad would take issue with you killing me,” I said.

  “I’ll get a slap on the wrist, at best. I can deal with that.”

  Danvers’ eyes narrowed. “I’m starting to think you’re a little less stiff now than you were a second ago.” She tossed the coin at him, and he caught it. “Alright, I’ll do it. If nothing else, I wanna see what’s in the old man’s vault, too… but also the payment of ten lifetimes, thing. I want that.”

  I inhaled deeply, then sighed with relief. “Good. That makes three of us.”

  “How big is our team?”

  “Three. I have two others in mind.”

  “The fewer the better… you know that.”

  “Yeah, but a job like this is gonna require skills the three of us don’t have.”

  “I’d be careful who you try to bring on board. You never know who’s on the Magistrate’s take.”

  “Believe me, the people I’ve got in mind have all got a reason to stick it to the Magistrate. What better way than to steal from the Magister himself?”

  Danvers stood again and started collecting a number of bags and bottles from her shelves. “Still, allegiances can change in half-a-heartbeat. If we screw up, if they catch us, death will be the least of our concerns.”

  She walked over to me and handed her haul over. I grabbed the bottles and bags as best I could, then watched her grab a couple more before stuffing them all into a backpack. The inside of the backpack filled with shifting lights of all imaginable colors. Danvers then zipped it shut and slid her arms under its straps.

  “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yeah. With you,” she said.

  “With me? Where?”

  “You’re going recruiting, right? After that, I assume we’ll be getting this party started. I want to be in on the ground floor… just in case.”

  Axel frowned. “In case what?”

  Danvers looked over at him. “Just in case you or the two Vivimancers stalking my workshop decide to try anything funny.”

  Axel paused. “How did you know they were out there? There are no windows in this room.”

  She tapped her nose. “Magic, duh. So, who’s the next target?”

  “I’d rather not say right now,” I said, “I haven’t tried reaching out yet, but I know where to find him.”

  “Alright. We’d better get moving, then.”

  I could see it on Axel’s face. He hated that he wasn’t entirely in control of t
his situation, which made me wonder if he had ever really met any mages in his life that truly worried him. Living under his father’s shadow meant he probably had one hell of a chip on his shoulder—I didn’t need to be a Psionic to see it. But it also, ironically, possibly meant he’d lived a relatively sheltered life.

  Danvers and I hadn’t. We were gutter mages. We came from nothing. Everything and everyone was a threat, an obstacle. It wasn’t hard to see Axel already thought of us both as gutter mages without having had to ask, but he also immediately thought he was better than us as a result instead of seeing our power for what it really was.

  I guess that meant we had something in common. Neither of us really knew what the other could do. I’d had a taste of it last night in the alley, the way he’d gotten the drop on me, the way he’d grabbed a fistful of my hair. Maybe he’d just gotten lucky? Or maybe he was holding back, not playing all of his cards.

  Maybe that was the way he kept control of the situation, even if it looked like the opposite was true; by not showing us just how dangerous he really was.

  Danvers led us out of her workshop, making sure to put Rex in charge before making her exit. She warned him about the crows, told him if he sees them again, to kill them. She also warned him the chances the Magistrate could show up had increased thanks to my visit. I felt bad about that, but the truth was, when you ran a workshop like hers, intrusion from the Magistrate was just part of the cost of doing business.

  Still, Danvers’ business was booming, and it was all because of what she did in this place; all because of the bottles and bags in her backpack. See, Danvers had a special gift, just like I did. I was able to listen to a magic ward and learn the secret combination to unlock it. The ability to condense a spell into a liquid or a powder was much, much more impressive and—if you could believe it—illegal than what I could do.

  We left her apartment block to find the crows waiting on a high perch, looking down on us. The car had remained where it was. Axel walked over to it first and opened the door for us to step through. Danvers slid on inside ahead of me. I watched Axel as I went past, catching his eyes and keeping them until I was inside.

  “Where to?” he asked before shutting the door.

  “Harlem,” I said.

  “Harlem?”

  “Is that gonna be a problem, Mister Barlow?” Danvers reached over and asked.

  Axel shook his head, then shut the door. A moment later, he took the passenger seat and told the driver where to go. I pulled my phone from my pocket and typed a message out to one of the few contacts on it. I hadn’t reached out to RJ in months, hadn’t heard from him in as long, either; not since the night his sister was injured.

  I could only hope he wouldn’t ignore me, because there wasn’t another person in New York with a stronger sense of loyalty than RJ Alexander. He used to work for the Magistrate, and even though those days were long gone, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone on my team with a bit of inside knowledge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was still early by the time we reached Harlem, but the day had turned. A mantle of thick clouds had rolled in, reducing the sun in the sky to little more than an impression behind them. It was Sunday, so the streets were quiet; ours one of the only cars rolling around silently between neighborhoods.

  I hadn’t received a reply to my message, but that didn’t mean it was over. I had a good idea where to find him, so I told the driver to make a right turn at the end of a street nestled between two sleepy, redbrick apartment buildings.

  “Here,” I said, and at my instruction, the car pulled into an open parking spot on the side of the road.

  My heart skipped into my throat when I saw them. There was a basketball court across from us, flanked on all sides by withered trees barely holding any leaves. Inside the basketball court, a bunch of guys were rushing, and tackling, and dunking. RJ stood among them, and apart from them. A wolf among the herd of humans around him.

