by Nazri Noor
I cried out when the man squeezed even harder, and I swear that time I heard something crack and splinter. I bit back the tears forming in my throat. Big boy, I told myself. Be a big boy, even if it feels like the bridge troll in human clothing just shattered your entire foot.
“I swear,” I said, in my calmest voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Silence. I breathed in careful sips and winced, waiting for the man to crush my bones to powder, when he started to speak again, his voice rolling like distant thunder.
“Then we go to Diaz,” he said.
Now, I hear you. At that point anyone sensible would have agreed on pain of losing an entire foot. For all I knew Diaz was a perfectly lovely person who just wanted to drink tea out of pretty little cups and ask me some very nice questions. But being sensible clearly isn’t my defining trait. You and I wouldn’t be here if that was the case.
“Nice shoes,” I said.
“Huh?” Meathead looked down at his foot, which was already smoldering from the tiny little ember I had stealthily dropped onto his sock. His eyes went huge, and he started stamping out of shock. I concentrated on the ethers, on the little fibers of the sock sheathed over his other foot, and how it would be so nice of them if they too decided to go warm and toasty, and burst into flames. And so they did.
Meathead did a weird little dance, hopping from one shoe to the other, which had the effect of jostling my brain around the inside of my skull. I clamped down and focused, waiting for my opening, and when it was clear that my assailant was no longer looking, I reared my free foot back and kicked the shit out of his jaw.
Not the most elegant of attacks, but the man yowled, stomping his feet and clutching his chin, and dropping me in the process. And as I fell, I held my breath. If I got the timing wrong I’d break my head open like a raw egg. But if I aimed my fall into the pool of shadow beneath me on the asphalt, if I peeled away the veil of our reality, knocked on the door of that old, familiar dimension –
Ah. Cold, and quiet, and filled with gloomy, shapeless mist. I was back in the Dark Room, and never happier to be ambling about in that bizarre, terrible realm. It was odd, perhaps, to continue thinking of my ability as shadowstepping, chiefly because I’d learned to enter the shadows with any part of my body. I guess the bit about moving through the Dark Room on my actual feet still counts, but I digress.
I wanted to reappear just at the end of the alley, at a point where I could still see. Sure, I was more confident about my abilities the more I learned to control them under Carver’s tutelage, but I wasn’t about to shadowstep blind to a further destination. What if I appeared in oncoming traffic?
The shadows of the Dark Room dissipated, and I emerged in the relatively warmer clime of the alley. I looked around, and hah. Perfect. I’d escaped my attacker.
Then something slammed into me with the force of a speeding car, pounding me against the alley’s brick wall. The pain crashed across my back like boiling water, and maybe I heard something crack. I saw stars, and in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help wondering if oncoming traffic would have been a more merciful way to break every bone in my body.
My vision swam back into focus as I struggled against the pressure bearing down against my neck. The pressure turned out to be Meathead’s entire hand wrapped around my throat like a grappling hook made out of solid, frozen beef. Huh. Cold skin. To further express that he wasn’t fucking around, Meathead bared his teeth. Correction. Fangs. I should have guessed he was a vampire.
Why didn’t I just set him on fire, you ask? Hey, baby steps. I couldn’t actually throw fireballs yet, so I improvised like I always did, by starting smaller flames, or sneaking little embers where I could put them. Still, the urge to burn rose in me again as I squirmed in his grasp. Carver once told me that an easy way to quickly diffuse a situation was to set someone’s hair on fire. But this guy was totally bald.
So I focused on his eyelashes.
“You burned my shoes.”
I blinked, distracted. “Sorry?” I looked down at his feet. His footwear was still mostly intact, but the bits around his ankles were somewhat blackened, the ends of his jeans singed. “Hey, let me make it up to you. If you don’t snap my head off, I’ll buy you some new kicks.”
His lips drew back further, exposing the full length of his fangs. I should have been more terrified, but something about those chompers was so familiar. Maybe spending time with Sterling had desensitized me. But Meathead bent closer, and all numbness washed away when I saw his fangs from up close, shining wet and white in the streetlight.
