by C. C. Mahon
I grabbed my phone to call the Sorcerers’ Guild.
A young male voice with a thick British accent answered. The news of Agatha’s death had spread like wildfire in the supernatural community, and the wizard seemed highly motivated to help find the murderer.
“For this kind of spell,” he said, “it’s better to have an object that has traces of the target: toothbrush or hairbrush, dirty clothes, or even deodorant, if it’s been used.”
“What about price?” I asked.
I still had a painful memory of the fee they’d charged for the protection of the club. And to think I wasn’t going to be able to claim it on my taxes…
“If it’s to punish the murderer of one of our own, it’s on the house.”
“I had no idea dryads and wizards were on such good terms.”
“Not particularly. It’s a matter of principle: if we let the humans kill supernaturals without any repercussions, we wouldn’t be around much longer. And that staging was grotesque. A Viking funeral? Seriously? Who still dedicates their sacrifices to Odin these days? No, dearest friend, don’t you worry about it: this time, it’s on the house. Find me the base ingredients, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
I went back to the casino that had had the bad idea of hiring Ernesto.
For the fourth time in two days, I decided to use magic to mask my appearance. The task was difficult to begin with, but repeating it so often and after an all-nighter didn’t make it any easier.
Many employees were obviously ending their shifts at the strike of noon, and I’d seen a beautiful gallery of portraits passing me by for the past five minutes when I settled on a small redhead who must’ve been barely legal drinking age. She was wearing jeans and a black jacket similar to mine, which reduced the amount of concentration necessary for my magic trick. Not to mention, she was wearing big headphones over her ears, and it was blaring music so loud that I could hear the bass from several feet away. No one would be surprised if I didn’t respond.
I let the girl walk away, gathered my strength, and whispered the incantation.
The familiar tingling signaled my success. The dizziness that took hold of me wasn’t normal. I was spent: I was going to have to act quickly.
I slipped through the door as soon as it opened, pretended not to hear the protests of the guy that I just knocked into, and strode towards the hotel’s laundry room.
I had no idea where the personal locker rooms were, but I knew that the Las Vegas Fire Department required businesses to post detailed plans every so often in the hallways. I had damned them when they had forced me to put up a floor plan of my club every twenty feet—one entrance, one emergency exit, no windows: it wasn’t exactly a maze. But at this moment, I blessed them. The door to the locker rooms was so hidden that I had already passed it, and without the firefighters and their obsession with the plans, I could’ve wandered for hours in this maze of anonymous hallways. But I was already faced with another problem: the locker rooms weren’t unisex, and I’d chosen a female appearance.
Even worse, at this time during a shift change, the hallways were bustling with people.
And one last problem, I had no idea which locker was Ernesto’s. I was going to have to wait for the men’s locker room to be empty, then check the names on all the lockers to find the right one.
Another dizzy spell reminded me how much time was going by. I wasn’t going to be able to maintain this illusion for more than two minutes, three max.
I pushed open the locker room door and walked in confidently. My entrance was met with a few protests.
“Where is Ernesto Guérida?” I asked in a loud voice.
A half dozen men in hotel uniforms, in casual clothes, and some in boxers, were staring at me, wide eyed.
“Ernesto Guérida!” I repeated. “Is that pig here?”
“You didn’t hear the news?” a rather cute young guy who had just taken off his t-shirt finally said. “The police arrested him yesterday. Apparently, he killed that poor girl on the Strip.”
“What do you want with him?” asked another man who was way less charming.
“That pervert stole my underwear,” I retorted. “I want them back. Where’s his locker?”
The underwear thing was something that had happened in high school, in my younger sister’s class. Girls’ bras were disappearing from the locker room, until they’d been found in the chess captain’s locker. The whole thing had been the talk of the school for weeks, and from the way my sister talked about it, it was the next Watergate.
I missed my sister.
“I don’t know if we can…” started the young guy.
“What?” I asked. “Were you in on it with him? You wanna keep them for yourself, is that it?”
His eyes widened. “No, no, not at all!”
An old man with a beer belly extended his arm towards the corner of the room. “The police already searched it. I don’t know if there’s anything left.”
I followed the direction in which he was pointing and easily identified the locker in question: a broken lock still hung from the open door.
Ernesto’s locker had been searched without restraint, and it was still a smelly mess.
I turned my back to the men and inspected it myself. I found adult magazines, a pair of sneakers that smelled of old cheese, and a small toiletries kit.
Bingo.
I slipped a comb and a toothbrush in the inside pocket of my jacket before turning back towards the employees. “My underwear isn’t here. If I find out that one of you kept it, I’m reporting you to HR. Do I make myself clear?”
They all nodded, and no one tried to stop me as I left quickly.
I closed the door and braced myself against the wall to keep myself from falling. I had to get out of here, and fast. Again, the firefighters and their rules came to my rescue. A series of lit-up signs pointed me towards the closest exit, like breadcrumbs in this concrete maze. I followed the trail and emerged in the employee parking lot with a sigh of relief. The illusion faded, leaving behind the smell of ozone.
