“I would like to open the auction tonight with this precious little heirloom,” Giovanni said, “This bracelet was forged over a century ago, by an artificer with the ability to fuse emotion with metal to create artifacts that could either instill, or dilute them at will. When the artificer was killed, his soul is said to have found its way into the bracelet, and now his spirit resides within. The bidding shall commence at thirty thousand pounds.”
Numbered panels started going up around the room, and with each raising of a hand, so too did Giovanni increase the total bid. Thirty-five thousand. Forty thousand. Sixty thousand. Seventy thousand. He slammed the gavel at ninety thousand pounds with a loud clack, and announced number six as the winner of the night’s opening auction.
Another round of applause followed, as the sound filled the room, the Asian woman brought a second item to the stage. Bidding commenced again a moment later, and while this was going on, I was working on a way to talk to Mason without getting caught. Though tricky considering we were in a room full of mages and demons, each who could have detected my use of magic the moment I summoned it, I reached out to him with my mind and created a telepathic bridge with which to speak directly into his mind and hear his directed thoughts in return.
“Mace, you need to bid on something.”
There was a pause, a delay maybe while Mason reacquainted himself with the practicality of talking to me in this way. We’d done it before, after all. “Why?” he asked, his voice finally coming through as if whispered in my ear, “That’ll just lower my funds.”
“Don’t bid aggressively, just bid on something. People are watching.”
Mason didn’t reply, but he had understood the instruction. Levi leaned a little closer to me. “When do you think the book will come out?” he asked.
“I don’t know… but an item like that, it’ll probably be one of the last lots of the night, if not the last.”
“I haven’t been able to get into the list of lots,” Morpheus said through the comms, “I don’t even think one exists, so, I can’t tell you. You’re gonna have to just wait it out.”
I didn’t reply, didn’t speak unless I absolutely had to, but I knew Morpheus was watching so I nodded slightly at the nearest camera. Ivy and Tank took a second to check in, letting me know all was clear on the outside, they were still alone where they were, and there didn’t seem to be any strange movement going on. She said she’d keep me posted if anything changed.
It was at this point that my heart started to speed up. The fullness of the situation, the weight of it, had just hit me. Here we were, a team of mages scattered at the heart of enemy territory, trying to work together to prevent a great atrocity from happening. The penalty for failure, of even one slip, wasn’t just our deaths, but the deaths of hundreds, thousands, at the hands of the many, many demons who would be allowed to run free in less than a week’s time if we didn’t take the book with us.
But then, there were already a lot of demons in here. Even with my dull senses I could count maybe eight, nine? No, twelve. Twelve demons, in a room of around thirty, maybe thirty-five. That percentage was huge, the ratio of mages to demons was completely off. There was, in fact, one sitting right next to Levi; a bald man, with neck tattoos peering out of the collar of his shirt and metal studs in his lips. Every once in a while, I caught him grinning—almost slavering—though at what, I couldn’t tell.
Demons are fucked up.
Then it happened. The woman walked onto the stage holding another pillow, on which sat a small, black book. “Eyes up,” I whispered into the comms, as a slight murmur trembled through the room.
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” Giovanni said, “Is an item that has seen a great, many things. If it could tell stories, this book would speak of death, and desire. It would talk of lust, and need, but also love, for if the story is to be believed, the person who wrote the book did so with the utmost care to ensure the book would never so much as receive a scratch. But you are not here for its aesthetic appeal, are you?”
His words were met with light laughter. “I want you to wait to bid,” I said into the comms. The demon at Levi’s left turned his eyes on me, and my heart started to pound. I pretended to be clearing my throat, and that seemed to convince the demon enough that he gave his attention to the stage again, but it had left me shaking, and not wanting to speak again. I hoped Mason understood what he had to do.
“—a Grimoire is a powerful thing,” Giovanni continued speaking; had been speaking this entire time, I just hadn’t been listening, “This Grimoire in particular, is a prince among others of its kind; the Devil’s Notebook. Do you have the desire to acquire it? The want? We shall begin the bid at one-million pounds.”
One-million? Jesus. I wasn’t sure how much money Mason had access to, but considering the opening bid was that steep, it would have to be millions, probably.
A panel immediately went up somewhere to my right. “Two-million,” Giovanni said. Another hand. “Three-million… four-million, five-million.” Mason’s panel went up. “I see six-million, do I hear seven?” Cerberus’ panel went up, then Mason’s, then another, then Cerberus. In the end, it was like watching a tennis match between three players, only the stakes in the game had risen to over twenty-million pounds; an amount of money I couldn’t wrap my brain around—and Mason was meeting the bid.
The third player dropped out of the race at thirty, leaving the bidding war happening only between Mason and Cerberus for a little while longer. The bid moved up to thirty-five, thirty-six, and I thought Mason was going to tap out, but he met the bid, Giovanni slammed the gavel, and my heart caught in my throat. He had won it.
Thirty-six-million pounds.
When the auctioneer announced the book would be going to Mason, the room came alive with applause. Mason smiled, humbly, and nodded at the auctioneer, but he wasn’t given the item immediately. That would happen at the end, after all bids had been collected, and information had been swapped. Right now, all that was left was to wait until the event was over; then we could collect the book, and get the hell out of here.
