by Jayne Hawke
The interior of the sewers was more of the same that I’d already seen. Elijah was leaning on his natural shifter night sight, and I’d woven starlight to give myself the same night sight. The view really wasn’t much. I couldn’t understand why tourists paid to go on tours down there. It was old crumbling red brick arching around us in tunnels which varied from less than arms’ width through to able to drive a bus down there.
There were a couple of small vaults which could have been cool to screw someone in, if you were into that sort of thing. Personally, I preferred not to worry about a rat biting my ass during sex, but people are into all sorts of shit. We were walking in complete silence with the damp air pressing around us while we tried to be methodical in our progress.
I knew that there were groups that spent a lot of time down there. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find people living there as well. The tunnels were dry, easy to get lost in, and gave you access to all parts of the city. If you didn’t mind not seeing daylight, then it might not be too horrendous. Personally, I’d miss the light far too much. That, and the comforts of a real bed, ice cream, and the other little things.
We paused when I heard footsteps up ahead. One set. I hoped it was the guy who’d disappeared into the tunnels like something out of a movie. We picked up the pace, still moving silently as we turned a corner and saw someone I recognised.
“Oli, come here and give me some information,” I called out.
Oliver was a smuggler who owed me. I’d helped him reclaim a few items a couple of years ago. It had helped him build his business and secure his position within the underground.
The tall older man with a shock of dark brown hair slowly turned to face us with a big fake smile.
“Lily, darling, how have you been?”
“Cut the shit and tell us all about the groups that hang out down here,” I said as I strode up to him.
His eyes flicked between Elijah and me.
“Don’t clam up on me now. You owe me, remember?”
He sighed and crossed his arms.
“Which groups exactly?”
“Surprise me.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Come on, Lily, that’ll take hours. Give me a break, here.”
He looked like he’d been living a good life. His skin had a faint glow to it and his hair might have been glossier than mine. The clothes he’d worn down into the sewers were good quality, too, expensive jeans and a shirt with magical protection woven in. He definitely owed me.
“Cults. Jaguar guardians. Anyone dealing with shadow,” I said.
“Cult? That one I can do. There’s some weird ass group who dance all the freakin’ time. They play this heavy music and dance to it for hours at a time. It’s always the same dance. Over and over, with a faraway look on their faces. I haven’t heard any chanting or found any signs of sacrifices. I haven’t looked, though, so who knows what they’ve got hidden away?”
“Where do we find them?” Elijah asked.
Oliver shrugged.
“They move around a lot. Listen for the heavy music.”
“You’ve got to do better than that, Oli...” I pressed.
He put his hands up.
“I’m just a simple smuggler. I deal in paintings, a few gems here and there, maybe the odd teapot, but I do not go anywhere near cults. They’re bad business.”
“What about the jaguar guardians, what do you know about them?”
“Not seen them. Don’t want to. I heard they’re scary assholes, the kind of thing that gives you nightmares for months afterwards.”
“Who else can we talk to?” Elijah asked.
“No one’s going to talk,” Oliver said.
“That’s not what we want to hear, Oli,” I said.
“I’m just being honest, here, Lily. You know how this all works. We watch each other’s backs until someone stabs us in that very same back. You’re not one of us. I could be skinned for telling you as much I have.”
“You’re quick on your feet. I’m sure you can avoid a few stabbings. Tell us what else you know,” I said.
He dragged his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t know. There’s another weird group. I thought they were smugglers at first, but their magic is weird. It doesn’t have the smooth flare of fae, it’s all hodgepodge.”
“Witch? God?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m just some lowly smuggler.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You know every possible type of saleable magic there is. Stop lying to me.”
“Fine. It’d god magic, but it comes and goes. There’s quite a few of them; they seem really scared of their leader, though.”
“Tell us about this leader,” Elijah demanded.
“I don’t know. He’s a scary dude. No one’s been able to get close to this group. They come and go too fast, and they avoid everyone else down here like we have the plague.”
“At least give us a direction to head in to find where this cult was last seen,” I said.
Oliver’s jaw clenched, but he pointed in the direction ahead of us.
“Take the second left, keep going past three junctions, there’s a big open room down there.”
“Thanks, Oli, it’s nice to know you can be helpful.”
That was all we were going to get out of him. He wasn’t shutting us out, and there was a chance he’d have more information for us in the future. I didn’t want to risk losing him as a contact entirely.
Thirty-Two
We were once again walking in silence through miles of old red brick tunnels. Every now and again I swore I caught a whisper, or a footstep, but I couldn’t pinpoint it quickly enough to act on it. There were far more turns and junctions than I’d realised, which provided lots of opportunities for people to disappear. I should probably have made more of an effort to learn my way around down there.
Thankfully, I’d had the good sense to leave magical breadcrumbs for us. They were small and carefully woven into the bricks so they wouldn’t draw attention.