9
The Sorcerers’ Guild’s offices were not open to the public, but the person I’d spoken to had told me to meet him at the bar of the Strip’s newest casino. The place was perched on the top floor of a skyscraper, and the clientele was much swankier than your average casino.
I didn’t know what my wizard looked like, but I had no problem picking him out: he was the only guy wearing a three-piece suit with a vest embroidered with silver and a signet ring on his pinky. He’d sat down at a table near the bay windows, and he seemed lost in his contemplation of the city crushed under the noon sun, twenty-five stories below.
“Mister Watson?” I inquired as I approached.
He stood up and stretched out his hand. His skin was as black as night, his features delicate, his smile broad. “Call me Britannicus,” he said.
“Really?”
“My parents were traditionalists.”
Britannicus came around the table and pulled out my chair. I sat down awkwardly, not used to this kind of attention.
“Would you rather a cocktail or wine?” he asked. “They have an interesting dry Chilean wine.”
I let him order the wine before moving on to serious matters. “The man I’m looking for is called Ernesto Guérida. He’s a human.”
I placed Ernesto’s comb and toothbrush on the table. Britannicus examined them as if they were rare antiques.
“This Ernesto, you’re certain he’s guilty?” he asked.
“He was Agatha’s boyfriend. He would hit her—hard and often. She’d already left him many times, but he always managed to…”
Britannicus nodded. “I’m familiar with the process. And the police haven’t been able to find him?”
“They arrested him then released him. Apparently, he has an alibi for the supposed time of the crime. The medical examiner must’ve gotten Agatha’s time of death wrong. I assume that it’s different for dryads.”
; “Admittedly,” he said. “And we’re going to have to get her body back quickly if we don’t want the employees at the morgue to become suspicious.”
“Are the wizards taking care of that?”
“As far as I’m aware, Agatha was the only dryad within five hundred miles. In the absence of family or a clan to take care of these things, we normally intervene. Imagine what would happen if we left this poor young woman’s body to sprout in the morgue.”
“Sprout?”
“Dryads are plants,” he explained. “Well, almost plants. After a few centuries of existence, when time weighs too heavily on them, they take root and transform into trees.”
“And if they’re murdered before that?” I asked.
“The archives aren’t clear about that. The dryads are a peaceful people, and I haven’t found any trace of a similar tragedy. But it’s better to be safe than to have to explain why an oak or an olive tree grew overnight in the basement of the medical-legal institute. And that’s where we come in.”
“What about… ‘Customs?’ ” I asked.
I’d heard of this mysterious organization when I’d arrived in Vegas. All the supernaturals knew about it. No one seemed to know why or how it worked.
“Ah!” exclaimed the sorcerer, “Customs… Becky and her charming team don’t handle these kinds of ‘details.’ Their main mission is too important.”
“Their mission?” He nodded with a smile. I asked again, “And this mission is…”
“Important.” He buried his nose in his glass of wine.
“I see. So Customs is leaving it to you to get the body. Why you and not some other group?”
“Who? The vampires are too busy navel-gazing, the metamorphs spend their lives in political conflict… There are the zombies,” he said with a thoughtful look.
“Seriously?”
“They’re far more intelligent than people think and remarkably organized. You just have to look at the misinformation campaign that they’ve been running against themselves over the last few decades—absolute art.”
Gifted zombies with the media in their pocket. Okay. I still had a lot of things to learn about the supernatural world.
“But the zombies never leave their keyboards,” continued Britannicus. “If you need a good hacker, yes, talk to the zombies. But not to retrieve a body. The ghouls only think of their stomachs, and the others aren’t organized enough to do anything other than ensure their own survival. No, truly, we are the best suited to undertake this kind of general interest mission. And the paperwork and obscure bureaucracy doesn’t scare us. After all, we’re the ones who invented it.”
He shot me a conspiratorial smile and immersed himself in tasting his Chilean wine. I mirrored him, and I had to admit that the dry wine didn’t lack charm. Neither did the wizard for that matter, if you looked passed his fashion choices from a bygone era and his exaggerated accent. But we weren’t here to whisper sweet nothings to each other.
“Will it take you long to find Ernesto?” I asked.
Britannicus put down his glass and counted on his long fingers. “As long as it takes me to return to the Guild, prepare the ingredients and cast the spell… less than an hour. Add on a few minutes for me to finish this excellent wine. That gives you enough time to go home and pack a bag. Since I’m assuming you plan on catching him yourself? In this case, I’ll call you as soon as I’ve found him. And as you had the excellent idea of bringing me two of his belongings, I’ll even be able to follow him for several hours and keep you up to date with his movements.”
“With what degree of accuracy?”
He pouted, twirled his glass to admirer the color of the wine, and took a small sip before answering. “A beginner can give you a city. A more talented wizard, a neighborhood. You’re lucky I answered your call. I should be able to tell you in which building this miscreant is hiding. As long as I have a detailed enough map of the area. But, of course, our maps are always detailed.”
Perfect. Ernesto was going to rue the day he’d set his sights on my bartender.
I took the time to finish my glass of wine and handed it back to the bartender. I wasn’t very knowledgeable about magic, but I knew enough not to let a wizard get ahold of the glass I’d been drinking from.
