In retrospect, I suppose I could have brought Bandhal along, but I had my own issues with him. Even if I wasn’t still really pissed about how close he had come to killing me with his ill-timed outburst, I couldn’t risk an encore in the middle of an auction room full of supernatural creatures.
So, that left me here, intentionally walking three feet behind the person I hated the most in the world, and trying to dodge all his attempts at conversation.
Which wasn’t easy.
“I know what you’re doing,” Scott said, slowing down in an attempt to get us going the same speed.
“Well, I’m being pretty obvious about it,” I muttered, shaking my head and slowing down even more.
Two could play that game.
“Is that really the way you want to play this?” Scott asked, pulling to a complete stop and basically forcing me to catch up with him.
He wore a tight fitting black tux accented in red and a matching bowtie. His hair had been magically coiffed and was movie star perfect. Meanwhile, his face was twisted into a smug smirk and was undeniably punch-worthy.
“What do you mean?” I asked, filling my voice with innocence.
“We’re doing this together. I’m doing this for you.” Scott rubbed his face with one hand. “We’re not going to be able to get through it if we can’t even pretend to work together.”
I grimaced, folding my arms over my chest and glaring at him. He had a point, not one I was particularly interested in indulging, but definitely a point. He was here because I needed help. It didn’t excuse what he had done in the past, the way he very nearly singlehandedly ruined my life, but it was something. I just wasn’t sure what sort of something it was.
“Fine,” I said, catching sight of myself in one of the many store windows as I passed by. “I guess I can pretend to work with you. For tonight anyway.”
I looked pretty awesome myself, dressed in a tux that looked a lot like the one Scott was wearing. Of course, mine looked a hell of a lot better than his did, which was to be expected. I had always been more of a looker than my brother.
“I’m glad you can pretend to be mature, Roy,” he lingered on my name, adding an unspoken “ce” to the end which made me want to hit him, only I was sure that’s what he wanted.
“Just tell me what I need to do.” I glared at him.
“It’s an auction where supernatural beings gather to bid on interesting shit,” Scott said flippantly. “You’re already supernatural. Just pretend to be interested in the shit.”
“Except I’m not exactly as incognito around town as I used to be,” I said, leaning against a brick wall on the corner of Massey and Easton.
“Has baby brother made a name for himself around these parts?” Scott asked, his smug smile making a reappearance.
“Yes and no,” I answered, shaking my head. “Killing Fulton was a big deal. It sent shockwaves through the city. At least, through the supernatural underground parts. I figured my face would be all over the place, but I was wrong. Turned out the Benefactor is keeping the details of what went down under wraps. Which means the general population of vamps, witches, and whatever goes bump in the night down here is still pretty oblivious to my existence, but if there’s anyone who’s even remotely connected to the Benefactor in there—”
“Then one look at that ugly mug of yours will send alarm bells ringing all over the place,” Scott answered. “Say no more.”
Bright gold magical energy started circling in tight, glowing spirals around his fists. This magic was obviously of the hidden variety as the leggy blonde passing by only shot me a look and not my energy-wielding brother.
“What are you doing, Scott?” I asked, tensing up at the sight of the magic. Scott had always been a bit quick on the draw, and given that he was full blooded warlock to my half demon mutt, his spells had always been more potent than mine.
He twisted his hands, and the golden spirals started to pulsate with energy. I got a flash of us as teenagers, remembering the time we snuck out of the house after curfew one night to go to an afterhours party.
We were invisible then, covered with light bending magic. This didn’t look like the same sort of thing though and being invisible wouldn’t help us here. We needed to interact, to massage information from whatever sort of nightmare people populated this auction house.
“Scott,” I repeated. “What the hell are you up to?”
“You don’t want to look like you,” he said, stretching his hands apart. I watched as a stream of golden light bridged the ever-growing gap between his hands. “Not that I blame you for it. I’m just fixing that up for you.”
The stream of golden energy shot from between his hands and collided with me. It didn’t hurt or anything. On the contrary, it sort of tickled; a sensation that ran up and down my body. Normally, I would fight this. I’m not the type to just let somebody assault me with magic without retaliating, even if it was the sort of magic meant to help me. But Scott wasn’t just anyone and-though we had our issues with each other- I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. He just didn’t have it in him.
“There we go,” he said as the magic dissipated from around me. “And now.” He turned his glowing golden hands onto himself. The power covered him, vanishing in seconds and revealing a completely different person.
All of his features had changed, shifted into something else. I knew this wasn’t real. I knew what I was looking at was a mirage meant to fool the people inside the auction house into thinking Scott wasn’t who he was. But why? It was my face that was the problem, not Scott’s. No one this side of the Mason/Dixon had any idea who my warlock brother was. So, what was the point in expelling the energy, and who the hell had he turned himself into? Warlock glamouring required a base, someone or something the magic wielder had seen. You couldn’t just go painting on a blank canvas as it were.
As I stared at my adoptive brother, I began to notice these new features were very familiar to me. His hair was still blond though longer and curled up at the ends. His eyes were so bright and blue they were piercing. His chin was stronger and fuller, and his face was so symmetrical it was ridiculous. He had made himself freaking gorgeous. He had made himself macho and masculine. He had made himself…
“You’re Thor?” I asked, looking him over.
