Beginner's Luck_An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  “I saw him by accident, in alterspace,” I said. “Standing on some castle with a couple of white tigers. You don’t happen to know anything about those tigers, do you?”

  Cayn started to bare his teeth in frustration, but then he forced himself to calm down. “Play me for it then,” he said. “The watch. Surely a gambler of your caliber can win a simple game of poker, and I have treasures far greater than that. I’ll wager anything you want.”

  “Oh, I’m flattered. But I’m still not gonna take your bait,” I said. “And you didn’t answer the tiger question.”

  “Such matters are not your concern,” he said in a simmering growl. “I will get that watch from you, one way or another.”

  I smirked. “Keep on believing that, if it makes you feel better. Meanwhile, I guess you’ll be pretty busy protecting me from Joad, right?”

  Cayn spat something in a language I didn’t understand and then pushed past me. I couldn’t tell where he was headed through the crowd, but I had a feeling he’d gone looking for Joad. Probably hoping to catch him somewhere isolated so he could kill the bastard and get back to harassing me full-time.

  Much as I hated Joad, I kind of hoped Cayn wouldn’t manage to kill him. I really wanted to beat him in the tournament.

  But that was tomorrow, and today I had other things to take care of. Like finding Zorah and getting her to tell me what she knew about Princess or white tigers in general. Obviously, she wasn’t at the Chute. I could probably check around at the other casinos, see if she was working the crowds for souls at a less conspicuous location, but I had a better idea.

  I didn’t know where she was, but I knew someone who did. Her buddy the head chef at The Wilting Flower.

  And lucky him, he was going to tell me all about it.

  28

  There were a few ways I could approach the head chef at the Wilting Flower for information. I could walk in the front door and demand to see him, maybe threaten the ancient waitress. I could sneak around back and use the service entrance. Or I could shift into alterspace, walk straight through everything, and be right next to the guy when I shifted back.

  That last plan made the most sense. Of course, if I used the watch, I risked summoning another one of those damned dogs. But I figured the odds were even lower that I’d spin a zero since I’d already done that today. So, like any good gambler, I took the risk and headed behind the building where Zorah had left me earlier to activate the watch.

  My spin landed on 32. That gave me plenty of time.

  As the world blurred and shimmered around me, I moved inside, through layers of wall and into a large dry storage area. After the storage was the kitchen, a place of sizzling griddles and stainless steel and sinks, occupied by exactly two people who seemed to be handling whatever business the restaurant had just fine. It couldn’t be much, given their ‘eclectic’ menu and ‘welcoming’ atmosphere.

  The head chef stood at the center prep island, chopping something green and vegetable-like. The other occupant of the kitchen, a white-haired man in a stained apron, stood in front of the stove watching hamburgers turn to charcoal with an industrial spatula gripped in one swollen hand.

  I stood behind my target and watched him chop until I saw and felt myself shift back fully, and then grabbed both his arms, twisting the one with the knife hard enough to make him drop the potential weapon on the floor. He drew in a surprised breath but didn’t scream.

  The old man looked over about as fast as an eroding mountain, and then shrugged and turned back to his meat.

  “Hey, pal,” I said to the head chef, who still hadn’t tried to move or even look around. “Remember me? I was here for breakfast, and you drugged me. That didn’t make me very happy.”

  “Yes, I remember you.” This guy sounded too damned calm, and I was getting suspicious. “If you want to see Zorah, you’ll have to let go, so I can lead you there.”

  Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. “Maybe I don’t want to let go,” I said. “That whole drugs-in-my-coffee thing didn’t exactly create a bond of trust between us.”

  He sort of shrugged awkwardly, since I was still holding his arms. “We can just stand here all night if you want to,” he said. “Doesn’t really seem like a good deal for either of us, but whatever.”

  “Are you stoned or something?” I said as I relaxed my grip and took a second to kick the knife away before I let go fully. “I’m threatening you, here. I could hurt you or kill you.”

