I thought back over everything that had happened, trying to get a handle on what I’d learned. Val was a hood mage, a magic teacher, a necromancer, and also likely insane. Val had expected Mortissa to come after her personally. Mortissa had likely expected a trap of some kind, yet had given me no warning. That last one wasn’t too surprising once I thought about it—my queen was testing me by forcing me to face a difficult challenge.
The most surprising thing was the potency of curse we were under. Though demons were powerful creatures, they struggled to influence our world; the barrier between us and the underworld, the swirl, was difficult to breach. Necromancers often regretted the bargains they made, offering too much of themselves for too little power.
“My car is over there.” Lionel indicated a car parked not far ahead.
The moon was near full, but its light didn’t reach the lower half of the alleyway. A layer of dampness clung to the pavement from an earlier shower. A garbage container that hadn’t been properly closed emitted an unpleasant smell.
Lionel reached a dark car, and opened the back door for Danielle, putting a hand on her head to guide her in. Then he walked around to the driver’s side, starting the engine even before he’d settled into his seat.
The way Lionel lowered Danielle’s head as he helped her into the backseat reminded me of how I’d seen police do the same, the difference being that Lionel had no right to arrest anyone. Of course, mage families considered themselves a law unto themselves.
I sat into the passenger seat, throwing Danielle’s spellbook up onto the dash. The seats were soft leather, and the engine had a smooth but powerful purring sound.
“Where are we going?” Lionel asked. “Danielle?”
“I’m not one to backseat drive,” Danielle said. “You decide.”
“You are in enough trouble already,” Lionel said. “You’d best cooperate.”
I touched Lionel’s shoulder. “Just start driving, get us out of this part of town. It’s a maze of alleyways around here.”
I waited until Lionel was focusing on his driving before turning back to Danielle. “That was an impressive illusion,” I told her.
“Obvious good cop, bad cop routine is obvious.” She shook her shoulders, trying to get comfortable with her arms cuffed behind her back.
“I don’t know the mage,” I said. “Just met him less than an hour ago, so we don’t have any routine. And believe me, if we did, I’d be the bad cop. What you did was impressive, though. Lionel prepared his spell in advance, but you did it on the fly.”
Danielle grinned. “Your illusion sucked, did you hear me, mage? I get terrified at movies that aren’t even supposed to be scary, and your fire being only made me giggle.”
“I heard plenty of screams of terror,” Lionel said without turning around.
“From students who have never seen a magical illusion bigger than a sunflower,” Danielle said.
“Val Beaugard is your teacher?” I asked.
Danielle made a face. “Not really. Val was trying to teach, but not doing a good job. You saw the others in there; they didn’t have a clue.”
“How did you learn magic, then, if you didn’t grow up in one of the mage families?” I asked.
“The families think they own knowledge. They don’t. It’s all out there if you know where to look.”
“And where is that?” Lionel asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Danielle said.
“I would,” Lionel said. “And you are going to tell me.”
“Lionel, concentrate on the driving,” I said sharply. “There are more important things to worry about right now than how Danielle learned magic.”
I turned back toward Danielle. “I’ve never seen Val before, but she seemed...Is she crazy?”
Danielle shifted uncomfortably. “She’s normally fine, though she wanted to cancel this class, and I persuaded her not to. I regretted that when I saw her today. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened.”
“Did Val teach you necromancy,” I asked.
“Necrom...No, I would never. I swear.”
“Calm down.” I reached back and touched my fingers to Danielle’s left knee. “No one’s accusing you.” Perhaps undermining Danielle’s loyalty toward Val would get her to help. “Did you know that Val was a necromancer as well as a hood mage?”
“I heard rumors. But I was sure they weren’t true. She’s a nice old lady, really. You just saw her today, when something was wrong. Her daughter, now, I could believe anything of her daughter.”
“Val’s daughter is a hood mage too?” I asked.
“No. She came to some classes, but paid little attention. She spent a lot of time at Casino Demonica with the necromancer who runs it. Grim something is his name.”
“Grimstar,” I said. Grimstar fancied himself as a necromancer, and his casino was one of the many haunts for the dark community, but he was more show than substance. Or so most believed. Casino Demonica was where Kingston had been when he’d rung me earlier.
A coincidence? It had to be.
“Yes, that’s it. Grimstar,” Danielle said.
“Danielle, you saw those creatures that came out of the mirror.” It was a pity the myth vampires had no reflection was untrue. “They weren’t illusions. They originally came from the large gold-framed mirror in the back chamber. Just before they came, I saw the crimson eyes of a true demon from the underworld. Powerful necromancy caused them. We need to find Val so we can learn how to undo the curse. Will you help us?”
“I have no idea where she could be. I didn’t know her that well. She was just a fellow magic lover, free of the restrictions of a mage family.”
That didn’t line up with the other things she’d told me, but accusing her of lying would just get her to dig her heels in. “Okay,” I said, facing forward again.
“So?” Lionel asked.
“Just keep driving,” I told him.
“In circles?”
“For now.” I nodded up at the rearview mirror. “Good that our reflections haven’t escaped through that, at least.”
