by Ben Reeder
“Maybe. It could be Jane Dearborn. I’m betting the Council heard about your trip to the jail this weekend. That would be enough for Polter to convince them to set a Sentinel to watch your every move. Still, that shouldn’t slow you down much, since you’re not planning on breaking any of the Laws any time this week . . . right?” He gave me the raised eyebrow at the last, and I gave him a shrug to mess with him. He stalked away muttering about me getting him killed.
I needed to ditch the Sentinel to go after the asshole who had threatened my family. Collins was probably going to go orbital when he found out, too. If he found out. I waited until Dr. C was a couple of tables away before I leaned forward over the table and gestured for Lucas to get closer, too.
“Need you to text Donovan. Ask him if he can meet me at Finley Park around three,” I whispered to him. He gave me a grim look.
“Are you sure, dude?” he asked softly, even as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
For a guy like Lucas, who saw his whole future revolving around his GPA, what I was about to do was almost blasphemous. He thought in terms of years. There was a missing girl out there, and her life might only be measured in days. Or even hours. With the Council’s Ordeal to finish by Wednesday, I could relate.
I was going to have to skip class.
Skipping class is easy if you’re a normal kid. If you’re an apprentice mage and you happen to have an illegal neglinom charm you beat up a necromancer to get, it’s a breeze. Skipping class without being caught by a teacher, a Sentinel, and a street-smart cop? That’s a little harder. I had to step into wood shop so my Sentinel saw me go in, then get the neglinom charm on and slip back out without bumping into anyone, and I had to do it before the door closed to start the period. The trick was in the timing.
Once I got out of the class, I still had to make it to Finley Park by three, which meant I had to run. Neglinom charms are good at making you forgettable, but that’s only if you’re not drawing attention to yourself by doing something like running. So, once I was clear of the school building, I made my way across to the stadium and jumped the drainage ditch that ran behind the football field. Once I was on the other side, I slipped the charm off and broke into a jog. Finley was about half a mile from the school, and I made it there only a couple of minutes after three.
Donovan was waiting by the skate park on the east side of the park. Half a dozen skaters were already there in jeans and zippered hoodies, all of them giving the big guy on the motorcycle the wary eye from under their hoods or backwards baseball caps. Me showing up didn’t make them jump for joy, either. Combat boots, jeans, and a leather jacket didn’t fit with any one group, and I wasn’t wearing my hair in any style that said I was a jock or a Goth or whatever. Besides, as I found out on Friday night, I was already getting a rep as the guy who knew magick.
Dr. C had told me once that outside of a very few friends, I’d probably never really fit in anywhere because I was a mage. He’d called it being “distinctly Other.” I didn’t think about things other kids thought about, didn’t talk about what they talked about, and wasn’t interested in the things they were interested in. Even when I ditched seventh period, I wasn’t just hanging out with friends or something fun. No, when I skipped school, I did it to avoid a mage cop and find the guy who’d threatened my family. I shook my head as I realized I lived in a completely different world than the kids around me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said as I walked up.
“No problem, man,” Donovan said. “What’s up?”
“I need to track someone down.” He nodded.
“Lucas told me about Sunday morning,” he told me as he tossed an extra helmet my way.
“Good. Less explaining. Head for my house,” I said as I slipped the plastic bowl over my head.
“Aren’t you gonna catch a lot of crap for this?” He asked a few minutes later as we sped down a side road.
“Only if I don’t make it back in time,” I answered.
He leaned forward and poured on a little more speed. A few minutes later, we were pulling into the alleyway behind my house.
I slid off the back and handed him the helmet, then I knelt down and took my backpack off. From inside it, I pulled my indigo chalk, my athame and boline, and the baggie I’d tucked the handkerchief with Fedora’s blood on it into.
While most seeking spells were supposed to be able to be done from anywhere, I’d always had the best luck when I cast them near the last place what I was looking for had been. Even if it didn’t make sense to anyone else, it made sense to me, and all magic was fueled by the caster’s will. If I believed it would work better this way, it would.
