No Sanctuary

by Z. J. Cannon

  Delaney had begged, too. Or she had tried. The wind had torn the words from her mouth, until I couldn’t hear a thing she said. Because I hadn’t wanted to hear.

  I didn’t want to hear JD now, either. I watched my magic to do what it had to do. Slam him against the wall. Tear him limb from limb. Destroy the threat.

  But that was the same thing I had thought when I had looked at Delaney. Destroy the threat. Destroy the human.

  Sharp needles of wind lashed out toward him. Grit from the floor scraped up along his arms, drawing blood. In the next second, the wind turned back on me. The same grit embedded itself in my palms. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  JD didn’t seem to notice that the power was attacking me almost as much as him. He stared down at his bleeding arms, then out at me. His eyes lingered on my ears. My hair, normally effective camouflage, was still disheveled from the wind. Even if he hadn’t remembered his brief glimpse upstairs, the points of my ears were exposed to the air now, plain for anyone to see.

  A shudder ran through him. “Please don’t hurt me,” he babbled. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  Scared. Harmless. Innocent.

  Not innocent, I reminded myself. I pictured the children. Played back their sobs in my mind.

  It was no use. The air had gone still. I took a breath, and another, and another. Waiting. The magic didn’t come back. I couldn’t even feel it in my veins anymore. It had gone dormant, the way it occasionally did even with the watch off. It wasn’t coming out again anytime soon.

  Which meant it was just me in this basement, alone and unarmed, with two panicked humans. And I knew what happened when humans started to panic.

  I lunged for JD’s gun. But with my right leg barely functional, I couldn’t stretch far enough to reach it. The leg wound was already healing, but not as quickly as it would have if I hadn’t just expended so much of my magic knitting my brain back together. I wasn’t going to be able to put any weight on that leg for the next few minutes, at minimum. And I was going to have a limp for at least the next few hours.

  Assuming I lasted another few hours.

  JD saw what I had been trying to do. Confusion filled his eyes, then calculation. In the second before he moved, I saw him decide to take the gamble. Then he grabbed for the gun himself.

  The risk paid off. This time, my magic didn’t stop him. His fingers closed around the grip.

  I ran through my options. It didn’t take long. I could try to run, or rather crawl, and hope JD was such a miserable shot that he wouldn’t be able to hit me as I dragged myself up the stairs on my wounded leg. I could close my eyes again and hope my magic had second thoughts about going on strike—which was about the same as praying for a miracle, as far as I was concerned, and had about as good a chance of working.

  Or let him shoot me, and hope I found myself in a better position the next time I came back to life. Not very likely. For all I knew, I wouldn’t come back at all. I hadn’t forgotten what JD had said about the acid. In theory, the only ways to kill one of the fae for good involved iron poisoning or ripping the magic from their bodies, the latter of which a human couldn’t even do. But in practice, there was a certain level of physical damage that even a full-blooded fae couldn’t recover from. I had seen it firsthand every time my magic had gone up against the assassins the Courts had sent after me. And I had heard far more than I wanted to about which body parts the fae could and couldn’t regrow from an Arkanica scientist who had done a lot of hands-on research on the subject.

  Needless to say, none of those options worked for me. But what else could I do? I had no magic. No weapons. A useless half-healed body. In other words, I had nothing. But if I didn’t find some way to use the nothing I had, I was going to die—again—no matter what I chose.

  JD had the gun in hand now, but he wasn’t aiming it at me yet. He crept his hand back toward his lap, his movements slow and painstaking, like an animal trying to avoid drawing the attention of a predator. His eyes stayed locked on me.

  It was almost ironic, the way human fear worked. If not for his fear, I wouldn’t have been about to die in the first place. Just like almost all my deaths, over the centuries, had been due to human fear. That incident with the girl, back there at the port—that was the rule, not the exception. And yet his fear was the only reason he hadn’t shot me yet. The smart move would have been to put every bullet he had into me as soon as he grabbed the gun, before I had a chance to react. But some instinct buried deep in his lizard brain wouldn’t allow him to move quickly, not with me this close, staring him down.