“Can’t replace them,” he muttered. “I took these off a dead man.”
I swallowed thickly. “What about a trade? My shoes for – ”
“Diaz’s jewel. That’s what I need.” His eyes cast downward to look at my feet regardless, and for a brief second I thought I had a chance of trading my shoes for my life. “Plus those are hideous.”
I squirmed, taken aback. “How dare you, sir. I paid twelve whole dollars for these.”
“Salimah. He’s trying to be cute.”
Something – someone, rather, stepped out of the shadows. Long tumbles of black hair, skin deep and dusky, lips painted blood-red. She wore a tight leather jacket, and equally tight jeans. What’s with vampires and leather, seriously? Valero could get chilly at night, sure, but what was wrong with a sensible hoodie, or a nice, fuzzy sweater every now and then? Of course, vampires weren’t affected by the weather, so none of it mattered. Weird perk for people who could be obliterated by sunlight.
The woman called Salimah watched me with a cool, cautious gaze, her arms folded across her chest. She raised her hand, spreading her fingers out, examining finely polished nails that were also painted blood-red. In ways, she reminded me of Layla, a succubus who had once sucked out part of my soul through a terrifyingly sexy and sexily terrifying kiss. But Salimah opened her mouth to speak, and from her fangs I could tell that she was the kind of supernatural creature who didn’t deal in souls. A bloodsucker through and through.
“On any other day, Mr. Graves,” she said, “I would find your cheeky banter amusing. Tonight, however, my patience is short. If you do not start giving us straight answers, my colleague here will be more than happy to rearrange your face.”
I gasped. “Not my face.” Seriously, though. Never the face.
The bald man growled. “Salimah, I swear.”
“Okay, okay, I promise I’ll stop being an asshole.” I threw my hands up, the universal gesture of placation. “Like I told your buddy here, I’ve never heard of Diaz, and I’ve never heard of a jewel.”
Salimah’s eyebrow, shaped very much like a scimitar, raised in a sharp curve. “Then why was a man who looked exactly like you prowling around Nirvana? Why is the Heartstopper missing?”
“Nirvana? And why is the Heartstopper – look, lady, now you’re just making up words. I don’t know about no jewel, and I sure as hell haven’t heard of any Heartstopper. What is it, like an artifact?”
Salimah stared and said nothing. After a tense few seconds, she spoke again.
“Connor. Break one of his fingers.”
Meathead – Connor – smiled wide, far wider than I’d seen him smile all night. I yelped.
“Wait. Wait. What can I do to prove that I wasn’t the guy who stole your whatever it was? What if I – what if I helped you find it?”
Salimah tilted her head, her lips pursed as she considered my proposal. As if I needed to owe these two anything. I needed more vampires in my life like I needed a hole in the head.
“Connor,” Salimah said.
I breathed in relief.
“Break two fingers.”
I struggled harder than ever, the flesh at my throat so much colder from contact with Connor’s fingers, and I turned my head, aching to see if I was casting a shadow against the wall behind me. Could I step into it if I didn’t have the freedom of motion? Hell, could I possibly shadowstep away from the fingers
threatening to crush my windpipe? One way to find out.
But I never did. A streak of silver crashed through the alley, slamming bodily against Connor with a horrible crack. The hand holding me by the throat whizzed away as the vampire was knocked off of me, and I crumpled to the ground, clutching my neck and wheezing for breath. My head spun, looking for where Connor had been thrown. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out who my savior was.
I grimaced. Yes, I like being alive, but no, I don’t like being indebted to Sterling. God, I knew he was going to lord this one over me for days, if not weeks. Months. If I live long enough, years, but seeing as how I couldn’t even set foot outside the hideout for a hamburger without being half-murdered, maybe I’d be dead sooner rather than later.