It took a minute or two to draw the casting circle and to get the symbols inside it right. I closed it with a whispered “Circumvare,” and felt the world seem to go silent around me. Really, it was just the absence of all the rest of the background noise against my mystical senses, but my brain told me it got quiet. I held my amethyst over the blood-stained cloth and uttered the spell, willing the connection between my little crystal and the blood beneath it.
“Velle, virtutem quaero, videtur tacta, 1llust tenere!”
As the last word sounded, I felt the power of the spell build, and the pendulum started to move in a slow circle, getting faster with each rotation. After the seventh time, I nudged my boot across the chalk line and broke the circle. The pendulum stopped spinning and leaned to the south-east. I hopped the steps down and crossed the yard at a jog.
“What the hell is that?” Steve asked.
“No time for questions. Game’s afoot and all that!” I called out as I straddled the bike again. I slid the helmet on and held the amethyst out where he could see it. “That way!”
“Straight?” he asked over his shoulder, pointing to the garage we’d have to plow through to follow it.
“That way-ish, then. You know the drill. We follow it until we find it, and hope we do it quick!”
“Your ‘ish’ is my command, sahib,” he quipped before he gunned the throttle and we headed down the alley.
The stone held true as we hit a southbound street, only moving a little to the east as we went. When we saw a sign for the freeway, I pointed it out to him, and he nodded. Less than a minute later, we were on Highway 71 east with the wind in our faces and cars sliding by on our right as he took over the fast lane. I had to lean back and cup the pendulum in my hand between his back and my body to keep it from getting blown all over the place.
The pendulum started to swing south, and I tapped Steve’s shoulder when it got close to pointing all the way to my right. He yelled something into the wind and the bike leaned to the right. Three lanes of asphalt slid by under us, and I fought to keep my cool as he cut across the path of a semi with only a few feet to spare. We hit the off ramp at speed, and I felt myself slide forward on the seat as he braked hard. The front of the bike dipped down as we slowed down, and I pointed to the right. The light was green, so he took the turn without stopping, and we headed down Republic Avenue. The pendulum swung to the left as we went, until it was pointing across the fifth red light we came to at a club called Inferno.
“Jackpot,” I muttered as it swung to keep Inferno on point as Steve crossed through the intersection. I pointed at the club, and he nodded, then circled around until we were turning into the parking lot.
Inferno was all white concrete and glass in front, with a neon marquis. The club’s name in flaming letters showed on the sign, then spun away to show that the club was closed for renovation until Thursday. It dropped to announce Love In Chains was playing Friday, opening for Personal AntiChrist. Then it came back to the Inferno logo.
“Ego sum inter illustrator,” I whispered as I got off the bike and pulled my helmet off. I am among the enlightened.
A series of vampiric glyphs flared to life above the doorway. I could recognize vampire glyphs, but I only knew the meanings of a few of them. The two I did understand were e
nough to make my blood turn cold. The first one was common to any territory claimed by a clan of vamps, basically saying, “This is our feeding ground, don’t hunt here.” The second one was a cabal mark, and it was one I recognized.
“What is it?” Steve asked as I hissed a curse. He’d come to stand beside me while I was staring at the glyphs.
“This just got complicated,” I told him. “This is a vampire clan’s feeding ground. Which means the messenger boy we followed here works for one of Lord Thraxus’ minions.”
“Which means exactly what?” Steve asked. He turned to face me, and his eyes flicked to the marquis. I gave him a hard look.
“Which means we can’t just go in there and start with the smackdown like I want to. Not unless we want every vamp in the city after us with sanction to drain us dry.”
“There’s evil in there, Chance, I can feel it. It’s like a thousand ants on my skin. I’ve never felt it this bad before. We can’t just walk away from this.” His jaw set and his eyebrows settled like thunderclouds.
“Steve, we have to. As much as I want to go in there and shed the light of day on every single one of these bloodsuckers, we can’t. You have to understand how sanguinary politics works. This guy isn’t far down the ladder from Thraxus, maybe a lieutenant or even a trusted lieutenant, depending on how literal you take the Evil Overlord list. And I’m in the know, uh, inter 1llustrate. Which means I can read the glyphs over the door and I know who this guy answers to. If I do that, then Thraxus has to hit me back hard.”