“Not Thor,” he said, crossing his arms over his newly buff chest. “I’m the actor who plays Thor. He’s a siren. He’ll fit right in.”
“There are male sirens?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Of course,” he grinned. “They’re just like female sirens, seductive and physically perfect; capable of convincing anyone to do anything. You didn’t think Marvel gave one of their flagship characters to an unknown for no reason, did you?”
“I can honestly say I’ve one hundred percent never thought about it, though I’m not sure why it matters. You’re not the one who needs to hide.”
“I know,” he answered flatly.
“Then why’d you do it?” I retorted, starting to get a little quick with the guy again.
“Because it fits with your disguise,” he grinned.
“What?” I asked, looking over at my reflection in the window again. I was different now too, though my features were very similar to that of Scott’s new façade.
“You made me the other one?” I asked, my eyes flashing over to him. “You made me the lesser Hemsworth?”
“Don’t be like that,” he said, turning and heading in what I could only assume was the direction of the auction house. “Hunger Games is no joke, and besides, we both know why I had to be Thor, bro.” He grinned back at me again. “I’ve got the bigger hammer.”
“God,” I muttered, shaking my head and following him. “I forgot how annoying you were.”
19
Three blocks of masquerading as the lesser Hemsworth later, Scott and I were standing at the end of a long alley. The wall was filled with graffitti, and two industrial sized dumpsters sat pressed against the bottom half, both reeking o
f the week’s trash.
Now I had done my research. Let it never be said that Roy Morgan didn’t cross his T’s and dot his I’s before he made a move. I had combed every inch of this metropolis. I looked for all the supernatural hotspots. I even visited a few on the down low just to get a sense of what I was walking into.
In all of that research, I had never even given this alleyway pause. It wasn’t anything. It didn’t smell of werewolf. It didn’t hold any subversive witch markings, and it sure as shit didn’t have any demonic energy pulsing off it. So, what the hell was this about? Either my brother-draped in the guise of a cinematic Norse god- had been given wrong intel from my late mother’s coven, or this place was so top secret, so well hidden, that even a detective like me couldn’t find it.
If that was the case- and I figured it was, given how rarely my late mother’s coven was ever wrong- it sent shivers down my newly glamoured spine. If they could hide this from me, then what else were they capable of hiding? What other monstrosities were waiting to throw me for a loop?
I couldn’t be sloppy like this. I couldn’t be unsure when Renee was at stake.
“You sure this is the right place?” I asked, looking over at Scott and half hoping he was wrong. If he was, that meant I could at least partially hold on to my hope of knowing what was going on in this city, of having a grip on the truth.
“Oh, course I’m sure,” he said, barely even looking over at me. His gaze was pinned too intently on the pair of dumpsters pinned against the wall. “It’s a doorway. Don’t you see it?”
I absolutely did not see it. I saw ugly spray paint art in the shape of what looked to be a marijuana leaf and a set of oozing trash bins, but I wasn’t about to let my brother have that over on me, so I lied.
“Right,” I cleared my throat. “There it is.”
“Where?” he asked, now deigning to look over at me. He might have had Thor’s eyes, but the douchebag glint behind them was all Scott. He knew I was lying. “Point to it.”
“Fuck off, Scott. This is serious,” I said, shaking my head, and trying not to sound as pissed as I was. He was naturally better at this sort of stuff, detecting magic, knowing where the hidden stuff was. Not only was he a full-on warlock, but his training went on well after I got thrown out onto the streets.
There was no reason for me to believe I could ever be better than him, but I had trained, dammit. I had worked my ass off, and that should count for something. That should at least allow me to see a damned doorway in a dumpster. Should didn’t matter in this instance though. Maybe it never mattered. Scott could see it, I couldn’t, and we both knew it.
“Just open the damn door,” I uttered, obviously defeated. “Though neither of us are sirens and if these two Australian pricks are supposed to be, I’m not sure how we mimic that.”
“Have you seen us, baby brother?” he asked, flashing a Thor grin again. “We’re eye candy. Trust me, these looks and the idea that we’re supposed to have this magical allure is all it will take for every person in that room to fall all over themselves at the sight of us. Just play it cool.”
“I’m always cool,” I said, shrugging as Scott contorted his hands. The glowing golden energy that had always been his signature shot toward the dumpsters and separated them. They flew away from one another, crunching as they collided with either side wall.
Behind them, the ugly graffiti marijuana leaf twisted until it formed a glowing square that pulsated with energy. It swung itself open, revealing a blinding light beyond it.
“See,” he said, smiling at me again. “It’s a door. Easy peazy.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. For one of us. Scott-being full bloodied and at least twice as trained as me- picked this sort of magical stuff up much quicker than I ever did. It was only one of the many things that pissed me off about him.
I followed Scott through the blinding light and into a corridor of blinking multicolored lights. It was like the cheesiest club I had ever been to, minus all the crappy Rihanna music. I guess you’ve gotta take your wins where you can find them.