10
A surprise was waiting for me in front of the club: a silhouette entirely draped in a black cape, the hood pulled down over his face.
I got off my bike several yards from the silhouette, my gut twisted in fear, trying to decide if I should face the individual or turn around. But something about his posture, arched shoulders, the way the frail figure was leaning—almost slumped—against the door to the club, seemed familiar to me.
I started again and approached slowly.
“Matteo?” I asked. “Matteo, is that you?”
The hood lifted lightly, and I saw the face it had been covering. My fear instantly disappeared, replaced by an almost maternal worry. Matteo’s face was covered in blood and marred by bruises.
I led him into the hangar, quickly parked my bike, and locked the door behind us.
Matteo was trembling like a leaf. The vampire never looked too sturdy on his feet—that’s what happened when you refused to eat—but now he looked like he was about to pass out. I put my arm around his shoulders and led him to the bottom of the stairs, towards the first room of the club and the welcoming armchairs.
“What happened?” I asked. “Why are you up in the middle of the day?”
He pulled back his hood, revealing the extent of the damage to his pretty face.
Matteo was a psychic vampire; he didn’t feed on blood but on emotions. With his aristocratic features, his perfectly white skin, and his thick brown curls, he could’ve gorged himself on the desire of many young women, and young men as well. A good part of his family didn’t deprive themselves of it. But Matteo was principled. He was the vampire equivalent of a vegan, and he refused to use humans to feed himself. This resolve explained his appearance of an anemic sparrow, his fraught relationships with the rest of his family, and his choice of career. He spent his nights alone in the club’s kitchen, far from the temptation of human emotions.
“She pulled me out of bed,” said Matteo. “She broke into my house, pulled me out of bed, and beat me.”
“Who?” I asked.
“A woman, blonde. She didn’t give me her name.”
“What did she want?”
“At first she didn’t say anything. She just hit me.”
“And you didn’t defend yourself?”
I had nothing against the ethical convictions of my cook, but the respect for life had its limits. Matteo could suck up any human’s emotions until the victim became a depressive shell. If there was ever a moment when he could use his powers without feeling guilty, it was when someone was attacking him in his bed.
He shook his head. “I tried. My powers only work on humans.”
“She wasn’t human?”
“No. I don’t know what she was, but…” He shrugged his shoulders and winced in pain.
“Is something broken?”
“A few ribs, I think. And a cheekbone.”
“You need to feed to heal.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “I have anger to spare. Use it. It will do you good, and it’ll keep me from having an aneurysm. Do it!”
I placed my hands flat on the low table. Facing me, Matteo stared deep into my eyes with his navy blue gaze. “Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve…eaten, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to stop.”
“But you will be able to stop?”
“I think so. But first, I need to tell you… The woman, she had a message.”
“What did she want from you?”
“Not for me. A message for you. I’m supposed to tell you to give back the sword if you don’t want your harpy to suffer the same fate as your dryad.”
Matteo’s words took my breath away.
The sword. My sword. Someone wanted to take my sword.
I didn’t know who this blonde woman was, but I knew who had sent her.
He had found me.
“Erica, are you okay?” Matteo placed his hand on mine. “You’re worried about Barbie,” he said. “But you’re also worried… about yourself? Erica, you’re terrified! What’s happening to you?”
The problem with psychic vampires was that you couldn’t hide anything from them.
Yes, I was scared for Barbie’s life. I didn’t want to find the harpy’s body in a fountain on the Strip. But I was even more scared for myself. Months and months of being on the run, always looking over my shoulder. A fortune spent on new identity after new identity. Security measures worthy of Fort Knox. All that for him to just show up, as if nothing had happened, as if I still belonged to him.
The message referenced the sword, but I knew he wouldn’t stop there. I was part of his collection, just like the weapon I’d stolen for him, and he was determined to get me back.
“Erica, you’re trembling,” said Matteo. “What’s happening to you? What does all this mean?”
I wanted to pull back my hand, but Matteo was holding on to it with impressive strength for someone so weak.
“You don’t have to tell me what’s got you in this state,” he said. “For once, let me help you. Okay?”
I had never let a psychic vampire feed on my emotions before. Not a real psychic vampire, at least. The feeling was… surprising. Not unpleasant. Like an icy wave rushing towards my hands, from the deepest corners of my body. The cold left me and left behind an emptiness. I had the impression that I was going to collapse in on myself. I trembled, and the room seemed even darker than usual. And then I fainted.
11
The smell of pesto tickled my nostrils.
I was laying on one of the club’s booths, under Matteo’s black cape.
“I made you some soup,” said the vampire. “It’ll warm you up.”
My cook was transformed. The bruises and injuries had disappeared from his face. He, who I’d always known to be sickly, was now glowing. He was still very pale, but his tone reminded me of polished marble and snow under the winter sun and not anemia and lack of sunlight. His hair had doubled in volume and could’ve been used to sell any shampoo. His lips were full and red. He was standing up straighter. But his navy blue eyes reflected his worry, and he was wringing his hands.