"I don't know if you remember me but I am," I said but she interrupted me. Of course she did.
"I know who you are Mabry Wilds. What you want?" she demanded.
"We need to speak to Chance," I said.
"Chance isn’t here," she said and tried to close the door on me. I stuffed my foot inside. “Can we please come inside?"
"Why?" she asked. The woman was just impossible.
"I'm obviously here on resistance business, why else would I make the trek out here?" I hissed back at her. Simon stood back with a grin on his face. He was about to help me.
"Open the damn door, Felicia," I said.
"We’re in the middle of a meeting," Felicia said. I pushed the door open anyway and she got out of my way.
"We can wait for Chance here then," I said.
"What happened to your eyes?" Felicia asked as she followed me to the main room.
"I got into a fight with some vampires," I said.
"Isn't that a vampire with you?" Felicia said eyeing Simon suspiciously.
"He's a friend," I said. I found myself in the main dining room with 10 pairs of human eyes staring at me with quite a bit of hostility.
"I'm a friend and am for your cause. I wanted to wait for Chance here," I said.
"Chance has been missing. We don't know when he'll be back," a youngish woman in the front said. Felicia scowled at her and I could tell by some of the other people that they wished that she hadn't told me.
"When did Chance go missing?" I asked. Things are starting to click all over the place.
"Yesterday. His place was ransacked and he was gone. They don't typically harass him because he has some sort of deal with the mob. But we haven't heard anything from him and we fear he might be dead," the young woman offered up again. I could tell by her face that she didn't like Felicia much either.
"I see. Is there someone in a senior position that I can speak to then?" I asked. "I have some important information to discuss with them."
"That would be Felicia," the young woman forged on. Felicia made a face and I could see that there was no love lost between them.
"You need to leave now, Mabry." Felicia insisted and started pushing me out the door.
"What is going on here, Felicia?" I asked her. Simon nodded and was at my beck and call to see if I needed to strong-arm her. I shook my head. I only really trusted Chance. I was going to have to find some other way to see if Marcus was working with the resistance.
"All right, we're gone. Let's go, Simon." I spun on my heel and headed towards the door. Simon tagged along behind me.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure we could use some force to find out what they know."
"Marcus wouldn't just talk to anybody. If he was going to be a rat, he would do it with somebody like Chance. I can't imagine anyone else knowing what they were up to in that room," I said. I thought that maybe the nosy girl would know something but with Felicia around there was no way to get her to talk to us. We stepped outside onto the bright pavement and heard the door slam.
"Now what?" Simon said.
"I'm not sure," I said. I tried to think of anybody else that I had met in past cases that lived in the valley that would have a clue about what was going on with Chance but I came up blank.
"This is all a major conspiracy and it looks like everyone involved in this were onto something really big here, Simon. Do you think Lucretia might be in on it, too?" I asked. "Where those two vampires really that important to her?"
"No. And that's what I was going to tell you once we got away from any vampire's earshot. Something massive is going on. Has been for weeks. The fact that Roscoe and his buddy did that just tells me that it's affecting vampires and werewolves alike. Lucretia has been going nuts because she feels that she's being kept out of the loop. Her and Jeremiah, the man who's in charge of all of the West Coast hate each other. She wants his job and she feels like he's maneuvering around her in her own city. It's not a pretty sight being in the coven these days. I wasn't surprised that she was supposedly claiming to give me the true death about not finding out what happened with her two men. As if she even knew their names half the time." I could hear the anger in his voice. For this to be going through so many different communities, meant that this had real power politics behind it. Why educate yourself into markets? I wondered as a black BMW with tinted windows pulled up onto the curb in front of us. There is no way we could see the driver.
"Now, what's this?" Simon said.
"This looks like the mob, doesn't it?" I asked. I did not want to tangle with some other power players today.
"No, they typically drive the Escalades around here.” Simon said.