Lionel gave a grim smile. “I had a vision of a small version of one of us jumping down and stabbing me in the knee.”
“Or a more painful location.”
“Indeed.” He raised his eyebrows across at me, the question in his expression. What next?
Casino Demonica was one lead we could follow up on, but I was sure Danielle knew more than she’d told us. She just needed her to realize her friend Val was in as much danger as Lionel and I were. “Let me tell you the story of the last time I saw crimson eyes like I saw in that mirror,” I said. It had been over two hundred years ago, but I didn’t need to mention that little factoid. “I had a friend named Drayson whose wife fell ill.”
Drayson had been a charming, witty fellow with a handsome face and a quick laugh. Everyone loved him. Most men like him only ever spread their affections shallowly, but Drayson had the opposite problem—he felt too deeply. “I’ve never known a man who loved his wife as much as Drayson did. Her illness turned out to be brain cancer. Terminal. Incurable even for mage healers.”
Drayson had been a good friend, one of the best non-vampire friends I’d ever had. I’d never turned anyone, but I had considered turning his wife. As a vampire, she’d have left her human health problems behind. The man was so desperate, he’d have accepted if I’d offered—once he’d recovered from the shock of learning I was a vampire. But his wife had accepted her upcoming death; it wouldn’t have been fair on her, and even Drayson would have come to regret it with time.
“Drayson had experimented with necromancy when he’d been in college, though I didn’t learn that until later,” I continued. “Back then, it had just been kids messing around; they never accomplished anything, or really wanted to. But when Drayson tried again, the strength of his desire to save his wife meant that he was able to summon a demon powerful enough to help him.”
I looked out the windshield, and the l
ights of the skyscrapers became the flickering of hundreds of candles as I remembered Drayson’s bedroom that night. His wife lay sleeping on the bed, her face stretched thin, her skin gray. The smell of melted candle wax hung thick in the air. Drayson stood beside his wife, holding her hand, his eyes flickering from her face to the patch of darkness above her. “I arrived too late to stop him. He looked stupidly happy as he told me that the demon had promised to cure her.”
He’d known there’d be a cost, but he hadn’t bargained, hadn’t even asked about it, willing to accept whatever it would be. Losing his sight, his ability to walk, even his life was worth it for him. He loved his wife that much. Crimson eyes had blinked, then the patch of darkness had disappeared. “The cost, when he learned it, was, he thought, another boon,” I said. “A promise of a long life for both of them with no further physical ill health.”
“How can that be a cost?” Lionel asked.
“The gray tinge had left Drayson’s wife when she woke just before dawn. The demon had done what he’d promised, and for an instant, I allowed myself to believe the affair could have a happy ending. Then she wailed.”
Drayson had been on his knees, clutching her hand to her chest, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks. “The wail went on and on. She took a breath, then wailed again. Her cancer was gone, but Drayson’s wife was no longer inside her body. From that moment on, her eyes never showed a gleam of intelligence or recognition. She wailed from one end of the day to next.”
“And Drayson stayed with her?” Danielle asked.
I nodded. “Cursed to care for her day in, day out, for the rest of their long life together.” Afterward, he’d been unwilling to leave her side, no matter how much I tried to reason with him. I wasn’t sure whether it was due to love mixed with terrible guilt, or if it was another part of the demon’s terrible bargain.
Drayson’s mansion had been shut to visitors. He’d been a wealthy man who was able to afford any luxury, but he’d let all his servants go. On impulse, I’d broken in one day, twenty years later, keeping to the shadows. I’d barely recognized Drayson, his hair wild, a twisted beard reaching down to his chest. For the whole time I’d watched him, he’d sat, sunken into an armchair by his wife’s side, his face scrunched into a permanent scowl, his expression lacking any evidence of the brightness and sparkle that had once been his trademark. His wife’s wails had swirled around him like tendrils of shadow.
“He’s still alive?” Lionel asked.
“I would imagine so,” I said, though he was surely long dead.
A brief silence descended, then Danielle spoke up. “Why are you telling me this? As a warning? I told you I haven’t engaged in necromancy.”
“Because this curse needs to be undone. For Val’s sake as well as our own. Perhaps it’s not too late.”
Lionel stopped the car at a red light, and I turned back to look at Danielle. She shifted uncomfortably.
“Can you help us?”
“I’m sure she couldn’t have meant this. You don’t intend to harm Val, do you?”
“No,” I said. That was both true and false. Personally, I wanted to avoid hurting the old woman, but neither Mortissa nor Christian Cressington would be gentle with her, and I couldn’t see many scenarios where she remained alive and out of the hands of both of them.
Danielle stopped squirming as she made her decision. “I know where Val lives. She took me there once. Where are we?” She looked out the window. “Fifth Avenue? Turn right up here.”
Chapter 6
After about ten minutes of driving, Danielle told Lionel to pull over to the left-hand side.
Lionel switched off the engine.
“Here? You sure?” I asked. “This looks like a building site.”