Oliver hadn’t lied about there being a large open room, which was something. I’d expected more of the same barren worthlessness that we’d been dealing with for what felt like days. The room was covered in weird paintings, though. Nothing you’d put in a gallery, no, they were crude, as though they’d been painted with fingers instead of brushes. Mostly, they were in a brilliant white that almost seemed to glow.
The shapes were smooth with lots of circles and waves. I stood there trying to make some sense of it. Elijah pointed at the largest of the paintings, a mass of wavy lines around a large oval. It was painted in that striking white with smaller grey and red lines dotted throughout.
“I think this is a big storm.”
“I don’t know how storms work. Could these be air moving into the storm and helping it grow?” I asked, pointing.
Elijah cocked his head slightly and at them.
“I think it’s telling a story. Huracan gathered up the winds, which raged across the lands.” He pointed to wavy bits interspersed with some points nearer to the floor. “See, that looks like mountains and a forest.”
Reaching out with my magical senses, I checked if there was any sign of a ritual or ceremony tied into this art. I couldn’t feel anything there, not even something to brighten the white of the paint.
“So they’re just telling the story of the storm in the pot?”
“I believe so.”
Frowning, I looked around for something more useful. Something that would tell us where the damn pot was.
“Why are they still holding onto the pot? Huracan is the god of storms. Surely they’re not waiting for a moon phase or something?” I asked.
“That’s a very good question. There must be something they’re waiting on.”
“They’ll need somewhere safe to hide, too. That thing is a wild storm; Huracan won’t be guiding it - at least that’s how Seth made it sound - so they’ll need to set it loose somewhere
they can be safe and hidden.”
“The sewers fit that bill beautifully,” he said, pausing before adding, “assuming they don’t flood.”
Elijah had tried to track the cultists using his sense of smell, enhanced greatly by the wolf side of his shifter magic. He got nothing useable. There was too much other stuff. And it looked like they’d moved on a few days ago.
We set off deeper into the tunnels to see if we could find something more, and after another long slog we found ourselves stopping. Someone was whispering nearby. The odd accents sounded like the jaguar guardians. We finally had something we could work with.
“Seth’s trouble, and you know it. We need to hunt him down before it’s too late,” the first guardian said.
“He has that witch and her pack working for him. They’re causing problems,” the second said.
Elijah and I were creeping closer to where we thought we heard the conversation coming from.
“It won’t be much longer before he makes his move. There will be no going back once he has,” the first said.
“What do you suggest? He’s proven to be far more difficult than we anticipated.”
The conversation stopped abruptly, and I felt the familiar shiver of shadow magic. They’d just shadow walked somewhere, leaving us with nothing that we didn’t already know.
“They said that time’s running out. Does that mean their goddess is coming to the city?” I asked.
“Perhaps. If she’s fallen, word wouldn’t spread, as they meander through the territories much like a witch, assuming they’re careful,” Elijah said.
Fallen gods were still powerful enough to be able to inflict a lot of pain and damage. Realistically, there was very likely a fallen somewhere in Brighton already. That didn’t mean that I liked the idea of another one walking the streets. I didn’t have anything against them, per se, I just didn’t want something with that much magic ready to cause a fight. Things would get bad. Fast.
I rubbed my temples.
“So we have confirmation that the cult is down here, and they’re moving around a lot. They dance a heap, they have paintings about a storm, and their leader is really scary,” I said.
“Seth all but said that the other jaguars were involved with this cult. And someone with a lot of pull must be leading them to keep them as hidden as they are. You have to admit that the way no one will talk to us is very strange.”
It was. We needed a new tactic, a breakthrough, something. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the clock was ticking, but I had no idea when our time was up.
The pack had headed out on a run. Everyone needed to clear their head and get a fresh take on this situation. There had to be someone that I could get some information out of somewhere. I headed down into the Narrows while the pack was running. The buildings towered up around me as though grasping at the stars overhead. It was a beautiful clear night, perfect for refilling my starlight supplies.
Running my tongue over my teeth, I wondered if perhaps a small fragment of fae starlight would help me pull the pieces of the puzzle together. Fae starlight is a whole different thing to earth plane starlight. Where our starlight is a beautiful piece of light, something delicate and fragile, the fae starlight is more akin to a drug. Fae starlight is usually enjoyed in small pieces, a section of a larger thread. Those willing to pay for it enjoy it in high-end alcoholic drinks.
It wasn’t something I’d enjoyed in a long time. Unlike moonlight, which is a thick viscous liquid that coats the tongue, starlight is delicate and dissolves upon the tongue, leaving behind a feeling of profound peace and unity with your surroundings. The sensation of being one with the very fabric of the night sky threatens to consume the imbiber as they slip deeper into the thrall of the starlight.
Those who are fool enough to have more than one thread in a single night are soon lost to the depth of a darkness unlike anything else. It is reported to begin with a cold space forming just beneath the heart, and from there it spreads. None survive.