  I stopped. Frowned.

  Could I use that fear against him?

  No. My heart, already being too fast from my own fear and the physical strain, sped up even further at the thought. A scared human was dangerous enough without me antagonizing him.

  But I was already slated for another gunshot to the head, and then an acid dip. What did I have to lose?

  The gun crept closer to his lap. In another few seconds, he would get up the courage to use it.

  Unless I acted first.

  I did my best to shove the rising internal chorus of gibbering panic to the back of my mind. I held JD’s gaze, and tried to forget that those eyes belonged to the most dangerous type of predator I had ever encountered: a panicked human who was as familiar with violence as he was unfamiliar with magic. I took a deep breath, so I would have enough air to fill the room with my voice. “A gun? I thought you would have learned by now. Or did you think it would work better the second time around?”

  I did my best to channel Vicantha, and Tristra, and every other imperious fae I had ever met. Ordinarily, I thought of my mixed blood as setting me apart from both the species I came from. I had no desire to be one of the cruel and vicious fae, or a petty corrupt human led around by my basest instincts. Even though deep down, I knew I had the capacity for both. But right now, I was counting on that capacity. Right now, I had to be fae.

  I let out a low chuckle that would have sounded right at home on Tristra’s lips. “Don’t you humans have a saying? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

  He flinched slightly at the word humans—and the resulting implication that I was something else. The reaction was barely noticeable, but I saw it.

  I forced another laugh. It might have sounded real to my own ears, if I hadn’t been familiar enough with the fae to hear it for the pale, terrified imitation that it was. “Well,” I said with a raise of an eyebrow, “if you insist on making me teach you the same lesson a second time, I’ll certainly oblige you. But I think we both have better things to do with our time.”

  His eyes were as wide as they had been at the top of the stairs. He gripped the gun tighter, and I tried not to let myself flinch. If he saw any hint of fear in me, it was all over.

  He didn’t shoot me, so I kept going. “You said I wouldn’t have come to you if you didn’t have something I need. You’re right about that. Right now, you’re useful to me. Would you like to go on being useful?”

  “What… what do you…” he couldn’t get the rest of the words out. The hand holding the gun was shaking.

  But a bullet fired with a shaky hand could kill just as easily as one from an expert marksman. I knew this from experience. I glanced toward the stairs, and quickly forced my eyes away. Had he seen the mask slip? Had he noticed me thinking about escape?

  I forced my eyes down to my own hands, both to keep myself from looking at the stairs and to make sure they weren’t shaking. They were, just a little. I tucked them under my legs, and tried to make it look natural. Then I brought my gaze to his again, and took satisfaction in his small shudder as our eyes met.

  “What do I want with you? I told you that already. I thought a friendship could be mutually beneficial. But it seems I overestimated you. I think it’s time to revise our deal.” I bared my teeth at him. It wasn’t a smile. It was, however, an expression I had seen on th
e faces of too many of the fae—often just before they attacked. “Here’s what I propose. You get me into a room with Eddie Ellison.” I stretched my lips wider. “And you never have to see me again.”

  His eyes went to my wounded leg. His brow creased. I could practically see the thoughts running through his mind. If I could have stood up, I would have, if only for the intimidation factor. Which meant his bullet had done real damage. Which meant I could be harmed. And that, maybe, meant he didn’t have anything to fear from me.

  I took a deep breath and held it. All at once, before my body had a chance to raise any objections, I surged to my feet. I didn’t let myself reach for the wall to prop myself up. Any hint of weakness, and acid would be eating at my bones inside of five minutes.