“It’s the opposite of a building site,” Danielle said. “A condemned estate that hasn’t yet been knocked. A few people still resist being forced out.” She nodded up ahead. “That board by the streetlamp is loose. Val still lives in one of the terraced houses in the front row. Number five one five. Free me and I’ll show you.”
Lionel took a key from his pocket. “Come here.”
She twisted to the side to present her handcuffs.
Lionel fiddled with the key against the metal of the cuffs. “I can’t unlock them like this, turn fully around.”
Danielle turned so her knees were on the seat and she was facing the back. Lionel unlocked the cuffs, then he swiftly yanked Danielle forward, put her wrists against the steering wheel, and relocked them.
“What are you doing?” Danielle wrenched her body forward, but she only managed to get herself into a more awkward position.
Lionel turned off the headlights of the car and opened his door.
“You can’t just leave me like this. I helped you.”
“That will be taken into account when you are called to face judgement,” Lionel said.
I looked sympathetically at Danielle’s contorted body. “Sorry. We’ll be quick. I’ll try to persuade him to be more reasonable next time.”
“Next time? There certainly won’t be a next time of me helping you.”
I shut the door behind me and hurried after Lionel, arriving at the loose board just as he was passing through to the other side. I squeezed after him. Beyond the wood fence, a path was worn through a crop of overgrown grass. A dusting of moonlight gave the blades of grass a white shimmer. Further ahead, the rows of houses were nestled in deep shadow.
“Was cuffing her like that really necessary?” I asked when I caught up with Lionel. “She is helping us.”
“If she has any idea how much trouble she’s in, she’ll run the first chance she gets.”
“You could just let her go,” I suggested. “Like you did the other students. I think she’s been sufficiently scared.”
“Her abilities make her dangerous,” Lionel said. “I can’t let a hood mage that powerful roam the city. I’m sure there’s more to her story than she’s let on; she’s not as innocent as she appears.” Lionel came to a sudden stop, turning toward me. “She’s not the only one hiding things. Are you going to tell me who you really are, Essa?”
My shoulders tensed. “What do you mean?”
“A private investigator, is that it? One that carries a sword cleverly sheathed in her leather jacket. One who knows all about vampires, mages, and even necromancers and demons. One who...fill in the blank for me, Essa.”
“Perhaps paranormal investigator would be a better description,” I said.
“And what was it again that you said you are investigating Val for?”
“I didn’t say.”
“And who is your client?”
“That would be client privilege.”
“Client privilege applies to lawyers, not investigators.”
“I’m protecting my...” I searched for the right word.
“Protecting your sources?” Lionel asked. “Like a journalist.”
“You are focusing on the wrong thing,” I told him. “Those reflections were more substantial the second time they came for us. What’s going to happen the third or the fourth time? We need to find Val and fix this.”
“That’s why you aren’t handcuffed like Danielle.”
“Lucky me.” I spotted a number on the closest house. “Four nine eight. We are close.”
“Good night vision.” He didn’t wait for a reply, walking on ahead, leaving me standing behind.
He found the correct house and climbed the steps. Lionel tried the handle of the front door, and, finding it locked, gave it a frustrated rattle. I moved past him to a boarded-up window and pushed. It swung open, hinged at the top. “This way,” I said.
“Wait. Let me provide some light.” Lionel touched his pendant, and after a moment it lit up, emitting a faint glow.
“Good idea,” I said.
“Not everyone is as comfortable as you at moving around in the darkness.”
Vampires didn’t have any special power with our vision, but I spent so much tim
e in the dark that my eyes had adjusted. “Paranormal investigating involves plenty of night work.”
“I guess so.” He swung his leg over the window ledge and stepped into the room beyond. He held the board open to allow me to follow.
Lionel was suspicious about me, but he didn’t seem to have any firm ideas, and I aimed to keep it that way. He was so adamant about arresting a hood mage, what would he do with a vampire?
I straightened as the window board swung shut behind me. As Lionel continued forward, the glow from his pendant lit up the grimy details of a room long abandoned. It had once been a living room; a broken TV lay on its side in the corner, and an upside-down sofa leaned against the far wall. Several trails cut through the dirt on the floor, showing that people still passed through.
Danielle had said others lived in the condemned estate, but I hadn’t heard any sounds. “This place feels like a graveyard,” I said.
“It is, in a way.” Broken glass crunched under Lionel’s feet. “A graveyard of memories. Families grew up and died in these houses, and now they are being knocked down, replaced by something new.”
I glanced through a side door. Beyond, a cracked mirror leaned against a wall.
A mirror. “Quick,” I yelled. “Forward.” I rushed through a door after Lionel, but not before I caught a quick glimpse of my own reflection in the cracked mirror.
“What is it?” Lionel asked as we crouched down in a hallway, looking back into the empty living room.
“I saw a mirror.”
“Shit.”
“It was just for a split second. Hopefully...” I trailed off as my reflection walked toward us. I drew my katana. “Not again.”
My reflection also drew its katana. “Yes, again,” it said.
“You can talk?”
“Of course. Anything you can do, I can do better.” The reflection was colorfully detailed, eerily similarly to me, though its katana was made of shadow rather than metal.
The Demon Mirror (Dragongods Saga, #0) Page 4