“I know the risks, Chance,” he said. “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
“No, you don’t. If the lord of a cabal comes after you, you’re the last person he kills. He starts with your friends, then he kills your family. Painfully and slowly, and he makes sure you know it was all your fault. If he’s feeling generous, they’ll stay dead. Then he comes for you, when he’s sure you know everyone you ever cared about is dead because of you. If he does anything less than end your bloodline, it looks like he can’t take care of his own people, and that makes him look weak. Then he has to worry about waking up with a stake through his ribs, or at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in a coffin full of concrete. You may not give a shit about your family, but I have a mom and a sister I’ve already put in harm’s way. So help me if you put them in danger, I will kill you so hard your own mother will forget she ever had you.”
I looked up at him and felt the pull of a Horus gaze about to begin as our eyes locked. I resisted it, but I could see that he had glimpsed something in my eyes. He looked away for a second, then backed up. He may have had six inches and the better part of a hundred pounds on me, but there was no way I was backing down.
“All right, we play it your way. But for the record, I won’t play by their rules forever.” He got on the bike and tossed my helmet at me. “A man has to take a stand somewhere.”
I stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“We’re not playing by their rules,” I told him. “They’re playing by ours.”
***
“He went where?” Dr. C asked. He had that barely calm tone to his voice that Mom’s sometimes had when she was trying her best not to freak out. He leaned back in the leather chair and looked at me from across his desk like he was trying to stare through me.
Behind me, I could hear Cross and T-Bone suppressing chuckles. As amused as they were, I was so busted.
“Inferno,” Cross rumbled after a few seconds. “It’s a vampire-run club just off Republic. They use it mostly as a blood tap. Not a bad source of revenue, either.”
“Why?” he asked me directly, the first words he’d spoken to me since we’d gotten back to his place and found Cross and T-Bone waiting for us.
“I was following the guy who attacked mom and Dee,” I told him. “I was testing a theory.”
“Don’t try that with me, Chance. You’re already on thin ice with the Council, and sneaking off isn’t going to help at all. Besides, if your theory is correct, this had nothing to do with the Maxilla.”
“Somethin’ tells me it does,” T-Bone said. “Or at least, it’s got somethin’ to do with the wyrd. Kid might have gone off the rez, but every divination we did said he was doin’ what he was supposed to.”
“You should have come to me, Chance,” Dr. C shook his head. “I can’t help you if you won’t let me. And you put yourself in a great deal of danger. Do you know who owns Inferno?”
“Thraxus.” I smiled at the reaction the word got out of Dr. C; the frown on his face turned into an eyebrow-raising look of surprise.
Behind me, I heard T-Bone give a satisfied little grunt. Cross swore softly under his breath.
“I keep forgetting who you spent the bulk of your childhood with,” Dr. C said quietly. “I should have realized you’d know that.”
“Yeah, and there’s more. Thraxus has a pet demon, Furcas the Impaler.”
“How’d he manage that?” Cross asked. I shrugged.
“Just that badass, I guess. Neither one of them talks about it. Still, Dr. C, I have to go talk to Thraxus. One of his people threatened my family. If I don’t at least show up and make some noise about it, he’ll do something worse next time. At the very least, I need to figure out why he sent Darth Fedora to talk to me.” I put my hands on his desk and leaned in. “Please, Dr. C. I’m going to go do it whether you say I can or not. I just don’t want to waste time sneaking out of the house is all.”
He leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk, and steepled his fingers so that he was looking at me over the tips of his fingers.
“Exactly how likely is he to put you on the menu?” he asked after a few moments.
“Not very, since you know where I’m going. If I take someone else along, the chances of him having me for dinner drop a lot more. Harder to explain two missing people. I’d take those two,” I pointed over my shoulder, “but he wouldn’t let them inside. Same goes for you. But I think I know who I can take that will keep him on his best behavior.”