  I was glad I was holding my breath. It was the only thing that kept me from screaming. My magic had kept on doing its work, knitting my body back together, even as it had gone on strike when it came to defending me. Not even death could stop my magic from doing that kind of passive, automatic work. So I was in better shape than a human who had been shot in the leg less than five minutes ago would have been. But that was a small consolation, when it felt like my leg had been replaced by a molten poker. Every time I wobbled, struggling to keep my balance, my thigh muscle clenched and unclenched frantically. And that, of course, shot another burst of pain up and down my leg, which made me lose my balance, which… and so on. A vicious cycle.

  I stayed upright. And I did it without breaking JD’s gaze. If he had seen the pain across my face, there was nothing I could do about that.

  “Do you need a reminder of what I can do?” I asked, to give him something to think about besides what kind of shape my leg was actually in. “Why don’t you wake up your lackey over there, and ask him what I did to his partner?” I paused as he swallowed. Yes, it looked like the lackey had given him that story already. Although I doubted he had believed it the way the lackey had told it. At least back then. Now that he had gotten a taste of what I was capable of, I was betting he saw that story in a whole new light.

  I gave his wounded arm a pointed look. I shifted my gaze to the other arm, just make the point even clearer. His fingers spasmed.

  “Or,” I asked, “are you going to put down the gun—you don’t want to start a fight you can’t win, after all—and make a call to Ellison?”

  He looked at my leg, which I shouldn’t have been able to stand on. Then his eyes went to his own arm. My rational mind told me he was going to do what I wanted. But I knew better than to try to be rational where humans were concerned.

  I didn’t look at the stairs. I didn’t look at the gun. I didn’t let the mask slip.

  He loosened his grip on the gun. Then, with a soft, defeated exhale, he pushed it across the floor toward me. I didn’t trust myself to stay upright if I bent to pick it up. Instead, I kicked it behind me—with my bad leg, which sent a white-hot burst of pain though me that almost sent me to the floor all by itself.

  “I can’t set up a meeting with Ellison directly. But I can sit you down with his assistant.” His voice was pleading, his dignity gone. The power games of our first conversation were a thing of the past. He had finally met a threat he knew he didn’t stand a chance against.

  I was the only one who understood that we were still playing the game. The only difference was that it was more deadly now. He might think I had beaten him, and maybe I had—for now. But the second my mask slipped, he would strike. I knew that, even if he didn’t yet.

  I was going to have to be twice as careful around him from now on.

  “That will do,” I said in my fae voice. My leg shuddered under me. I bit back the pain. “But make it quick. I want to be rid of you as soon as possible.”

  I didn’t even have to lie.

  “Wait,” I said as he reached for his phone. “One more thing.”

  He paused.

  I held out my hand. “I need your watch.”

  Chapter 20

  JD must have felt the same as I did about being rid of each other, because in less than two hours, Ellison’s assistant and I were sitting across a table from one another at the back of the club. At this time of day, the wavery blue lights were off; the only light was what came in through the pollution-smeared windows. The music wasn’t playing anymore, either. The dance floor was empty, and so were the tables—all except for the one where we were sitting. We being me on one side of the table, JD and a fresh pair of lackeys on the other, and a fresh-faced woman in her twenties at one end, looking between us with confusion that—if I was reading her right—was rapidly edging into fear.

  I wasn’t surprised she was picking up on the tension at the table. JD had been watching me warily since we had sat down, barely pausing to blink. His men followed suit, although I doubted their boss had let them in on what exactly made me such a threat. I, for my part, was being equally vigilant. Since we had walked out of that basement, I had never let JD’s hands out of my sight. We were mirror images of each other, each of us practically out of our minds with panic, each of us doing everything we could to hide it.

  “What’s going on?” the woman asked, addressing the question to one of the men by JD’s side—the one she normally did business with, I was guessing. “First you asked to meet early, when our next transaction was scheduled for next week.” Her words were clean and crisp, like a machine. Transaction. She sounded like she was quibbling with her bank about fees, not discussing a drug deal. “And now you want me to sit down with you. Why? I thought we agreed it was best for all of us if we kept our association as quiet as possible. And who are these two?” She pointed first at JD, then at me. “I’ve never seen them before. Although that one does look familiar.” Her eyes lingered too long on my face. I angled myself away.

