by Thomas Green
I glanced at Katherine. “This will involve a lot of lying and manipulation. How about you wait in the car?”
“So I miss everything important, again?”
“No.” I smiled. “So you go to sleep tonight knowing you are a good person.” I opened the door and got out of the car.
She did too, so I clearly wasn’t as convincing as I had hoped. I raised an eyebrow in her direction. “This is a bad idea.”
Katherine glared at me. “Every time you do something evil, you do so behind my back. This time, I want to see it.”
I shrugged and headed to the cottage, Katherine at my heels. I fuelled my eyes with aether, which revealed to me an erratic, yellow pattern inscribed on the door. A protection spell, but amateurish, at best. I pressed the doorbell button. The usual ringing sounded through the air. No reply. I rang again.
“What is it?” a man shouted from the inside.
“Lucas Johnson here, from the Dewin Institute,” I shouted. “We need to talk.”
“I already said I am not interested. Leave me be.”
“That’s not how this works, pal.” I grinned. “You either open the door and talk with me or I disable that protection spell you think will stop me, break through the door and make you talk with me. If you run, I will break your legs first.”
A moment of silence passed and guilt clenched my insides when I noticed how Katherine paled. Though her not trying to incinerate me was a good start.
The door creaked open and a man stood at the other side. He was in his late twenties, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, hair unkempt. Thick glasses covered his eyes and he had the I’m too lazy to shave beard. “What do you want?”
I liked him already. “I’m the Institute’s enforcer. You see, refusing membership isn’t exactly an option. So, I’m here to walk you through what your options are.”
“I’m not interested in any guild or institute or whatever and you can’t force me to enlist into any of them. I have my rights.”
I laughed heartily. “No, that’s not how the supernatural world works. Rights, privileges, and law enforcement are all mundane world concepts. The moment you didn’t keep to yourself that you could do magic, those stopped mattering. Known mages exist in two states: they are either members of one of the Secret Societies, or they are dead.”
Color withdrew from his face, mouth gaping.
“So, which will it be?” I asked. “Do we go through the Dewin Institute membership application or will you go dig yourself a grave in the backyard?”
“Come… inside,” he stuttered and stepped from the door.
With a smirk, I followed. Katherine did too, barely breathing. I never wanted her to see this side of me. But she wanted it, and I didn’t feel like maneuvering around that.
The house’s insides were similarly unmaintained as its exterior. Paint was peeling off, furniture often missed legs, and every corner stank of decay. He led us to what was originally a living room, which was now besieged with various contraptions. Most were puzzle boxes, usually with a hint of magic, but some were tablets with ancient texts. I recognized a lot of Latin, some Hebrew, and then a lot of stuff I couldn’t read.
The mage led us to a couch, from which he promptly removed one such stone tablet. He sat on the chair while Katherine took the couch.
I cleared my throat. “I forgot the introductions. This is Katherine O’Connor, my partner,” I said, motioning to Katherine.
“Joseph Solomon,” he replied, still stuttering.
“All right, Joseph.” I sat down next to Katherine, drawing my phone. “I suppose the institute recruiters have walked you through the application before you told them to eff off.”
He nodded frantically. “Yes, yes… but they forgot to mention it was mandatory.”
On my phone, I navigated to the Institute’s intranet, where I found the new member form. “I will need two forms of identification.”
He shot up from his chair, rushing to get his wallet. A moment later, he handed me his driving license and his ID card.
I put a picture of both of them into the form’s attachments and filled in the main personal information. “Good. Now, what’s your magic specialization?”
“I… decipher things. I solve puzzles, translate ancient texts, all those types of things.”
I smiled so poisonously that he froze, barely breathing. He really was a cipher mage, wasn’t he? I filled in the information and tapped submit. “Now, the administrative part will take a few weeks to be processed.” Or so I hoped. I told Galen that I needed a cipher mage unconnected to the guild, so I hoped Galen would be smart enough to take his time with the application so he could plausibly plead denial. “Now, let’s talk about what you can do for the Institute.”
“What I can… do?”
“Every privilege comes with an obligation, but also with opportunities,” I said calmly. “And you don’t seem to have enough money to pay the twenty-thousand dollars administrative fee that’s payable immediately upon filing in for membership.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words left his mouth. Yeah, telling me that I forgot to mention that wasn’t smart and that I was here to coerce him has been rather clear from the start. “What happens if I cannot pay the fee?”
“The same thing that would happen if I you didn’t file the application. I kill you, feed the body to dogs, and put this place on fire to cover the tracks.” I spoke coldly, mechanically, hoping Katherine could stomach that.
He stared at me blankly. “I suppose this is the point where you tell me that you can loan me those twenty thousand dollars.”
Smart. “No. I don’t do with loans. What I can offer you is a participation in a one-time venture that I am organizing. The pay is ten thousand dollars up front, twenty more after returning, and you can keep whatever you can carry from the vault I will be robbing.”
He frowned, clearly realizing what game I was playing. But he had no cards to play with. “So… you want to coerce me into helping you?”