  Mr. Head Chef gave a soft laugh as he turned around to face me. “Threats don’t really bother me,” he said. “I mean, I’ve had plenty. Most people stop threatening me eventually, once they realize I’m not going to threaten them back. Now, do you want to see Zorah?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I stepped back to give him some space, trying to figure out when I’d apparently decided he wasn’t going to try anything dumb. I mean, this guy had already knocked me out and dragged me to some mystery bedroom, so I knew he wasn’t innocent. Plus he’d sold his soul. But I was still absolutely convinced he meant what he said about bringing me to Zorah, and he wouldn’t harm me.

  I really wanted to know why.

  “The short and simple version is that I’m psychic,” the guy said without prompting, regarding me with mild amusement. “And you should trust Zorah. What she does isn’t her choice.”

  Great. I’d never met an actual psychic before. Most people who claimed to be either were spectacularly practiced fakes or had a minimal sixth sense that was pretty much worthless unless you were looking for your car keys or couldn’t remember your own birthday. If this guy was legit, and he actually could read my mind …

  “Don’t worry. I can, but I don’t,” he said. “By the way, my name’s Leonard. Not Mr. Head Chef.” He smirked and walked past me, beckoning with a gesture. “This way.”

  I followed him through the kitchen, to a door that opened onto a set of wooden stairs leading down. The air in the stairwell was cool and dry, with a half-musty smell that wasn’t particularly unpleasant. There was a basement at the bottom of the stairs, more dry storage from the looks of things. We crossed the length of the room and came to another door, this one heavy steel and triple-locked.

  “Okay, listen,” Leonard said as he produced a ring of keys from his pants pocket. “I brought you down here because Zorah trusts you, so that means I expect you’re going to keep what’s behind this door to yourself. Because there could be a whole lot of trouble for a whole lot of people if you don’t. Understand?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, all right. Mum’s the word.”

  “I certainly hope so, Mr. Wyatt.” He opened the locks, one at a time, and then pulled the heavy door open on creaking hinges. The space behind it was nothing but a rectangle of shimmering light.

  This was a portal.

  Right away I understood what he meant about people getting in trouble. The only portals permitted in the UV were the ones at the Chute. “Where does it go?” I said, taking a wary half-step back. I wasn’t exactly in the habit of plunging through random portals.

  Leonard smirked. “Basically, this is Zorah’s front door,” he said. “It goes to her house.”

  “So this is where you brought me before?” I said.

  He nodded a confirmation. “It’s the safest place in the city because it’s not actually in the city.”

  Okay, now what happened before made a little more sense. I still didn’t appreciate being drugged, but I could more or less understand why Zorah and her informal bodyguard, or whatever this guy was to her, didn’t just come out and tell me there was an illegal portal in the restaurant basement.

  It also meant that we’d been in her bedroom, and not some random hotel.

  Talking to Zorah was important enough to risk the mystery portal, so I stepped through. The effects of the magic were stronger and rougher than the portals at the Chute, especially the freefall after the initial swoop. My gut twisted unpleasantly through long seconds of feeling like I’d been dropped down an elevator shaft,
and eventually I ‘landed’ in the physical world with a jarring thud.

  I found myself in a living room, more or less, with rustic-looking furniture and a large stone hearth at the far end. A faint, eerie whistling came from my left, and I realized the sound was coming from the window that looked out over a blasted landscape, carpeted with cracked dry earth and boulders and stunted trees. This was alterspace. Without the blurred filter my watch created when I shifted, the place looked even more desolate and broken.

  It made me sad, wondering what it was like here before Oberon came along.

  Before I had a chance to call out for Zorah, the lady in question walked briskly into the room from a doorway next to the hearth at the far end. Her appearance startled me, not because I wasn’t expecting to find her here, but because she was brandishing a very large, very lethal-looking sword.

  “Hey, don’t shoot. Or thrust, or whatever you do with those things,” I said as I held my hands up and smirked. “Your friend Leonard let me in. I need to talk to you.”

