Blood Mage 2

by Logan Jacobs

  “I don’t think we’ll have to look very far,” I answered as I gestured discreetly toward the room in front of us. “Surely it’s one of the featured items for tonight’s auction.”

  A huge ballroom sprawled before us. The walls of the room were lined with tables where some well-dressed guests mingled. The center of the room had been cleared to create a shiny wooden dance floor, and a string quartet in the corner played an upbeat tune while patrons danced the night away. At the far end of the room, a stage had been set up to display every item for sale at the auction. And there, in the center of everything, encased in a glass box and set on a purple velvet cloth, was a huge golden egg.

  “Well,” Ariette snorted as we walked in, “he clearly knows what his high-ticket item is going to be.”

  “No doubt,” I replied as I searched the tables for an empty space.

  After a moment, I caught sight of an empty table in the right corner that afforded us a perfect view of the door, the guests, and the egg. With a nod, I led the way.

  The table was covered with a lace white tablecloth, and one of those overly fancy silver dinner sets, where there were five forks and a million different spoons that took up every square inch of the setting. Three gold chairs were tucked underneath, and a vase full of bright purple flowers had been placed in the center. In front of each plate was an auction paddle with a number written on it.

  “My ladies,” I intoned as I pulled two chairs out for the women and gave them a low bow.

  “HC, what are you doing?” Ariette asked as she sat down with a heavy eye roll.

  “Blending in, Ariette,” I replied with a shrug.

  “I thought it was nice,” Maaren said with a smile as she gracefully took a seat and turned to watch the couples that whirled on the dance floor.

  “Kal,” Ariette murmured as she too surveyed the room, “what do we have?”

  “Absolutely nothing interesting,” the dwarf’s reply crackled in our ears. “Well, at least that pertains to the case. However, whoever owns this mansion is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There’s an indoor pool right next to a set of batting cages. Batting cages, can you believe it? And then on the top floor--”

  “Kal,” Ariette hissed, and a frown marred her beautiful face, “anything helpful to the egg?”

  “Uh, well, it’s there,” Kalista responded, and I could just picture her shrugging sassily as she said it.

  “That would be a no, then,” Ariette corrected with a sigh.

  “Yeah, sure, call it that,” the dwarf mumbled, and it sounded like her mouth was full. “I’ll let you know if I see anything interesting. Oh cool, a sex room!”

  “Are you eating something?” I asked as Maaren stifled a giggle behind her hand and looked around hopefully at the prospect of a sex room.

  “Oh, I ordered a pizza,” Kalista replied. “I was hungry.”

  “That was fast,” I snorted. “But the joke’s on you, Kal. We have all these hors d’oeuvres.”

  “I want a pizza,” Maaren complained. “I’ve never been one for fancy foods.”

  “Well, I’ll order another one for the ride home, but for now, try to have fun, you guys,” Kalista said cheerfully before the comms went silent on her end. “And try to snag me a handful of cocktail shrimp, will you? I love free shrimp. I dunno why they always taste so much better.”

  Before I could even reply to her, another waiter came over to our table and set three plates filled with gourmet food down in front of us. I sniffed the delicious aroma of a grilled filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus coated in an herb sauce, and my mouth watered. I stared between my plate and my forks as I tried to figure out what I was eating and which utensil that required.

  Maaren wasn’t the only one who wasn’t used to fancy foods. The nicest place I’d ever eaten at before joining the guild was Chili’s.

  Ariette winked at me as she pointed to a fork farthest from her plate before she picked it up and began to take delicate bites of her own steak. I quickly followed suit, and bit back a delighted groan as the tender steak nearly melted away on my tongue and filled my mouth with its reddened juices. My mouth was filled with the taste of meat, butter, and an assortment of amazing herbs that all complimented each other perfectly. Next came the potatoes. The mashed potatoes were perfectly fluffy, and they nearly melted on my fork as I ran it through the mountain of buttery goodness and then shoved it into my mouth. Instantly I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. A butter-filled potato heaven, that is. I gulped down the asparagus, which was tender yet firm and slathered with butter and herby goodness.