Thirty-Three
I turned away from the location where the crazed woman had attacked me. It wasn’t out of fear, more a need to try and find something fresh. Everyone in the Narrows knew me, such was the nature of my job. Still, there were places I often frequented, and I was avoiding those that night. Taking a right onto a narrow path with large cobblestones and shops with smaller windows and lower rooves, I smiled.
The scent of sage caught on the air. It was covering the heady scent of Rise, a popular magical drug. I wasn’t much for drugs. I preferred to keep my senses about me. You never knew when someone would try and jump you, after all. Rise gave its users a high unlike anything else. It’s said to make it feel as though your very life essence is floating high above. Some have said it offers a taste of transcendence. I knew that it was formed of an interesting mix of spring dew, north wind, and pure distilled happiness - the latter being incredibly hard to get a hold of. That was why most dealers cut it with a dash of filtered sunshine and beach air. Close enough.
“Lily, I’m surprised to see you here. Alone.”
I paused and painted a pleasant smile upon my face as I turned to face Cameron. I hadn’t been prepared to see him again, especially so soon. If he wanted a rematch, I’d give it to him, but I was hoping against it. I needed more time to think and figure out the best way around his cursed shield.
“I felt like a walk.”
He walked up to me and stopped just out of strangling reach. There was a chance that I was faster than him. His shield wasn’t in view, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t just hidden it from plain sight.
“You know that I would give you the most incredible life if you would just do as I ask.”
“And what exactly are you asking?”
“Be my wife. Join me in building a life only we could build together. When you share your fortune and magic with me, we’ll be unstoppable.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Why on Earth would I share my magic with you?”
His smile faltered for a brief second.
“Because I would be your husband, and we would share everything.”
I wasn’t sure that he knew quite how marriage worked, particularly between witches. From what I understood, it was the man that gave over what magic he had to the woman.
“What happened to the woman you were given to? I heard that she died mysteriously.”
He snorted.
“She was a nag and a boor. She knew nothing of the books in her library and leaned entirely on her breeding and innate grasp of magic. Yes, she had potential, but she was nothing compared to you. There could never have been anyone but you.”
“You killed her.”
He waved me off.
“She will be happier and better off in whatever underworld she ended up in.”
“And how do I know you wouldn’t say the same of me?”
A hurt expression slowly spread across his face. I could almost feel him thinking about exactly how he needed to form his features to bring across exactly the sentiment he was trying to trick me into believing he felt. I’d dealt with manipulators before, but he was something else. The painful part was, I still remembered him as the kind, intelligent boy who was so quick to laugh.
“I wouldn’t do such a thing to you,” he said.
“Mhm.”
“We’re going to do great things together.”
“All I’m hearing is you stealing my money and my magic. That really doesn’t sound like a very good deal for me.”
“I’ll give you power, luxury; you’ll never need to work again.”
“I happen to enjoy my work. I took great care to build my business and see no reason to give it up.”
He laughed, a bitter sound.
“You’re losing it to that wolf. You were going to be something truly spectacular, and you choose to slum it.”
I very carefully began feeling out the magic wrapped around him looking for weaknesses. This conversation was growing wearying,
but he was cocky, which could make him far more vulnerable. A vicious smile spread across his face before he flicked his wrist, and my magic was flicked aside just like that. I hadn’t even managed to figure out the security system he’d wrapped around himself.
“Oh, Amelia, I always did enjoy your fire.”
“And yet you wish to quash it,” I spat.
“No! No, I want to help you grow into the beautiful powerful being you are supposed to be. The goddess chose you for a reason, my dear.”
“Did you really just call me ‘dear’?”
He laughed.
“Yes, I know all about the goddess. It wasn’t a mistake that your training was focused on combat rather than business. Have you ever questioned the reasoning there? Did you not think it strange that the coven wanted to give you the knowledge to take them out?”
I hadn’t. That time had been too painful to really try and dissect it. I’d been more focused on moving forwards and building something new for myself.
“That was the goddess’s doing. She demanded that of them, of you. She has big plans for you. And that little fox at your side, well, we all know where his loyalties lie.”
I bristled. Yes, I’d been doubting Castor a little of late, but he was still my friend. He wouldn’t throw me under the feet of some goddess.
Cameron reached out as though to stroke my cheek. I knocked his hand aside.
A sharp predatory edge wrapped around Cameron’s face as he looked at me. This wasn’t going as he’d planned, and he wasn’t used to not getting his own way. If I’d have said yes to him, my life would have been spent in proverbial chains until he killed me. I felt awful for the coven he’d been sold into. Did my own coven know what he was really like? And how had I missed it? I supposed desperation was a powerful thing.
“I trust this means that you’re not interested in my proposal,” Cameron said coolly.
“Not in the slightest.”
“Think on it. For the wolf’s sake.”