  “Seth.” My name emerged with a sigh of relief as she lowered the sword and glowered at me. “You really should’ve warned me before you walked through my front door, you know.”

  “Yeah, well I would’ve, except I don’t exactly have a phone number for you,” I said. “And I doubt you’d get a signal in alterspace. That is where we are, isn’t it?”

  She paled slightly and placed the sword on the mantle above the hearth. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “Nah. I’m pretty sure you’re not running a smuggling operation out of this place, or whatever the Council thinks people would do with private portals.” I lowered my hands and moved further into the room. “Listen, we really need to talk.”

  “About Joad?” she said. “I did find out he’s working for … my boss, and the tournament prize definitely has something to do with his plans. But I don’t have any more details yet.”

  “Yeah, I know. I ran into Joad at the Chute, arguing with Cayn. It was actually kind of ironic, but I’ll tell you about that later,” I said. “Right now, I need to hear what you know about Princess.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Princess?” she echoed.

  “The tattoo on my chest, the one you recognized but then said you didn’t.” I took a half-step toward her. “See, here’s the thing. She’s not just a tattoo.”

  Zorah shook her head and moved toward the couch by the hearth, her feet faltering slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said hoarsely.

  “I think you do,” I said. “Let’s find out for sure. Convoca.”

  As the mist unraveled from me and shaped itself, Zorah let out a gasp. She staggered the rest of the way to the couch and sat down hard, her green eyes riveted to the shrouded form of the tiger. “So it’s true,” she whispered, her gaze darting from the mist to me. “You’ve bound one of the Domni.”

  “What? Wait a minute, I didn’t bind anybody,” I said as Princess solidified, the mists rolling away from her like dust. “And what’s a Domni?”

  This place, Princess said in my head as she bared her teeth and growled low in her throat. I remember this smell. I do not like it.

  I didn’t smell anything, but then again, I wasn’t a tiger with hyper-tuned senses. “Don’t worry. We’re not in any danger here, Princess,” I told her. “There’s a quick exit back to the city right behind us.”

  “She speaks to you?” Shivering, Zorah leaned forward slightly, and I was surprised to see tears standing in her eyes. “How did this happen? How did you …?”

  Princess calmed down and padded across the room, approaching Zorah carefully. She’s not one of them, she said in a slightly breathless tone. She is … one of us.

  “Did you remember something?” I said as my heart skipped a beat.

  Nothing specific. But I feel that she and I have much in common. Princess stopped in front of Zorah and, very gently, laid her massive head in the Collector’s lap.

  Zorah threw her arms around the tiger and burst into tears.

  I watched awkwardly for a minute and finally made my way to the couch to sit next to Zorah. “I’ll tell you what I know,” I said, “and maybe you can fill in a few gaps for me when I’m done.”

  She raised her head and sniffled, wiping her streaming eyes. “Please, tell me.”

  I explained the condition I’d found Princess in, how she’d been kept and abused by a demon. How I’d challenged the bastard and won her away from him, and the way he transferred ownership through the tattoo. “She didn’t remember anything before the demon, but now a few things are coming back to her, here and there,” I said. “Like the alterhounds. She remembers them and not fondly.”

  “Yes, I can understand that,” Zorah said softly as she kept an arm around Princess, who was clearly loving the attention. “The mas — Oberon used those beasts to slaughter so many and nearly wiped out the Domni altogether.”

  At the mention of the dark elf’s name, Princess made a thick, angry sound.

  “She knows him. Of course, she does,” Zorah said as she drew an unsteady breath. “This world was ours. The Changelings,” she said. “Many races, one people.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re a Changeling?”

  “Yes, of the Vulpa race. But your Princess is Domni, the most powerful and revered of our people. They are … they were the ruling class, the nobility until the dark elves invaded our world.”

  I was startled enough to almost laugh, even though that wouldn’t be appropriate at the moment. “I guess you’ve got the right name, then, Princess,” I said. “You’re nobility.”