“Something like that,” I admitted. “Tell me, Joseph, why do you translate old texts?”
“Because I enjoy it.”
“And why do you enjoy it? Is it because you discover things others cannot? Or because you hope that the ancient texts will help you understand the fabric from which the universe is made? Or is it because you hope you will find something that no one has ever found before, making your mark in mankind’s history?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “All of it.” His voice calmed down, most likely because we got to a topic he was comfortable with.
Just like almost every other researcher. “Now, the part of the puzzle you are missing is that the supernatural world hides itself behind a principle called the Veil. The recruiters you met before told you the story that comes with the access to the first tier of the Veil. No matter what you research, you will never get further than the second, maybe a bit into the third tier, meaning you will spend your life discovering things others have long discovered before you.”
He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin. “And how would your robbery change that?”
I released a bit of the seal on my power, making aether overflow from me. The air in the entire cottage shook as if suddenly become dense, Katherine’s air floating upward. “I am one of the most terrifying things that lives in the fourth tier of the Veil. To work with me, you will need full access to the supernatural world’s information backlog. And the expedition will be to a never-accessed vault that is at least two thousand years old, so there will be plenty things to uncover.”
He stared at me, eyes full of doubt and fear.
I sealed my power back within me. Enough showing off, and Joseph would soon start suffocating if I didn’t.
He swallowed dryly after a moment, now covered with sweat. “I have no option other than to agree, do I?”
“Well, you can grab a shovel and go dig yourself a grave.” I reached into my jacket to pull out a checkbook. Swiftly, I wrote up a check for ten t
housand dollars. “Or you can take this check, agree to join my expedition, and wait here for my associates to come pick you up sometime later this week.”
He sighed. “I have no choice, do I?” He took the check.
“That’s mostly up to how long you plan your life to be,” I said and rose. Katherine did too, doing her best impression of being invisible. “And don’t bother running,” I added. “No one can hide from me.” I turned toward the door. Before leaving the room, I glanced over my shoulder. “And if you want to prepare, look up Ragnarok. Not the event, but the city.”
Joseph said nothing more and I left the house, Katherine at my heels.
I entered Katherine’s car, closed the door, and waited for her to sit down. When she did, all color had withdrawn from her face. As expected. “You okay?” I asked.
“No,” she whispered. “I feel dirty in the way that cannot be washed off. How can you be like this?”
I smiled in the friendliest way I managed. “In time, you will stop caring. I have. So, why did you want to be there?”
“Because I’ve spent my life evading exactly these things and I wanted to see what it’s like. And I hate it.” She sighed. “But explain to me, why did you both threaten him and promise him money and treasure?”
“If I only threatened him, he could have slipped into take you down with me attitude and try to screw me over without caring what happens to him. And if I only promised treasures, he might have triggered his survival sense, making him too afraid for his life not to accept any reward or react to any incentive. By doing both, I’ve tried to cover both options.”
She frowned. “And you used only temptation on me and Amaranta because we’ve spent our whole life suppressing our survival instinct and the fear of death that comes with it.”
“Yeah, Secret Societies operatives tend to be terrible at reacting to danger.”
“And so they do stupid things like dealing with you…” she looked at me, pleadingly, looking like she would break down in tears any moment. “Promise me you won’t betray me.”
“I promise I will deliver you safely back to New York after we finish with the heist.”
She smiled and turned the keys in the ignition. The engine roared to life and we soon got back on the drive, heading toward New York City.
About an hour later, Katherine broke the silence, saying, “You’ve become awfully good at this whole fallen angel thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you first got Lucifer’s soul, you were just a young mage with emerging powers. An impostor. But seeing you take down my monastery’s defenses without breaking a sweat only to lure me through temptation to come help you five minutes later; you doing the exact same thing with Amaranta; and now with this cipher mage, I see that you aren’t Lucas, the young mage, not anymore. You are Lucifer and you are everything that the scriptures say about you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you sound so content saying it?”
“Because it means that the world is exactly as my faith says it’s supposed to be.” She smiled. “Though I still don’t get how you learned this whole temptation thing.”
“When I absorb aether from a corpse, I also devour the person’s soul. I don’t get their memories or knowledge, but intuitively, I know the person’s story. Their dreams, hopes, desires, and regrets, everything adds to my intuition.”
She froze. I had to stir the wheel because she would have driven off the road. After a moment, Katherine blinked a few times, snapping back to reality. “When you wiped Ubar from history, how many souls did you devour?”
Oh, she heard about that. Well, that shouldn’t have surprised me given me blowing up a hidden city with a nuclear bomb wasn’t exactly a covert operation. “Over fifteen million. I’ve also got in me two ancient Greek gods, a slew of lesser gods, and a high vampire. You are right. I am not the man I used to be.”
She stared blankly at the road. But she wasn’t driving into a tree this time, so I spent a moment looking up things on my phone. “By the way, do you and Amaranta have a way to get Chinese visas within the next couple of hours?”
“Yes, the Church has a set number of agents who can travel anywhere among the Secret Societies.” She paused for a moment, scowling. “But why?”