  “How on earth do you know how to do that?” Maaren asked as she watched Ariette delicately cut another small piece of her meat.

  “My father was in the High Court,” she shrugged. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had a fancy meal.”

  In a flash, all the food on my plate was gone, the delicious flavors absorbed by my tastebuds. I almost wished I’d taken a pause to savor it all more. I’d have to ask Sal if he could replicate this meal, because it was nearly as good as sex. Nearly.

  Ariette was still eating daintily, but Maaren hadn’t really touched her food, and instead opted to watch the couples as they swirled around the dance floor. I stood up and extended a hand toward Maaren.

  “Would you like to dance, Maaren?” I asked, and she looked at me in surprise. “I want a closer look at that egg. Also, I really need to burn some of these calories off.”

  “Such a gentleman,” the hunter replied with a smile as she took my hand and stood. I couldn’t help but stare at the generous curves of her hips as she sashayed out to the dance floor.

  The string quartet had started up a slower classical number when we got there, and I pulled the curvy hunter to me as I led us into an easy box step.

  “Where did you learn how to dance?” she asked as surprise shone in her bright green eyes.

  “What, a guy can’t just be a naturally good dancer?” I shot back as I quirked my brow.

  “So you’re saying you just know how to box step to a string quartet?” she inquired as she arched an eyebrow, clearly not believing me.

  I pursed my lips and twirled us slowly around the dancefloor. “There was a girl,” I finally admitted at length. When Maaren’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline, I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.

  “There’s always a girl, isn’t there?” Maaren chuckled lightly, but when she felt how tense I was, she frowned. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m sorry. I was only joking.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I replied with a sigh. “It was years ago. We were in high school, but her family was super rich, and they threw this big wedding for her older sister, string quartet and all. So I learned how to box step so she could dance with me. Didn’t keep her from dumping me a few weeks later though.”

  “Well, I think that was very stupid of her and very kind of you,” Maaren remarked as she squeezed my hand. “You’re a really good guy, Milton.” Her green eyes were wide and honest, and she leaned her upper body just a little closer to me. “Probably the best guy I’ve ever met.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile, and my heart swelled a little in my chest. “On the plus side, if I’d stayed with her, I’d never have had the chance to meet you.”

  We waltzed quietly for a few moments, and then I whirled her around so I could take a closer look at the egg. It almost glowed inside its glass case, and now that I was closer, I realized it was bigger than my head. A tiny little card had been placed in front of the glass, and it read “Basilisk Egg - A One of a Kind Wonder” in a pretty purple script. Below it, it said “Starting Bid: Two Million Dollars.”

  “Wow,” I muttered under my breath. “They’re starting the bidding at two million dollars for that thing.”

  “Makes sense,” Maaren responded with a shrug. “Basilisks can only lay an egg every two hundred years. And it’s not like there're many basilisks alive, at least not anywhere near civilizations. They’d
just end up dead. So a basilisk egg is rarer than rare. Besides, people will pay what you tell them something’s worth, not what it’s actually worth.”

  Just then, a wafer thin man walked onto the stage in front of the auction items. He was tall, with a terribly bad comb-over and metal rim spectacles that were perched so far down his hooked nose they threatened to fall off at any moment.

  As soon as the man had positioned himself in front of the microphone in the center of the stage, the string quartet ceased playing immediately. Everyone around us stopped dancing and turned to clap for the musicians, four nearly identical looking men with large beer guts and handlebar mustaches. The musicians bowed and then disappeared behind the stage.

  With that, the other party-goers began to return to their seats.

  “Guess that’s our cue,” I said as I looked down at the hunter in my arms.

  Maaren smiled and rose up on her tiptoes to press a kiss against my cheek.