"We don't go inside there, do we?" I asked almost to myself. I wasn't sure if I believed Simon about the mob connection. Was I stepping into another trap? I gave Simon a side glance. I didn't know who to trust. Mostly, I didn't trust anyone. I prefered to be a lone wolf and liked my private practice for that reason. I had my sources of course. But I worked alone. But for something this big, this complicated, you needed a team. I just wasn't sure if Simon was trustworthy enough to be on that team. And I was never a good team player. My mind skipped over Peters’ face and I looked back at the car.
The window rolled down and Felicia waved us in.
"You look too suspicious," she hissed. "Get into the damn car." Simon and I shared a look and I nodded. She was the most senior one here. Simon got into the back as I got into the front. Felicia sped away from the restaurant before she started to speak.
"With Chance gone, I'm sure there's a mole."
"Do you think the resistance has been compromised then?" I asked her.
"Absolutely. I didn't want you to be revealing any sort of secrets in front of anyone in that room." I turned back at Simon and wondered what he made of this. He shrugged his shoulders and I plunged on. Without Chance, Felicia could be the quickest way to finding out if my suspicion was true.
"Do you know a man named Marcus?" I asked her. “Marcus Shale."
"He was working with Chance on something big. Have you ever heard of area 27?" Felicia asked me as she turned left. "I'm gonna drive a couple blocks away and we can circle. I'll drop you off at your car when we’re done," she said as she noticed me looking back at Simon again. I didn't want to trust her but I had not heard of area 27 either. The information sounded legitimate. "I have," Simon said from the backseat. “Not area 27 exactly but area 22 has been bandied about the coven. It has something to do with the human prison camps. I overheard Lucretia talking to one of the LAPD vamps when they came for their money last week."
"I didn't know this had something to do with the humans," Felicia said. "Chance kept me out of the loop because he wanted to keep his contact with Marcus Shale a secret. He already knew that we had a ball in the resistance and this was too important of information to pass on to the general population. At least that is what he told me."
"Has he really been missing 24 hours?" I asked her.
"Yes," Felicia answered.
"How long has Regina been missing?" I asked her. She startled, unaware that I even knew who Regina was.
"How do you know about Regina?" she asked.
"I'm an investigator, aren't I?" I shot back. I still didn't like the woman.
"She's been missing about a month. Her and Chance were dating at the time and he kept her separate from the rest of the resistance. I don't know why. Nobody knows where she went off to."
"No, did she disappear like the rest of the humans disappeared or did she leave of her own accord?" I asked the pointed question. She pulled up to the curb in front of the Italian restaurant.
"That's all I know," she said. "Regina disappeared a month ago and Chance disappeared yesterday. I don't know anything about Marcus outside of the area 27 remark that I overheard. He didn't tell me anything before he disappeared," she said and I could tell by the sound in her voice that she was really upset about that. For her being his right-hand man he sure was secre
tive. Maybe he was as trusting as I was.
"Why did you decide to tell us this?" I asked her.
"You need to find Chance," she said. "I heard through the grapevine that Marcus Shale's body was found last night. I'm afraid that we're going to find Chance’s as well. There's something really big going on and it's imperative to the resistance that we uncover it. We know that the humans have been going missing. I mean look at this place, it's a ghost town." She also invoked that old term that was used for Western towns that had lost all of its inhabitants.
"Have you seen any visible signs of the humans being murdered?" I asked her.
"No. We haven't seen anything of the sort." Simon got out of the car and I opened the door.
"Will you keep me in the loop?" she asked me.
"If I find Chance, you'll be the first person to know," I said and closed the door on her. She sped off down the street and Simon came up behind me.
"Do you trust her?"
"Not even a little bit but it looks like the information she gave us was genuine. So the area 27/22 is about the humans and the internment camps?"
"I only heard bits and pieces because Lucretia was talking very quietly. It was strange enough that I made it my mission to listen."