  She snorted. I do not feel noble.

  “Maybe you are, and maybe you’re not. But we’re definitely going to figure all this out,” I said. “Zorah, do you happen to know who she is, exactly?”

  Zorah shook her head. “It’s embarrassing, really, but … in this form, they all look alike to me,” she said with an awkward smile. “If she shifted into her human form, I might recognize her.”

  My jaw practically dropped open. “She’s a shifter?”

  “Of course. All Changelings have both human and animal forms,” Zorah said. “The Vulpa can take the form of foxes.”

  I looked from her to Princess. “Did you know you could do that?” I asked her.

  I did not. And … I don’t think I can, Princess said slowly. It is possible that whatever binding magic holds me has limited my abilities. If there is a way for me to change, I cannot sense it.

  Nodding, I told Zorah what she’d said. “We’ll just have to find a way to fix that,” I said. “Don’t worry, Princess. I’m going to figure out a way to set you free.”

  “If you do that, you must keep her far away from Oberon,” Zorah said, her expression turning grave. “He’s enslaved the few Domni that he didn’t slaughter, and if he finds there’s one who has escaped him, he’ll have no mercy. He will hunt her down.”

  This Oberon guy was becoming a lot more of a problem than I thought possible. I already knew I had to stop him from invading my realm … but it looked like I’d have to stop him, period. Of course, I had no idea how to do that.

  But I was damned well going to figure it out.

  29

  Thanks to what I overheard between Cayn and Joad, I’d spent the rest of the day after talking to Zorah expecting another attack. But things stayed quiet, so I figured Cayn must’ve headed him off at some point. That didn’t mean Joad would refrain from trying to get to me another way, and I was still very conscious of the way he’d tried to frame me with the Enforcers. I wouldn’t put it past him to pursue that route again since Cayn probably wouldn’t try to stop me from being arrested. He just didn’t want me dead.

  The next morning, the day of the tournament, I retrieved the entry fee from the Tethered Trunk at my place so that my watch would be ready to use in case I needed it on the way. But I arrived at the Chute without incident two hours before the tournament start time. And of course, the place was already packed.
>
  I found the registration line and waited behind a few dozen people, taking in the atmosphere of buzz and excitement. With a hundred qualified players and the biggest event in the city, it seemed like everyone who lived in or had ever visited the UV must’ve been here. Aside from the mass of spectators, every player had probably invited their own cheering section. Mine was probably around here somewhere, even though a few of them had entered the tournament themselves.

  The registration line moved at a slow but steady pace. I scanned the crowd occasionally for Arden, Mist, Elias, or even Zorah, who’d said she would be here to watch. At the same time, I half-listened to the conversation between the two guys in front of me, one was an older man who’d been in the city for a while, and the other was a young hotshot who’d only just qualified this year, like me.

  “You know about the Null field, right?” the older man was saying as the line inched forward. “No magic allowed during the tournament.”

  The younger one tried for a sage nod like he knew everything about everything. “Keeps people from cheating. I guess they don’t trust us, even with the Enforcers around.”

  “Oh, there’s going to be an Enforcer right at the tournament. Front and center.” The old man glanced around conspiratorially, and then added in a loud whisper, “It’s all because of the guy who cheated the whole thing, some years back. What was his name …? John Burdon, that’s it. A real lowlife. No one liked him, even before he pulled all that off.”

  My gut seized hearing that name, but I kept my features neutral and continued looking away like I wasn’t paying attention to them. I just had to remember that no one could connect me to him, and I’d be fine.

  The young know-it-all sucked in a sympathetic breath. “Yeah, I’ve heard about him,” he said. “Didn’t he, like, slaughter half a dozen people trying to escape after he got caught?”

  Okay, that kind of pissed me off and made it harder to keep my mouth shut. I hadn’t heard that particular rumor yet, but no way was it true. My father might’ve been a cheating scumbag, but he was no murderer. He’d never had a violent bone in his body.