Sterling growled as he held Connor against the ground, both of his hands clenched against his collar. The best way to describe Sterling was that he was slender, the kind of guy who dressed like he was the lead in a rock band, all piercings and leather and long hair. But as lanky as he looked, there was a reason Carver kept him around. I’d seen Sterling smash through a door as if it were made out of paper.
Salimah stood over the two of them, teeth bared, her upper body pushed forward like she was on the brink of attack, but something in her posture was hesitant. Clearly the two knew each other. Either she and Sterling were evenly matched, or he was her superior. Something about age, the way it worked with mages as well: chances are, the older something is, the more capable it is of breaking your face.
“Keep your fingers off him,” Sterling said, his tone even and warning. It was weird hearing him being protective over me, but hey, I was going to take what I could get.
Salimah huffed, her eyes ripping like daggers in the brief moment that she glared at me. “Does he belong to you?”
For some seconds, Sterling and I locked gazes. If he said yes, then I was off the hook, possibly, but gross. Come on. I wasn’t one of his thralls. Not my kink. But what if he said no?
“He belongs to someone stronger than me,” Sterling said. “You don’t want to mess with that.” He slammed Connor one last time against the ground, then got to his feet, scraping the dust from his knees. “What do you want with this idiot, anyway?”
“Hey,” I said, but Sterling’s glance told me it was best to keep my mouth shut.
“Something belonging to Diaz is missing,” Salimah said. I still had no idea who this Diaz was. “And I was informed that someone who looks very much like your ‘friend’ here was responsible for its disappearance.”
Sterling rolled his eyes. “And you two immediately resorted to violence to handle this?”
“We were only going to scare it out of him. There wasn’t going to be any real violence.” She gave me a longing look. “Well, maybe a quick drink.”
Sterling shook his head. “No more of this shit. I work with this kid. Nothing goes through our territory without me knowing. If he says he didn’t steal it, he didn’t steal it.”
My eyes went wide. Wow. Was Sterling actually being nice to me?
“Plus he couldn’t strategize on his own if his life depended on it. He’s too dumb for that.”
My hero.
“We’ll leave it at that for now,” Salimah said. “But if he comes anywhere close to Nirvana – ”
“Fine,” Sterling barked. “No Nirvana, as long as you remember to course this through me next time.”
Salimah bent to the ground, collecting Connor from his heap. He seemed too dazed to be interested in retaliation just then, but Salimah shot me a last lethal look as they left the alley, one that said I was dead if we ever crossed paths again.
I wasn’t sure if I should thank Sterling, but it seemed the right thing to do. He was already lighting a cigarette. I scratched the back of my neck, staring down the alley after Salimah and Connor.
“I – Sterling – I guess – ”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, looking away and blowing out a thin stream of smoke into the wind. He was doing that thing where he was deliberately turning away, one hand in his pocket, legs stood apart like he really thought he was a hero. God, what a douche.
“You’re lucky I showed up when I did.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Yeah. Lucky.”
He nudged his head towards the alley’s exit, already walking. “Tell me all about what happened. Diaz wouldn’t have sent anyone to bother you without good reason.”
“Well, I was just going for a bite to eat.”
Sterling shook his head. “Story of my life.”
I recounted what happened as I glanced at the time on my phone. The Happy Cow was closed.
Damn it. I just wanted a burger.
Chapter 2
“A ruby in the shape of a teardrop,” Carver said. “Perhaps it is a little oddly named, as the jewel does not actually stop the heart. It preserves a newly deceased body, staving off the ravages of decomposition and rot. Quite useful for vampires, I would imagine. And necromancers. And blood witches.”
So that was what the Heartstopper could do. I knew it wasn’t the exact same thing, but it reminded me of how I’d once been found in a morgue. Through magical means I’d been made to appear so convincingly unliving that actual professionals had declared me dead. It was the entire reason I had to shed my former life and join the arcane underground.
Gil frowned, his eyebrows like caterpillars across his forehead. “So it’s like a magic meat locker? That’s all it does? So why is this Diaz so sensitive about it going missing?”
“Vampires like their treasure, I guess?” I shrugged. “Who knows.”