"Now that you know the information you're looking for, how about we find out who hired Lucretia's two goons," he said as he clicked the car door open.
"That's the thing. I already know who hired the two vampire goons. And it's just pure luck that he should be at my office in about an hour. I think if we drive fast we can make it there." A look of hurt registered on his face.
"Why did you lie to the Queen then?" he asked me.
I didn't have a good enough answer for him. I had played with his life to get what I wanted. That made me an asshole.
"Like you said, this is bigger than all of us," was all I managed to say.
8
Dread filled the small space of my already cramped office and made the shabby room more claustrophobic than it had ever been. I sat behind my desk waiting for Damian to show while Simon picked at his fingers behind the door. Our ambush was a two-person affair and I hoped that Damian would not be bringing the cavalry. Now that we knew how big this thing really was, I was waiting for the entire LAPD division to come barreling through my front door.
Afternoon sun filtered through the grimy windows and dust motes played in the air, glittering in the shaft of light. My office might be dirty but it had its own charm. I closed my eyes and sighed. And that's when I smelled him. Damian was coming up the stairs and to my shock and surprise he was alone. A strange pang of guilt formed in my stomach and I nodded to Simon. I hadn't been fair to Simon in what I had done with Lucretia and for whatever reason I felt I was being unfair to Damian as well. He had set those vampires on me and had essentially forced me to take this case and yet I felt sorry for the guy. I had a strong suspicion he was just a pawn in this game like we all were. He didn't exude the power that the other creeps and players did.
A formal knock sounded on the glass window of my door. I took a deep breath and called out "come in." Damian stepped inside and by the look on his face his last 24 hours hadn't been much good to him either. Before he could open his mouth Simon took him by the neck and pulled him close, his fangs dripping with saliva at Damian's throat.
"I've done quite a bit of investigation into what's going on here," I told him. Damian grimaced. I didn't blame him. "I'm going to have my friend Simon here glamour you and you’re gonna tell us what you know. Are you going to fight us on this or are you going to go quietly?"
"I had been warned you are this good," Damian said. I shrugged. "I didn't think you'd be as ruthless as you are, however. They all have underestimated you," he said and that sent shivers down my spine. Did they? They knew who I was.
For the last year I have been playing my own version of Robin Hood thinking I was below the surface, making small waves but not rippling or causing large waves going to the community. But, apparently they had been keeping tabs on me. I'm sure, after the Fae pulled strings to get me out of that hellhole of a prison, they had kept tabs on me. They had most likely allowed me to play my little games with the smaller fish on the outer layers of the powerful and wealthy creatures that called Los Angeles home. I flushed at the realization.
"Are you ready?" I asked Simon. I could see he was having trouble keeping himself from biting on Damian. I still smelled barely any magic on him which made him human. I had heard that human blood was the sweetest of all the creatures blood and the vampires had preference to it over all the others. "Simon?"
"I heard you the first time, Mabry," he said. He let Damian go and I braced myself for a show of some sort of power but Damian stood docile in front of me and Simon. He turned his green eyes to Simon and Simon smiled. I had never been glamoured myself as the Fae side wouldn't allow that kind of magic to work on me but I heard it was quite a pleasant sensation. By the softening of Damian's face and the smile that grew, this was most likely the most peace he'd had all week.
"Have a seat here," Simon ordered and Damian sat in the chair opposite me. Why wasn't he using his magic? Could it really be that this man had flown under the radar and was fully human? His wealth and privilege might have saved him from the disappearances that had happened to the others but how other creatures hadn't gotten him yet was shocking to me. Although, I did smell magic on him, it was just weak. I didn't understand what he was or had been. And the rumors he was the world's most powerful wizard were ridiculous.
"Was it your idea to hire the two vampires from the West Hollywood coven?" Simon began.
"No, it was my dad's idea. This whole thing is my dad's idea," Damian answered. The glamour was strong and he did not hesitate in his answers.