  “Thank you for the dance, Milton,” she whispered into my ear.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I briefly thought about other, more horizontal dances I would like to do as an encore. By the smirk that flitted across Maaren’s painted lips, I guessed she was thinking the same thing.

  The two of us walked back to our table arm in arm and then plunked down into our seats. Ariette had finished her plate, and it looked like she had started in on Maaren’s a bit less delicately.

  “Nice moves, HC,” she observed as I made myself comfortable.

  “He took lessons,” Maaren said proudly.

  “Good evening, everyone,” the wafer thin man said into the microphone, and the three of us turned our attention to him.

  “I’ve got eyes in there,” Kalista said in our ears. “I’ll be watching the egg.”

  “First, I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight,” the man continued, “and I would like to introduce myself to those who do not yet know me. I am Jules Basset, procurer of these objects and your humble auctioneer tonight.”

  Basset gave a slight half bow as a smattering of applause rose from the guests.

  “Now I know you all have come here tonight with the hopes of returning home with a rare artifact with which you can lord over your friends,” he said with a light smile, and his words earned a rumble of laughter from the tables. “So I will not delay your indulgence any further. Tonight, we will start with a fine piece of art from the twentieth century. This piece is a post-impressionist work by Henri Matisse titled Woman With a Hat.”

  Basset swept his thin arm out and a valet wheeled forward a huge portrait in a golden frame. The piece was colorful and interesting, but I was most taken with the woman’s eyes. She seemed to stare back at me with a lonely and somber gaze.

  “We will start the bidding at three hundred thousand,” Bassett announced as he stared out into the crowd with a hungry expression.

  Instantly, a paddle went up, and I looked to see who had raised it. A smaller man on the opposite side of the room had an awfully miffed look on his face as he brought his paddle down. The scrawny woman next to him clutched onto the tablecloth in absolute excitement as she all but drooled over the painting.

  “Do I hear three fifty?” Bassett asked, and another paddle raised.

  The bidding went on like that for over an hour as Bassett sold off piece after piece, expensive item after expensive item. I was shocked at how much someone would shell out for a piece of furniture from the Victorian era. Three million dollars, seriously? That was one expensive chair.

  At one point, two burly gentlemen almost got into a fistfight over who had lifted his paddle first, but Bassett easily calmed them and gave the bid to a third person.

  My eyes had just started to cloud over with sleep and boredom when I finally heard Bassett say the words my team had been waiting for all night.

  “And now,” he boomed into the microphone, “our final item of the night. The Basilisk egg. As you can see, it is encased in a box made from a spider’s web spun by Arachne herself, and nearly impenetrable. We will start the bid for this at two million dollars.”

  The clank of forks and whispered conversations ceased, and the room went silent as everyone waited to see who would bid on the rare treasure. There was an air of nervous tension in the room. The egg was just another beautiful trinket to some, but to others, the real prize was what could come out of the egg once it had been incubated.

  Slowly, one paddle raised in the center of the room. It was the small lady who had bumped into me so rudely earlier. She had a peckish face and gray hair that had been coiffed into a rather old-fashioned style. Her wrinkled skin was covered in a thick layer of makeup that made her look almost ghoulish, but a look of immense pride adorned her face. She hadn’t bid once that night until now.

  Bassett nodded in her direction to indicate that her saw her bid.

  “Do I hear two point one?” he asked.

  The nymph at the table next to us raised her paddle quickly and proudly, which earned her a dark glare from the elderly woman. Bassett nodded at the nymph, and she put her paddle down nervously under the woman’s gaze.

  “Do I hear two point three?” Bassett asked, and again the old woman raised her paddle.

  “Oh!” Maaren gasped suddenly.

  “What?” Ariette demanded quietly.

  “Do I hear two point four?” Bassett asked. Another paddle went up, and the holder earned a glare from the old woman.

  “I just realized why I recognize that old lady,” Maaren whispered to us as she leaned over the table “She’s a human rights author. Mary Ignus.”