“Awesome job,” Morpheus said through the comms, “I can’t believe the other guy backed down!”
“Fuck yes,” Ivy said, “Fuck yes, fuck yes! Now grab that thing and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Agreed,” I whispered, “Mace, we’re going to roll out. Meet us by the—”
Giovanni smacked his gavel once, grabbing the crowd’s attention and shutting me up. Talking through the microphone on me was easy when others were talking, but now it was dead silent. “We have now come to the end of the auction segment of our evening,” Giovanni said, “But before we close proceedings, we do have one more item to auction.”
For the final time, the woman who had been bringing items out from a side room returned to the stage carrying a velvet pillow; on it, a little brown book. My heart started to pound with such ferocity that I could feel it beating against my fingertips, my temples. No. No way. She set the pillow down on the plinth just as the previous pillow, the one with the book Mason had just bought, was removed. Another ripple of voices moved through the crowd.
“Is that what I think it is?” Mason asked, speaking into my mind.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Because that book looks pretty similar to the one I just paid through the nose for.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
Levi looked over at me. The grave expression on his face told me everything I needed to know, all of his concerns, but he couldn’t speak—not with the demon sitting next to him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Giovanni said, “If you were disappointed at having lost the bid for the Devil’s Notebook, here is your second chance. While this is not the Devil’s Notebook, this Grimoire contains the same variant of the spell necessary to open the doors to the prison dimension many of our demonic friends are so unjustly being held in, as well as a few other spells, of course...”
This was
met with a roaring round of applause, which Giovanni was happy to allow to continue for a few seconds at least.
“Hailey,” Mason said, “What do we do?”
“I don’t know…”
“I’m out of money. Like, seriously flat-broke.”
“We have to do something. We can’t just let it go!”
The others were talking through the comms, trying to figure out what my plan was, but I couldn’t hear them, and didn’t reply. Their voices had turned to inaudible static in my ears, a hiss rising slightly over the sound of my heart beating against my chest. The bidding started at one-million, as before, and right away someone’s panel went up, then another, then Cerberus’, then back to the first.
I tried to figure out how much of a dash it would be to get to the book from where I was; maybe I’d need about five seconds to get there, another second to snatch the book, and another five to book it out of the room. Thirteen seconds, in a room full of mages and demons who weren’t just going to let me take the thing they were bidding on, not without a fight. The word strawberry burned on my lips, but even if I said it, how long would it take Tank and Ivy to make it to where I was? Thirty seconds, at least. The bidding would be over by then, and the book would be back in the hands of the organizers, likely tucked away out of sight.
Options were limited, time was limited, coordination abilities minimal; it was up to me.
I raised my panel.
“Ten-million pounds!” Giovanni called out.
Levi’s eyes went wide and sucked in a panicked breath. “What the fuck?” he whispered.
“I second that question,” Morpheus said, his voice coming through my ear, “Hailey, what are you doing?”
I didn’t reply, raising my panel up again when my bid was beaten.
“May I remind you we don’t have the money to pay for this?” Mason’s voice, beaming directly into my head.
“I need everyone to just be quiet,” I replied, though only in my mind.
Cerberus’ panel went up, a bid of fifteen-million pounds. I raised my panel to counter, bringing the price to seventeen-million. Heart pounding, now, palms sweaty. I turned to look at him, eyes locking with his, and he did the same, staring at me from where he was sitting, surrounded by his entourage.
He raised his panel when Giovanni called out for another bet, and I mirrored his movements, immediately going above his bid. Our tennis match continued, the bid going up and over twenty-million, twenty-two, twenty-six. Giovanni kept calling out for a bid of twenty-seven, asking if anyone was willing to bid higher than that. Cerberus raised a hand. “To the young lady matching my bids,” he said, his voice smooth, and soft, like the velvet pillow that smothers you in your sleep, “I want to thank you for the entertainment, but I will not leave without one of these books. Forty-million pounds.”
“Very good!” Giovanni said, “Going once, going twice—”
The seconds ticked away as, now doubting this course of action, I hesitated. What happens when I win the bid and I can’t pay up? What happens when I have to maintain the façade that I am, in fact, Delilah? Standing up to casual scrutiny was easy, but I didn’t think I’d be able to fool the auctioneer, and definitely not Cerberus.
I was about to raise my panel again when Mason yelled at me to stop through our telepathic link, his voice loud enough to physically stop me from going any further. Not only that, it made me realize that I couldn’t go any further. The gavel snapped, and my attention snapped with it; I’d lost the bid.
My eyes darted around the room as applause began to ring out. “Hailey?” Morpheus called through the comms, “Hailey, what are we going to do now? Hailey!”
Levi took my hand and stood, taking me with him. Together we walked along the aisle toward the back of the auction hall. Mason, however, stayed where he was. He had no choice; he’d just won a bid, and he needed to make sure he got what he had paid for; what we had come here for. But we didn’t get as far as the door.
Cerberus stood from his spot and intercepted us, standing before us like the guardian to an ancient tomb we were about to steal from. “My dear,” he said, “Not staying for the after party?”