Chapter 12
~ Lie. Cheat. Threaten. Intimidate. All of those things are accepted, even encouraged, among the vampyri. But never steal, and never bluff. ~ Killian Moon, monster hunter
Two hours later, I found myself standing in front of the very big, very old mansion that everyone thought belonged to a very rich man named Cassius Cromwell. On paper, they were right, but Cromwell was Thraxus’ White Mask: his legal presence in the world. Everything Cromwell was, he owed to Thraxus, including his long life. I’d never been inside Chateau Thraxus, but rumor had it that the place had been built in the early 1800s. There was supposed to be a grand ballroom in there somewhere, and a theater complete with projector booth. Under the moonlight, the beige limestone was more of a pale gray, with squares of light peeking through the façade.
I’d ridden out on the back of Steve’s bike, with T-Bone and Cross following us. Donovan fidgeted as we waited for the third person in my little adventure to show. I figured he could feel the evil that lurked inside the Cromwell Mansion from the road, and taking him inside was going to be tough on him. But he was one of two people I knew who would stand a good chance of getting out alive if things went to Hell.
I smiled as I heard the throaty buzz of Shade’s Ninja a few seconds before I caught sight of her headlight coming around the corner. Then another sound intruded, a rumbling growl from a bigger engine, and I saw another headlight behind her. She pulled in behind T-Bone’s Torino, and the bike behind her followed suit.
“Nice Harley,” Steve said in open admiration.
I was about to say something when Deek pulled his helmet off and stood there like a hero in an action film. While he stood posing for effect, Shade came up to me with a frown marring her brow. She reached up with her left hand and pulled her hair away from the right side of her neck and pulled the collar of her shirt aside with her right hand. With a dark look back at Deek, she tilted her head to the side in invitation. As much as I wanted to repeat wh
at we did during lunch, I hesitated.
“Please?” she whispered.
She gave me a sultry smile and I gave in to the urge. As my teeth clamped down on her soft white skin, she gave a soft moan and arched her back a little to press against me. I let go a lot faster this time; she stepped back with her eyes closed and sighed softly. When she opened them, they were gold.
Behind her, Deek was glaring daggers at me. Great, on top of going in to a vampire’s lair, I had a pissed-off beta to deal with.
“What’s he doing here?” I demanded.
Shade looked over her shoulder at him, then gave me a smile.
“Pouting,” she said. “He followed me on his own, Chance. He’s not part of the Pack, so I really can’t tell him what to do.” Deek came up behind her and glared at me over her shoulder.
“Right. I so needed this night to get more complicated.”
“Back off and things’ll go a lot smoother for you,” Deek said. He went to put a hand on her shoulder, and she shrugged it off.
“Go home, and things’ll stay attached,” Shade growled. He gave her a frosty smile and stepped around her.
“You can’t tell me what to do, and neither can he. I can smell vampires in that house, and I’m not letting him take you in there on his own. I’m going with you. Deal with it.”
He turned and gave me a level look. The problem was, he had me and he knew it. The mystical world lived by its honor, and if he was Shade’s guest, she couldn’t do anything to stop him. And unless I wanted a bunch of Weres pissed at me, I couldn’t either. All he lost by acting like an ass was another invitation.
“It works to your favor by taking him with you,” Cross said quietly from behind me. “If they eat him, it might look bad for Shade, but it also risks war with a second Pack. Thraxus is powerful, but he’s not a fool. He won’t risk making that many enemies at once.”
I glared over my shoulder at him, then turned back to face Deek.
“Fine, you can come,” I spat. “Once we’re inside, this is my show. You do exactly what I tell you to do. First off, vamps are big on hospitality. Just by going in, we’re agreeing to the courtesies of the Accords. That means we’re nice to our hosts. They’re also big on debt. Gifts are never just gifts. If we eat or drink anything they offer us, we give them the right to feed on us. If they give us something, and we accept it, we have to offer something in return. You can turn something down, but you have to do it the right way. Leave that to me.”