  The moment Maaren said her name, a flash of recognition passed through me. Mary Ignus had gotten a lot of attention a few years ago when she wrote a book about the negative consequences of Fae rule over humans. In recent years, she hadn’t been too present in the media, but her book was still a number one seller among humans. I’d assumed the Fae had struck some sort of deal with the woman and had forced her to stop speaking out against them.

  “Why would a human rights author want to bid on a basilisk egg?” I asked in astonishment. “And why would she be working with the Phobos?”

  “I don’t know,” Maaren replied with a frown. “This whole situation makes no sense. Then again, just because she wants the egg, doesn’t mean she’s with Phobos.”

  “Do I hear two point seven?” Bassett asked. He clearly wanted to push his luck and see just how far he could get this bidding war to go. The luminescent nymph at the table next to us raised her paddle just milliseconds before Mary did and earned the nod of acknowledgement from Bassett.

  “She’s probably not Phobos,” Ariette said. “They believe in the complete opposite of human rights.”

  “It might be a really good way to stay secret,” I pointed out. “Get a human rights activist in on it, and no one would ever suspect that she’s part of them.”

  “Or they’re just waiting until she actually purchases the thing to steal it,” Ariette murmured. “We knew that was an option coming in.”

  “Folks, we’re going to push this just a little higher,” Bassett chuckled into the microphone. Mary glared around the room as if everyone might be her next enemy. “Do I hear three point two?”

  For a moment, not a single paddle went up. Mary looked around in anticipation, but no one wanted to go quite that high for an egg. Then, slowly and proudly, she raised her white paddle with a haughty smirk on her face.

  “Three point two!” Bassett exclaimed. “Going once, going twice, sold to paddle number fifty seven!”

  “Well, it looks like Ms. Ignus just won herself a basilisk egg,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, but for how long?” Ariette replied as her blue eyes scanned the room.

  “Now, folks,” Bassett’s voice sounded into the microphone, “you all are welcome to stay and enjoy the dessert and dancing. If you bought something here tonight and wish to take it, I ask that you please come up, and one of my staff will assist you in wiring the money to our accoun
t. Not to sound greedy, but then, and only then, may you collect your items. Have a lovely night, and thank you all for your generosity.”

  “He lays it on thick,” Maaren murmured as Bassett stepped off the stage and disappeared around the back.

  “Well, when you’re asking people to give you millions of dollars for mostly useless artifacts, you kind of have to be a showman,” Ariette pointed out. “Let’s go stick by Mary.”

  “Kal, you see anything unusual yet?” I asked softly as the three of us rose from our chairs.

  “Not unless you count the fact that none of you humans have any rhythm,” the dwarf chuckled in my ear. “Otherwise, we’ve got the egg all snug, and I’ve spotted no weird creepers in the building.”

  “Good,” I said as we strolled casually toward Mary’s table.

  She was seated with a younger human woman, probably in her late thirties, and had her checkbook out. As we got closer, both Mary and the woman stood up and made a beeline for the front of the room.

  “I’ll wait by the door,” Ariette murmured as she broke away from us and strode back through the tables until she was feet from the door. The elf struck up a casual conversation with the valet as she eyed Mary and the egg.

  Meanwhile, Maaren and I paused at the edge of the dance floor, near where the string quartet had reappeared. We positioned ourselves so it appeared as if we simply wanted to enjoy the music, but both of us had a clear view of Mary as she handed the check to a white gloved servant.

  The musicians struck up a lively rhythm as people returned to the dance floor. The violinist was so into his tune that his mustache jiggled at the ends like a bowl of jello. The servant disappeared with the check Mary had given him, only to reappear a moment later with a wide smile on his face.

  “Excuse me,” a nasally voice said behind me. “May I have a dance with the beautiful lady?”

  Maaren shot me a sideways glance before she turned around to address our new friend. I kept my eyes laser-focused on Mary and the server as he carefully handed the case with the egg to the woman Mary was with.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t dance,” Maaren said softly, and then she faced the stage again.