by Vivian Wood
The entrances and exits of the gray market were cleverly hidden in plain sight. Some were actual doorways one walked through, appearing to lead into a house or bar. A human would pass through into the grocery store or apartment lobby, while a member of the Kith would puzzle our and speak aloud the portal’s unique pass phrase, allowing them access to the Market.
Echo wandered down Chartres Street, looking for nothing and something at the same time. That was to say, she wasn’t looking for something in particular, but instead for something that was a bit off or out of place, a hint of magic floating around…
Echo spotted a pristine Bell South phone booth tucked beside a crumbling “shotgun” style home, its rooms laid out in a straight line so that one could see from the front door straight to the back yard. Since it was 2015, Echo was assuming that new phone booths weren’t exactly sitting on every street corner these days. She jogged over to it and slid the door open, swallowing the lump in her throat as she stepped inside.
She slid effortlessly into the gray market, stepping from the phone booth into a dingy alleyway. She looked around and walked down the passage to find herself on one of the market’s main thoroughfares, in the Carré Rouge. This section of the Market was always magically moonlit, as it catered mainly to vampires looking for blood banks, live donors, or brothels… or some combination thereof. The rest of the Market seemed lit by some kind of dim early morning light from an indeterminate source, but in the Carré Rouge it was even darker.
And creepier, in Echo’s opinion.
Echo shivered and beat feet out of the Carré Rouge, holding her breath until she stepped into the main area of The Market. A melee of sights, sounds, and smells assaulted Echo’s senses as she stopped to take in the vast Market. There were perhaps three hundred stalls set up in the main market, crammed into uneven rows. These vendors sold the smaller items, everything from candied apples charmed with love spells to inexpensive pre-made potions to cheap wands and fortunetellers' mirror balls. The main market dealt in trinkets; more advanced practitioners sought their goods beyond the stalls, in the dozen or so blocks of private shops.
Echo skirted the stalls altogether and headed for the far side of the Market, taking in the sights as she walked to Robichaux’s Herbs and Potions. It was quiet in the Market. Early morning in the human world meant that many Kith were asleep, avoiding sunlight or just recovering after keeping late hours. The Market was busiest after midnight, so many shops and stalls didn’t even open until noon or later.
She pushed open the front door, smiling at the familiar tinkle of the bell that alerted Miss Natalie to the presence of visitors. Echo was surprised to find the shop empty; she’d never once stepped into the shop without finding the aged herbalist waiting with a smile and some fresh Kith gossip.
Echo closed the door and looked at the empty desk for a minute, then shrugged. The register desk sat in the middle back of the store, flanked on each side by three towering rows of white wood bookshelves. Each aisle held shelves of plants grouped by family and purpose, the living specimens growing under curved glass bell jars, the dried and powdered products in bottles of every manner and shape. Though the collection was a little overwhelming, the containers were neatly labeled and organized.
Echo found what she was looking for right away, unscrewing the lid of a mason jar and using the tongs inside to pick up a few leaves, then dropping the leaves in a small plastic bag she’d brought in her purse. The leaves she purchased here went bad after less than a week, so she made this trip quite frequently.
“Can I help you, miss?”
Echo Caballero whirled and nearly knocked over several containers on the opposite shelf, all of which seem to contain various types of dried frogs and newts. She cocked her head and looked at the man standing at the end of the aisle, blocking her exit. He looked entirely out of place; for one thing, he was wearing a boxy, dark suit. Not exactly common attire for the sorcerers, priestesses, and Kith vendors that frequented The Gray Market. Beyond that, the man wasn’t Natalie Robichaux, the proprietress of this shop.
“Uhhh, just looking for some Witch’s Cloak,” Echo said, her brow furrowing. She held up the baggie to show that she’d found it.
“Right, right,” the man said. He took a step toward her with a thoughtful look on his face, hands behind his back.
“Where’s Miss Natalie?” Echo asked, her mouth going dry. Something wasn’t right here.
“She stepped out,” the man said without missing a beat. “I’m Amos, her… nephew.”