“The next thing we need is a void mage and the only ones I could find are from China.”
She pressed the gas pedal harder, acceleration pushing me into the seat.
To board the plane, I used my Armenian passport. I had no idea why Armenia had no-visa contact with China, but it was the reason why I had that passport in the first place.
Amaranta showed up only when we waited at the gate. She wore jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, gloves, and did her best to avoid both mine and Katherine’s gaze.
Since Katherine positioned herself between us, I let that be. On the plane, I selflessly took the seat by the window and let Katherine sit next to me.
The round-trip flight I booked to land in the early morning was boring to tears. Though Katherine spent most of it sleeping with her head pressed against my arm, which I liked.
The next day, we landed in Shanghai.
Lucas 8
I HAD NEVER FELT SO OUT OF PLACE as in Shanghai. Being six foot three, no one came close in height. And my cowboy hat, tucked deep into my face, didn’t help me fit in. On the plus side, that made everyone talk to me in English.
On the downside, the city was full. People were literally everywhere. Once we left the airport, we had to elbow our way through crowds. We took a taxi the moment we could, but that made us move in a crawl through the jammed streets. I showed on my phone the address of the five star hotel I had booked, and he understood. And nicely enough, he didn’t comment about me wearing the hat inside the car.
Amaranta and Katherine sat in the back, both awkwardly avoiding each other, pressing themselves against opposite doors. They hadn’t exchanged a word since Katherine saw the video.
After an insufferably long trip, the taxi stopped in front of the Ascott Hotel. Skyscrapers filled the entire center, so the place felt the same as Lower Manhattan, which I was used to. Though here, everything was as flashy as in Vegas. Even now during the day, all the lights were on, the glass covering the buildings’ walls reflecting it, adding to the morning sunlight.
I paid the driver, got out, lowered my hat so deep I could barely see ahead, and we entered the hotel. At the reception, the woman spoke decent English, so I got my room key and motioned Amaranta and Katherine to follow me. They caught up in an instant, both looking puzzled.
“Why do you only have one key?” Katherine asked.
“Because we have the presidential lounge.” I walked straight into an elevator.
Katherine sighed. “You just have to show off, don’t you?”
I put on a broad grin. “So,” I said when the elevator door closed. “The void mage we need to convince to join us is Li Wei Zhang, the owner of the huge casino standing behind the hotel. By my intel, he likes to roam around the higher floors of the casino in the evenings, so we’ll meet him there. That means that you two need a dress because those upper floors have formal dress code.”
They exchanged a glance. “You should have said that before we each packed only a backpack for the trip.”
I reached into my wallet, pulled out one of my credit cards, and stretched out my hand. “Don’t spend everything.”
They stared at the innocent piece of plastic. “I can’t accept that,” Katherine protested.
“Amaranta, truth or dare,” I said.
She straightened her back, putting on fake smile. “Dare.”
Katherine glowered at her. “You said what?”
“Buy both of you dresses,” I said, ignoring Katherine, and handed the card to Amaranta. “We go to the casino in the evening.”
Truth be told, I had no idea if the vampires would catch onto me going to China or not and I didn’t know if there were any vampires in China to begin with. As far as I knew, of the highe
r vampires, one lived one in Europe, one in the USA, one in Japan, and the one I killed was in Saudi Arabia. But that didn’t mean there were no vampire thralls in continental Asia.
Having my hat lowered deeply into my face, I eyed every long shadow as I stood in the hotel foyer, hiding in the corner not to be visible from the outside. Amaranta and Katherine appeared after a while, both wearing a long, formal dress with opera gloves.
I had never seen Katherine in a dress, or in anything other than heavy pants and a trench coat. Without the stuffed shoulders of her trench coat, she looked so frail and girly. I loved that. And the grass green dress perfectly matched her eyes.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” Amaranta asked, looking unsure in a blue dress.
“You two use the credit card I’ve loaned you to buy a pile of chips, go around the casino, and have fun while looking out for any vampires coming to kill me. In the meantime, I will get to the casino owner and recruit him to the team.”
Katherine sneered. “You’ve got a grand role for us, indeed.”
I shrugged. “You can stay at the hotel if you’d like.” Making sure my hat remained tucked into my face, I aimed for the exit.
“Asshole,” Amaranta uttered as she followed me. Katherine did too.
We left the hotel through the back exit, beyond which a small bridge led over the road to the casino. The casino itself, aptly named World Games Center, was not shy of those in Vegas. The building itself looked like having at least twenty floors and the entire complex shone into the night as if electricity cost nothing.
Covering my face with the hat, I passed through the light crowd and went for the cloakroom. The entire system was automated, so I beeped my card by a machine, got a ticket with a locker number, and went there to change. Okay, calling the small room a locker wasn’t fair.
Since I already wore a formal suit, I just left my coat and hat there. With a smile, I left, and soon reunited with Amaranta and Katherine. “By the way,” I said conversationally, “don’t panic and don’t blast people, okay?”
They both narrowed their eyes. “Why would you say that?”