"Who is your dad?" I asked, afraid to even hear the answer. I had a pretty good idea of who it was.
"Jeremy Nottingham is my father. Do you know him?" he asked tilting his head. Simon gasped but I nodded. There was no way that the mage of Los Angeles wasn't involved in this case. I had a sneaking suspicion that the mage of Los Angeles was involved with the mysterious area 27. Marcus would not have gone to the resistance for information that was smaller than that.
"Do you mean to tell me that the mage of Los Angeles is your dad?" Simon said when he finally found his voice.
"That's my dad." Damian said. I noted the fear and dread in the man's voice. I doubted they had a good relationship. But then what son ever had a good relationship with a man as ruthless and powerful as Mage Jeremy Nottingham had proved to be?
"Do you have any knowledge of area 27 or area 22? Is your father involved in the areas in any way?" I asked, hoping my question was as specific as possible. I had heard that under glamour, the human could sometimes get confused by simple questions and answer incorrectly because of the way they were phrased. The look of surprise on Damian's face told me that he hadn't heard it though.
"I've never heard anything about, what did you call it, area 27?"
"Go to sleep, Damian," Simon demanded. As if Simon had clicked his fingers, Damian's head drooped and within moments we could hear him softly snoring. Simon was the picture of agitation. He paced back and forth in my small space gesturing wildly to himself.
"Simon, it's going to be fine," I lied. In fact it wouldn't be fine. Nothing was fine after the unveiling and President Dixon taking office. And now, with the mage of Los Angeles, Jeremy Nottingham, pulling strings all over town in different communities was terrifying.
"I don't see how any of this is fine, Mabry," Simon muttered. His pacing was creating a path on my well-worn carpet.
"Your pacing is not going to help our situation any," Mabry said. "The good thing is that we can tell Lucretia who is really behind her men's killing. It takes Damian off the hook as well."
"Damian? You can't be serious?" he asked. My statement stopped him in his tracks.
"He's just a pawn, like we are. He doesn't even know anything about the areas. Those are the central things
to this case and Marcus and Chance have paid with their lives apparently for that information. You know as well as I do that no one could really get the communities together to form a coalition after the unveiling happened. Yet, Jeremy is doing just that, and it's about something that is not in the open. His son isn't magic. I don't know if you've been able to discern any coming from him, but I can't."
"You seriously have not heard about Damian Nottingham?" Simon asked me incredulously, straining his voice.
"I knew that the mage had a son and maybe a daughter, but I don't follow those people," I said and got up. Now I wanted to pace. This whole thing was really bothering me. I didn't want to sic Lucretia on Damian. I really felt for the guy. It's one thing to be used as a pawn in powerful men's games, it's another when it's your own father. He had sent him on a journey where he didn't even know the basic elements. That to me was so insulting. The whole situation stunk of my last hurrah as a detective. I still thought of the chief of police and gnashed my teeth in anger.
"You tell me what you want to do Simon and I will do it," I said thinking that I truly owed him that. I could have told Lucretia about Damian right on the spot and he wouldn't have this death sentence hanging over his head.
"I'm not sure what is the best choice. There is a massive network of vampires that are not under the control of President Dixon and his mages. I'm just as scared of them as I am of the LAPD goon squad and the mage of Los Angeles. If Lucretia has it out for me, which I honestly think she does, then I'm more screwed with the vampires if she tells them than I am about the mage of Los Angeles coming after me. This is way worse for you than it is for me. I'm almost 300 years old and I've made some friends. I think I can go over Lucretia's head if I get started now." He had stopped pacing and was looking intently at me. I wasn't sure if he was trying to glamour me but it was the same look that he had given Damian before he went under. My concern over whether I should trust him or not flashed again but I put it out of my mind. Even if he tried to glamour me he wouldn't be able to, and maybe he just didn't want to be involved in this mess anymore. I couldn't blame him.
A Case of Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Wildes Chronicles Book 1) Page 6