Echo kept her expression blank, but she wanted to laugh. Miss Natalie was Congolese, her skin dark as the midnight sky. This man’s accent was local, his skin olive-complected but certainly Caucasian. There was very little chance that he was related to Miss Natalie by blood.
Still she hesitated, not wanting to jump to conclusions and put her foot in her mouth.
“I see. Can you ring up my purchase, then? I need to be going,” Echo said.
“Of course,” he said, backing up a few steps and gesturing with one hand for Echo to pass him.
Echo’s heart leapt into her chest as a pale figure flickered to life beside the strange man, a very young former slave girl who Echo had encountered in the shop before. Ada was the girl’s name, if Echo remembered correctly. It had been some time since Ada had last appeared to her. Ada shook her head with displeasure, her dark braids dancing at the movement. She fisted her hands on her hips and gave Echo a stern look.
“Bad, bad man,” Ada said, sliding her eyes to the left to look at the stranger. “He take money. He ain’t no nephew o’ nobody, ma’am.”
Echo bit her lip. The stranger shot her an impatient glance, unaware of the ghost right beside him. This was a perfect example of Echo’s whole life, listening to things most people couldn’t hear, looking like a crazy person. Usually the ghosts weren’t trying to save Echo’s life, though. Usually they were trying to talk to her about their long-dead relatives as she rode the streetcar, or asking her to look after their also-dead pets while she was working her retail job in the French Quarter, a line of impatient customers trailing halfway out the door.
“On second thought…” Echo said. “Do you think you could take me over to the, uh… wolfsbane? On the other side? I need it for a spell, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”
Echo pointed, praying that the guy wouldn’t pick up on her lie. He paused, then shrugged. He turned and moved toward the other side of the shop, and Echo bolted, dropping the baggie of herbs as she ran.
She was out the door before the man realized she’d made a run for it, but he was on her trail in a heartbeat.
“Help!” Echo shouted, her cry bouncing off the mostly-silent street.
One grizzled old woman turned to watch, her dark cloak billowing as she leaned forward on her cane, almost doubling over. The crone produced a silver wand from her coat, but it was too late. The suited stranger grabbed Echo’s elbow and jerked her off the street into another alley, and straight into a closed door.
But it wasn’t a door, of course. It was simply one of the Market’s many surprise exits, and Echo’s attacker shoved her through the portal and into the bright New Orleans sun. She whipped her head around and found herself on the front stoop of a melon-colored shotgun house. Her attacker followed, and Echo ran down the steps, looking desperately about for some kind of help.
Across the street, three massive men were running flat-out toward her. Her brain took in small pieces of the scene, fitting them together slowly: a surly-looking blond man, a dark-haired guy with a concerned grimace on his face, the fact that all three men had weapons. Not just weapons, but guns and swords. In fact, they were also dressed in tactical gear like some kind of SWAT team.
Echo’s mind stumbled over that bit, and she noticed that the final man was reaching for his sword. Only then did she look at him, focus on him alone. Chestnut hair, a striking red beard, broad shoulders, and…
God, those had to be greenest eyes in the world
. Vivid as a jungle canopy, bright as emerald fire, those eyes were boring into hers. Her brain short-circuited, blindsided by the sensation of connection, overcome by the desire to be closer…
When her brain gave out, so did Echo’s feet. Her pursuer, the dark-suited man she’d instantly forgotten, caught her in the next second. He threw his arms around her from behind, squeezing her tightly, and then the whole world blinked out of existence.
“What the hell…” Echo muttered to herself. Her attacker pushed her away, and she had a moment to take in her surroundings.
She stood on an impossibly remote black sand beach, staring down a quarter of uninterrupted coastline. It looked like a Hawaiian beach she’d once seen on the National Geographic channel, but the air here was cool. Damp and salty, but distinctly lacking in warmth. Echo looked up and found that there was no sun in the sky, only a vague sense of light coming from above. Typical in Kith constructs, just like the murky twilight of The Market.