  JD’s lackey visibly flinched at her gesture. Apparently doing something as uncouth as pointing at JD was a no-no here. “This man is my employer,” he said stiffly, with a nod toward JD. “And he…” He hesitated as he turned to me.

  “I’m here to do some business of my own,” I said. “I need half an hour with your boss. Alone and undisturbed. And in return—”

  “No,” she interrupted.

  I blinked. “You didn’t let me tell you what you would get out of the deal.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The answer is no.” She frowned, and leaned in so she could get a better look at my face. “Are you sure we haven’t met?”

  “I’m sure.” I couldn’t turn my face away any further without making it obvious what I was doing. “Don’t be so quick to turn me down. I know why you’re here—the profit you’re making on the drugs you sell on to your boss. For someone as rich as he is, your boss must not pay you very well. What do you make in a month? Whatever it is, I can double it. And all I’m asking is half an hour of his time.” Delaney couldn’t afford that kind of payout, but it didn’t matter. After what had happened in the basement, I was sure JD would be more than happy to foot the bill.

  “I said the answer is no.” She stood. “I think we’re done here.” She turned to the man she had spoken to before. “I’ll see you next week. Without any unexpected guests, I trust.”

  “Do you need something else more than money? I can get it for you. A personal favor—whatever you like. JD here can arrange it.” I nodded across the table at him. Reluctantly, he nodded back.

  “Apparently you didn’t hear me the first two times. I said we’re done here.” She started walking toward the door.

  JD motioned to his men. In unison, they stood and moved to block her way.

  “My associate here has done business with you for… how long, now?” JD asked. “Two years? Three? You’ve never made any secret about what you’re doing—that tidy little profit you’re making off what we sell you. There are some people who would frown on that, you know. But not me. I don’t mind if someone with a mind for business wants to make a little extra cash, so long as my people and I get our due.”

  He smiled at Ellison’s assistant, but his e
yes were cold. His voice was mild—so much so that I wondered if I was the only one that could hear the edge of fear underneath. Or if anyone else had noticed the way his eyes kept darting back to me. On the surface, he was back to his power games again, but the man was terrified what I would do if Ellison’s assistant walked out.

  “It’s been a profitable arrangement for all concerned,” the assistant agreed. “And if this means the end of that relationship, I’ll be sorry to hear that. But I’ll manage, and so will my boss.” She took another step toward the door. JD’s men stepped in to meet her.

  My hands tightened on my legs as the men loomed over her. She was a lot shorter than I had realized. That clipped voice of hers, so much older than her face, made her seem more imposing than she was. It had almost been enough to make me forget that in terms of sheer physical strength, she was underequipped compared to everyone else at the table, even without taking my magic into account. Not to mention, I was guessing she hadn’t come to this meeting armed, which made her the only one.

  I wouldn’t let things go too far, I promised myself. I would step in to defend her, if it became necessary. I played with the clasp of JD’s watch. It didn’t look right on my wrist—the sapphires were too big and obvious, the metal too shiny. But it was steel, not real silver, as I had suspected. Watches were rarely made out of silver—the metal was too soft. Which meant it was good enough for my purposes. For now, my magic was restrained without me needing to keep one hand on that pair of handcuffs. And if need be, I could slip it off and hope my magic was done sulking.

  But for now, I would sit back and let this play out. I tried to suppress the twinge of guilt I felt as I caught sight of the fear on her face. She was working for Eddie Ellison. Which meant she was working for Arkanica. Even if all she did was plan his schedule and fetch his coffee, she still had blood on her hands.

  “Our business together has always been about making a little extra money for yourself,” said JD. “This is no different—just on a larger scale. Why balk now?”