“I have another thing to get to tonight,” I said, putting on my best British accent, catching the surprised look on Levi’s face.
“Do you, now? Well, that’s a shame. I would have liked to have gotten to know you… something about you seems… familiar.”
He narrowed his eyes, and already I could feel his psychic tendrils reaching out to me, trying to wrap themselves around my mind. I knew what he was going to do; he was going to try and pry my brain open, read my thoughts, maybe even plunge into the depths of my memories and go looking for… something… anything he could use against me. My instincts kicked in, though, like an immune system detecting the intrusion of a virus, and I threw up a wall of psychic power, encasing my mind in a castle of magic.
It kept his initial attempts at breaking in from succeeding, but also forced me to play my hand; he knew I was a Warlock, now, and a good one.
“Well, well, formidable and beautiful,” he said, “Forgive me, but I would be remiss if I let you leave without asking for a few moments of your time.”
I watched him carefully, and in that moment I thought, and analyzed, and calculated. Mason was already on the move, on his way to collect his purchase. Cerberus, however, was here right now, and as long as he was here, he wouldn’t have the other book in his possession, which meant there was a chance for us to—somehow—grab it before it got to him, as crazy as that sounded.
“You know,” I said to Levi, “I think I will hang back for a second. Are you gonna be okay to wait for me downstairs?”
Levi glared at Cerberus, then turned to look at me. He let his hand rest on my hip, leaned close, and out of nowhere, he pulled me toward him, and then kissed me. I felt myself melt against his touch, his lips, everything was fire, and light, and soundless static. My eyes were shut, fallen against the might of the moment, the bliss. I couldn’t remember the last time I had bee kissed like this, the last time I had felt electricity all the way to the tips of my toes, how my chest had felt like it was full of feathers.
My eyes opened slowly after the kiss finally broke, as if I had been waking up from a deep sleep. “Don’t do anything crazy,” he whispered against my lips.
“I won’t,” I replied, when my ability to speak returned.
Levi straightened up, smiled at me, grinned at Cerberus. “Sure,” he said, “I’ll wait for you outside,” and then he headed out, maintaining the masquerade, but leaving me alone with this powerful, unknown Warlock.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“He’s a lucky man, to have found a catch like you,” Cerberus said.
“Is he, now? And why is that?”
“Because I can tell you are a formidable woman. Fierce, capable, strong.”
“You’re just a charmer, aren’t you?”
“My apologies if I spoke out of turn, I let my heart speak up before my mind has had a chance to censor it. Often that gets me into trouble; I hope I’m not in any right now.”
“Let’s give it a couple of minutes and see how it goes.”
“A couple of minutes is all I need. You see, I make it a point of knowing everyone, and I’m afraid I don’t know you.”
“That’s interesting, because I make it a point of not being known.”
“Ah, I see. Knowledge is power, yes?”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Power is power, and power is a ladder. Knowledge is only one of the rungs a person has to climb to take it.”
His eyes narrowed to fine points again, sparkling against the light in the hall. “I must apologize again, I hadn’t expected you to think like that.”
“Maybe don’t judge someone at face value, next time.”
“Perhaps I should ask you to do the same, Miss…”
“Persephone,” I said, without skipping a beat.
His head tilted. “Persephone…” he said, the
word hanging in the air. I wasn’t sure if he’d bought it. “That is indeed a lovely name. Not your real name, of course?”
“Did your parents name you Cerberus when you fell out of the womb?”
The muscles in his jaw clenched momentarily, but then he smiled. “No, they did not.”
“Well, then, Cerberus; what is it I can do for you?”
“Not to sound crass, my dear, but we were just engaged in quite the repartee, were we not? I can tell simply by looking at you that you are a powerful young woman, and after our interactions I can deduce you are also a wealthy one. Yet, you are a newcomer to the scene, and your interest in this event, and in the Grimoire upon which we so feverishly bid, makes me curious.”
“Do you make it a point to interrogate everyone you don’t know?”
“Only the ones who catch my eye. The others get a passing how do you do.”
“That makes me feel pretty special, then.”
“It warms my heart to hear that—”
One of Cerberus’ entourage came up to him and whispered into his ear. I took the opportunity to scan for Mason, but he was gone. Levi, also, was gone. I really was alone here. When Cerberus had been told whatever he needed to be told, he dismissed his aide with a wave of his hand, and then turned his attention on me again, smiling politely as if he’d caused me some inconvenience.
“I am told it is time for me to collect my new purchase,” he said, “Would you like to accompany me? Seeing as you are so interested in it, I thought perhaps you could enjoy it with me, if briefly.”
Don’t do anything stupid. Those had been Levi’s words, and they came up now, rushing to the forefront of my thoughts. I knew Cerberus couldn’t hear them, he couldn’t hear anything I was thinking, not as long as the castle walls surrounding my mind were up, but he could probably see the instant of indecision on my face. Going with him meant heading deeper into the belly of the beast, but all I needed was a moment, an instant where the attention wasn’t on me, and then I could grab the book and bolt. It was risky, but what choice did I have?
Mages and Masquerades: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Magic Blood: The Warlock Book 2) Page 13