So this was some kind of bolt-hole, a hiding place formed from a pocket between the worlds, somewhere and nowhere at once. She’d heard of them, but never visited one.
The sound of a gun being cocked made her wince. Echo swallowed and turned her head to look at her attacker, who was breathing heavily and looking quite annoyed.
“Why am I here?” she asked.
“Shut up. Give me your purse,” he said, beckoning. “You don’t have any more of that herb shit, do you?”
Echo frowned and handed over her purse, feeling sick to her stomach as she watched him root through it. He confiscated her Swiss army knife and examined the aged hand mirror Echo carried around, perhaps catching a whiff of magic on the mirror. He eyed her once more and dropped the mirror back in her purse, then tossed it to the ground a few feet away.
“You might as well get comfortable,” he said. “It might be a while.”
“What might be a while?” Echo asked, her frustration growing even as her pulse pounded.
“You’ll see.”
They stood on the beach for what felt like ages, Echo looking around at the strange simulated scenery to allay her boredom and tension. Just when she thought she might be on the island eternally, a pair of suited men came into her line of vision with a distinct pop. One was almost identical to her attacker, same black suit and pasty features. The other, though…
The other man was enormous, seven feet tall if he was an inch. He had stately Hispanic coloring, caramel skin and dark hair, coupled with a chilling white grin. He wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo, which suited his immense stature. He turned his gaze on her, and her mouth dropped open when she saw that his eyes were orange.
Not like, hazel with warm tones. Straight up orange, like two balls of fire floating where his eyeballs should be. Echo felt the sudden urge to flee and vomit at the same time, but her idiot brain wouldn’t do anything about it.
“Boss,” her attacker said, turning his attention to the new arrivals.
Echo sort of blanked out for a moment, letting her panic take over. Her hand flew out to knock the gun from her assailant’s hand, startling the group. She flung herself at her purse, managing to flatten herself over the bag while digging the hand mirror out.
“Return,” she whispered as she pressed her fingers to the mirror’s surface, closing her eyes.
For several long beats, she couldn’t bear to look. She rarely used spells of any kind. Rarely used any magic, in truth. It was very possible that her uttered plea hadn’t done anything at all.
She shifted, and noticed that she no longer lay on sand. In fact, she was standing upright, and the sultry air clinging to her skin suggested that she was back in New Orleans. Letting her eyes drift open, she came face to face with the same man she’d noticed earlier, her eyes locking with that endless emerald sea…
Without quite knowing what she was doing, Echo flung herself into the stranger’s arms and proceeded to burst into tears.
3
Chapter Three
Rhys
Wednesday, 10am
“Ah! I’ve got you now, you red-bearded bastard!”
Rhys Macaulay grunted as he adjusted his grip on the hilt of his long sword. His lip pulled back to bare his teeth as his fingers slipped a fraction of an inch, but his sparring partner didn’t miss a beat. Gabriel circled left, his sneakers shrilling against the rubber floor of the Manor’s gymnasium with every movement. Rhys adjusted his grip, but to little avail; he and Gabriel had been practicing for almost two hours, and Rhys’s hands were damp with perspiration.
“You’re keeping your hands dry with magic, ye English prick,” Rhys accused, anger thickening his Scottish brogue to the point that it made him self-conscious.
“I thought you said there were no rules to fighting,” Gabriel shot back, his high-bred London accent grating on Rhys’s nerves. “‘Throw duuurt in their eyes’, you said. ‘Eef the chance comes, kick a maaaan when he’s doon’.”
Rhys huffed at Gabriel’s imitation.
“I dinnae sound like that,” Rhys insisted.
Gabriel chose that moment to strike, using a clever move to knock Rhys’s sword away as he thrust at Rhys’s unprotected ribs. Gabriel stopped his sword’s arc an inch from Rhys’s skin, an impressive move in itself. Rhys had taken great pains to work Gabriel hard in the first few months of their training for that very purpose; it was a fool’s errand to train someone who didn’t have enough control not to hurt their teacher.