Sterling scoffed. “Not me. You’re thinking of dragons.”
Asher spoke up before I did, his mouth open. It saved me the trouble of asking what Carver was undoubtedly going to consider a stupid question. “Whoa. There are dragons?”
Against all expectation, Carver smiled and nodded politely. I kept my shock to myself. Holy shit. Dragons?
We were in the hideout. You know, that dimensional chamber that Carver created, the one that was hidden in the back kitchen of a Filipino restaurant out in the Meathook. We were sitting around the hideout’s living room, because yes, we have a living room now.
I’m not one to hold a grudge, but Carver was being awful nice to Asher. Rather, he’d been super nice to Asher since the beginning, and call me crazy, but it felt like he’d gone a little sour on me. Even meaner than before, is what I’m saying.
Carver, my mentor, my employer, and possibly one of the most powerful liches in existence, had done a little sprucing up when Asher joined us. Okay, a lot of sprucing up. I got that he was super stoked to have someone with enormous magical potential to mentor – a necromancer, of all things, a wielder of some of the rarest talents to be found in the arcane world – but Carver was probably spoiling him a little.
The worst thing was that Asher didn’t even have the decency to let it get to his head and start acting like a jerk. There was nothing I could hate him for. He was a good kid, maybe the effect of finally having friends after being locked away by a druidic death cult. I never did ask how long he’d been with them, exactly, but he was eighteen when we found him.
I’d assumed that it was the same main reason he’d been forced to keep his hair grown out, being shut in the same room for ages, but even months after rescuing him from the Viridian Dawn, Asher maintained his luxurious head of black locks. I approved. It suited him, admittedly. It helped him fit in with the young hipsters who littered Valero’s streets.
Sterling approved, too, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that they shared hair tips and products. Asher got along with everyone, even Sterling, of all people. Especially Sterling, who was sprawled across the sofa. The rest of us were in armchairs, because while the sofa could clearly accommodate three people, it had been designated Sterling’s perch from the day it was moved into the hideout. Sterling’s like a cat that way, only meaner, and with bigger teeth.
Gil, our resident werewolf, wa
s perfectly happy with the setup. He was especially grateful about how we had wifi now. How the hell wifi could even penetrate another dimension is an excellent question, but in the short time we spent in the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu’s domicile, I saw her searching for something on a browser on her very small and very cute smart phone.
It seemed that Carver had successfully copied whatever juju she’d mixed up to enable internet access in a magical realm. It made me wonder if there was some high speed internet service provider out there that catered specifically to the arcane market. Don’t laugh, you didn’t know dragons existed until a minute ago either.
And me? I was waiting for the slop in my lap that hardly passed for microwaved beef stroganoff to cool down enough so I could shove it in my face. Mama Rosa, the Filipino restaurant’s proprietor, had gone home for the night, and I was too hungry to order out for a fast food burger. All we had were frozen dinners, which Asher was only too happy to eat. There was also the freezer of raw steaks that made up the bulk of Gil’s diet. He was very generous about sharing them with the rest of us, but I really couldn’t be bothered to cook. So frozen stroganoff it was.
Carver took a sip of his boiling hot coffee, barely flinching as the magma-hot liquid slipped past his lips. I’d warned him so many times that it wasn’t how humans were built, and that he’d have to behave better if he wanted to pass for a mortal when we went out for lattes, but did he ever listen to me?
“Diaz is a blood witch,” Carver said. “He has his reasons for being attached to the Heartstopper. I imagine he uses it to further his research. Perhaps he even enchanted the ruby himself.”
“And I don’t think it’s easy for just anyone to break into Nirvana, but the culprit managed, somehow,” Sterling said. He caught the befuddled look on my face. “Oh. Nirvana’s like a vampire commune, and Diaz is their leader.”
I stared at him, mouth agog. “That’s a thing? What, like a whole nest of them?”
“Living underground. So, sort of like a cave.” Sterling grinned, waggling his eyebrows. “There’s more in common between dragons and vampires than you thought.”