At the end of the elongated strobe experience, we were deposited into the sort of swanky ballroom which, up to this point, I assumed only existed in books about awful, rich people, or movies about a beast wooing some chick who was clearly out of his league.
The room seemed to stretch out into forever, and within, I saw an endless array of chandeliers, luscious velvet carpeting, spiraling staircases, and men, women, demons, vamps, wolves, selkies, and every other sort of supernatural creature one could think of.
Instantly, I felt both awe and disgust. This place was too big to exist on this plane. The door Scott sensed had to be of the interdimensional sort, which was probably why I hadn’t seen it.
My ass had already been introduced to the curb when they went over that part of the textbook in my mystical studies class. Still, the fact that all of this was going on right under my nose, right under the noses of all the men and women who work so hard to keep this city going, was horrific. How much money was flushed into this nonsense? How much time and talent was wasted on this?
Fuck it. I couldn’t worry about that right now. I needed to focus. I needed to keep my mind clear of that. It didn’t help that this was basically a cornucopia of evildoers, and I hadn’t fed my demon side in far too long.
I felt that piece of myself flare up. My eyes-actually the lesser Hemsworth’s eyes- threatened to go red. I couldn’t allow that to happen. This Hunger Games dude was supposed to be a siren. A single appearance of my red as blood peepers would give away the ruse Scott and I were living under at the moment.
We’d have to be careful, and not just because there were at least three different species of shifter here who could smell my glamour if they got close enough. Not to mention vampires, who could compel me into spilling the beans should I give them a reason to be suspicious, or demons who might sense a kindred spirit in their midst.
I needed to be careful, and what was more, I wasn’t even sure I knew what the lesser Hemsworth’s first name was. Hopefully, there was some mega fans in here who would scream it at me the instant they laid eyes on this beautiful (and fake) face.
“Be cool, baby brother?” Scott said, and his voice took on a decidedly realistic Australian accent. I wasn’t sure if it was a spell that gave him his impressive vocal range, but I did know any magic I exhibited would be readily readable to one of the many witches and warlocks who covered this room.
I was going to have to fake it, which meant I was probably going to spend half the night sounding like a late night rerun of Crocodile Dundee and the other half trying to stay as silent as possible. Hopefully people weren’t as interested in what the lesser Hemsworth had to say as they might have been his brother.
“I’m always cool,” I said, repeating my sentiment from the alley and trying on an accent of my own.
Scott’s face-well, Thor’s face- twisted into an unimpressed mask that told me everything I needed to know about his thoughts on the job I did.
“Eat something,” he said flatly. “You might sound more foreign with a mouthful of shrimp cocktail.”
I slid away from Scott, shooting him a withering look and scanning the room. He might have been more of a threat when it came to warlock mumbo jumbo. While he was full-blooded, I had something he didn’t. I had spent the last few years of my life watching people.
Early on, I decided being a police detective was what I wanted to do. In addition to being a perfect way to find the worst the world has to offer and using that intel to feed the beast inside of me, it also served as a way to soothe my savage soul, so to speak.
I could help people. The half demon who wasn’t good enough for a coven of witches so awful they killed one of their own just for falling in love was now a force for good in the world. It was almost delicious in its irony, but it also made me feel better. It let me pretend I was a good person, that I wasn’t a monster.
Good thing it also taught me skills I would need to know
for missions like this. Scott might be using magic to get to the bottom of things, but the heart and mind of a detective hid behind the face of the lesser Hemsworth, and it saw much more than I was letting on at the moment.
There was a group of vamps in the corner, but they weren’t as connected as they wanted the rest of the room to think. Body language told me things were tense within their ranks. Judging by the fact that two of the burlier vamps were careful to stay away from each other, I guessed there was some sort of alpha fight at play here.
Then there was a red-skinned demon, the full-blooded kind who rarely existed for too long outside of Hell because there were too many hunters around for creatures like him to enjoy any reindeer games.
He stood stalwart in the corner, giving off the look of someone who was not to be messed with. His leg was shaking though, a nervous tick, no doubt. He was on edge, which meant he wasn’t as powerful as he wanted people to think. Given the fact he was leaning against the wall for support, I figured his ailment was of the physical variety; information which might come in handy later.
As I walked down the steps and caught the eye of a gorgeous witch who obviously recognized my borrowed face, I felt the tug of a smile at my lips. I was getting into this. Letting my detective juices flow felt right, and I was good at it.
I was prepared for this. I was on top of it. Nothing was going to get the best of me in here.
“Attention!” a loud-mouthed demon with a single eye in the center of his forehead said while clanging a long black fingernail against a crystal goblet. The sound echoed, silencing the room. My heart skipped a beat. Things were happening now, and I needed to be on top of my game to make sure I made the most of this. The way the people’s attention moved to the stage at the end of the room told me it signaled the start of the auction. “You’ll soon see we’ve saved the best for last.”
His sole eye went to the side of the stage. A witch with glowing green eyes walked up onto the stage where the cyclops was standing. She held a small wooden box in her hands. A wicked looking smirk was on her lips as she settled in front of him. I got a bad feeling about this box and what might be in it.
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