  “Is this it?” Axel asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “This time, I’m going in alone.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Look, I’d love to debate this with you, but you’ve used up your I’m gonna shadow you credit with Danvers. This right here? This is a whole other kettle of fish, and your presence is only gonna make things more difficult than they already are.”

  Axel watched me from the rearview but said nothing.

  “I don’t really give a shit about you,” Danvers said, “But I sure as hell would listen to her.”

  His jaw clenched tightly, but he nodded. I didn’t wait another second. Opening the car door, I stepped outside and crossed the street toward the basketball court. A strong breeze kicked up a whole bunch of fallen autumn leaves—the last that would fall before the winter—just as I made it to the edge of the court. My blue hair tugged and whipped around my face with the wind, but I didn’t do anything to correct it.

  Instead, I watched the men play on a gravel court that had probably caused its fair share of skinned knees, and worse. RJ’s moves were liquid. He dribbled like he’d been born to do it and slammed the ball into the bare hoop like a professional. Still, I could tell he was holding back for the sake of his friends. I didn’t think they’d want to keep playing if he beat the hell out of them every time they took to the court.

  Two crows fluttered into view, landing on the edge of the chain-link fence that marked the court’s perimeter. I watched them from where I was standing, and I was pretty sure they were watching me, too. Would he sense their presence? The simple fact that they were here threatened to blow this whole thing up.

  Dammit. Why couldn’t Axel hold them back, too?

  Finally, I caught RJ’s eye. When I was sure he’d noticed me, I started moving into the court itself. The men around me watched as I approached the three-point line around the hoop they’d all been taking turns to pummel. I stretched my hands out toward him.

  “My shot,” I said.

  RJ wiped his brow with the back of his hand, then ran his fingers through his high-top fade. Sweat glistened along his muscular shoulders, his chest, running down the lines of the tattoos covering his lightly brown skin. Frowning and stiffening up, he tossed the ball at me.

  “I make this shot,” I said, “You play me.”

  “Wait a sec,” one of the guys around me said, “Who is this girl?”

  “Take the shot,” RJ said, a hard look on his face. I remembered that look. It was the same look he’d give the assholes at the Glittered Goddess, the strip club I used to work at, before he bounced them.

  I lined my throw up, aiming carefully at the corner of the box above the hoop. I wasn’t exactly short, but I also wasn’t exactly a basketball player. Not by a long shot. What I did have, though, was a little magic at my disposal. By the time the ball moved away from my fingers, I’d left a little of that magic on it—enough that with a delicate twitch of my wrist, the wind itself made sure to guide the ball into the hoop.

  The guys stared on, amazed that this random, blue haired girl had just made a three pointer like it hadn’t been a big deal. The ball bounced on the floor, and RJ picked it up. He looked across at me, and then around at his friends.

  “Give us the court,” he said.

  They grumbled, but they listened and cleared the space for us to play. I had no business challenging someone like RJ to a game, but he was the kind of person who respected strength. He was also the kind of person who didn’t often back down from a challenge.

  He walked over to me, then tossed the ball over. I caught it and stared at him, letting my expression soften. “How’s your sister?” I asked.

  “You came to play,” he said, “So, let’s play.”

  I bounced the ball on the ground. “Tell you what. I beat you, you give me five minutes, and we talk.”

  RJ stared at me from across the line. “I win, and you don’t come back here. You lose my number. Forget me and my family.”

  I nodded, tossing the ball at him to seal the deal. RJ t
hrew it back, and when I caught it, I darted to the right. RJ matched my movements easily. It was hard to trick him, he was always on my tail, always able to catch me when I tried to fake left or right. The only edge I had at my disposal was magic, so I decided to use it.

  I backed away from him to almost the mid-court point. He followed, but slowly, keeping his distance. Despite the distance between me and the hoop, I hurled the ball over-arm, using a little magic to guide it gently toward its target. RJ leapt into the air to try and catch it as it sailed over him, but even he couldn’t jump that high.

  The guys watching us cried out when the ball slipped through the metal hoop. None of them had been expecting the skinny white girl with the blue hair to be able to sink a ball from around forty feet. I took a little bow, keeping my eyes firmly on RJ who seemed to have lost interest in the ball, at least for a moment.

  He shook his head, picked the ball up, and threw it back over at me just as I took my position at the three-point line.

  “That’s cheating,” he said.

  I swapped positions with him, so I’d be the one defending this time. “No, that’s called using my advantages,” I said.

  I tossed the ball over to him. He grabbed it, feinted to the right, then broke past me to deliver a dunk so powerful it made the backboard shake for almost a full minute after. I hadn’t stood a chance against that rush. He was way better at this than I was, but I had to beat him somehow. It was time to up my game.

  I walked back over to the starting position, charging a little magic inside of me as I went. Thunder grumbled in the sky above. The wind circling around the court intensified, kicking up a small whirlwind of autumn leaves around us.

  “You ready for this?” I asked, “Because I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with.”

  RJ stared at me, his eyes low and focused. “Who taught you how to talk smack?” he asked.

  “Like with most other things, I’m self-taught.”

  “You better go get you a tutor, then, ‘cause that was weak as hell.”