“I’d call that a point, wouldn’t you?” Gabriel gave Rhys a cocky grin. Stepping back and lowering his sword, Gabriel pushed a hand through his dark, sweat-slicked curls. Gabriel had come a long way since the day they’d all arrived at the Manor house, his frame filling out after a couple months of intensive daily workouts. He was almost as broad and muscular as Rhys now, but a bit slimmer, which gave Gabriel an extra dose of grace.
“Shut the fuck up, pretty boy.”
Rhys rolled his eyes, pretending to end the match. The second Gabriel’s attention left him, Rhys was on him, sword edge a hair’s breadth from Gabriel’s neck. He forced Gabriel to kneel and drop his sword, his eyes burning with spite.
“Tap out,” Gabriel hissed.
Rhys withdrew and grinned, and after a moment Gabriel gave an exasperated chuckle.
“You honestly cannot stand to lose, can you?” Gabriel asked, accepting Rhys’s hand up.
“That’s not it, Gabriel. I want you to understand that outside this safe little cocoon,” Rhys said, swirling a finger to indicate the Manor grounds, “people don’t fight fair. They fight dirty, because that’s how they win. If they can stop you moving in any way, they've won. Honor be damned.”
Gabriel’s lips twitched once more, and he shrugged.
“Soon,” he said, pointing a finger at Rhys. “We’ve been training together for a year now. I beat Aeric last week, and you are next.”
“In your dreams, lad,” Rhys said, walking to the wall and putting his practice sword on the wall mount.
Gabriel did the same, giving Rhys a skeptical glance.
“I’m four years younger than you,” Gabriel pointed out.
“Yeah, and our lives before the Guardians couldn’t have been more different,” Rhys replied with a shrug. “I was raised as the firstborn son of a Highlander clan chieftain. I had a lot of responsibility from a young age. I was in the lists every day at age seven, training others by age twelve, fighting for the King at twenty two. I always knew I was going to…”
Rhys stopped mid-sentence. Rule my people, had been on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get the words out. His jaw tensed as he considered, for perhaps the thousandth time in the last year, the fact that he was never going to rule anything. He’d sacrificed that right the second he made a deal with Mere Marie.
“Rhys… it’s not 1764 anymore,” Gabriel said, shooting him a half-pitying look that made Rhys’ guts churn. “It’s 2015, and you need to get used to the fact that you’re a Guardian now. A mere worker bee in Mere Marie’s litt
le hive, protecting New Orleans. It’s not like you’re the only one who she’s brought forward a couple hundred years in time to play soldier.”
Rhys’s jaw tensed at Gabriel’s casual tone. It was true enough that Rhys had given up his clan, traded his right to rule for Mere Marie’s assurances that his people would survive and thrive despite a number of looming threats. That didn’t mean that Rhys should forget his whole former life, though, or pretend that he didn’t mourn his choices. Rhys and Gabriel had played out this exact argument a number of times over the past year, learning each other’s quirks and soft spots as they worked to form a cohesive fighting unit.
The third Guardian on their team… well, he was a great fighter, but he was considerably less friendly. Rhys still regarded Aeric, the Viking warrior who’d somehow ended up in their group, as something of a mystery.
“I’m starved,” Gabriel announced, cutting into Rhys’s thoughts. Rhys thought that Gabriel was likely changing the subject in order to stem the flow of Rhys’s morbid thoughts. Rhys knew that Gabriel did so because of their new-found friendship. The two men had found a quiet sort of contentment over the past year, at least more so than they had with Aeric. Aeric was still standoffish and mostly kept to himself.
“All right, all right,” Rhys said, wiping his brow. “I saw Duverjay putting together some sandwiches and we were on our way out here.”
Gabriel and Rhys left the gymnasium and walked outside across the broad green space that made up the Manor’s ill used backyard. They entered the main house and bypassed the living room in favor of the kitchen, where the Manor’s butler Duverjay was setting out several Gatorades atop a bowl of ice. The short Creole man had shown up the first day Rhys arrived at the Manor, ready to serve their needs, but Rhys was pretty sure that Duverjay also reported their every movement back to Mere Marie.