by D. N. Hoxa
“Or the demons. Let’s not forget about them.”
“I’ve seen you around the city, by the way. You said you were here for the past two years. For how long have the demons come after you?” she asked.
“Two years.” A very long time, now that I looked back at it.
Elisa stopped in the middle of the sidewalk again, her eyes wide. “What do you mean?” She seemed completely confused. Had I said something else?
“I mean, they attacked me the first night I made it to the city, and three more times since.”
“In two years?” Her voice was high pitched.
“Yes! You’re drawing attention.” I laced my arm to hers. “Walk.”
“Something doesn’t add up here,” she whispered. “They’ve hunted you for two years.”
“Yes, exactly. Two years,” I repeated.
“But it’s not possible. They only just…” Her voice trailed off. Heat rose up to my chest.
“They only just what? What were you going to say?”
“I’ve been in the city for three months and it took me three weeks to find them.”
My jaw almost hit the ground. “Three months? Are you kidding me?”
Three months was way too little time for her to learn how to fight like that! It was way, way too little time to create such a perfect hiding place in the park—right under everybody’s noses. It was way, way, way too little time to build a relationship like the one she had with Noah, and to even take all those pictures!
Something hard hit me in the chest. I had no idea who I was dealing with here. Who I was trusting to take me to the black market, and to help me get those other witches out of the demons’ claws.
“I’ve been here before. It’s not just these three months,” she mumbled.
“I’m sorry, but this makes no sense to me. How old are you, twenty?” She definitely looked younger than me. “How did you learn how to track demons in three weeks? When did you take all those pictures in your house with Noah?” My brain couldn’t process it.
“Noah and I go way back. It’s sort of an on-again-off-again thing.” Shaking her head, she sighed. “Look, this is all I’m willing to share. I’m asking you one more time if you’re sure that you’ve seen the demons for the past two years. Are you sure, Scarlet? Absolutely sure?”
The way she asked, she made me doubt my own mind for a second. “I’m sure. A hundred percent positive.”
“Then things are even worse than I feared,” Elisa whispered.
“How? Did you think the demons only came here three months ago?”
“I did.”
“Why? Where did they come from?”
“A different world, a nameless one.” I’d already figured that they weren’t from around here. “I don’t know the details, but for now, that’s not important. If your dragon can kill them, that’s all that matters. We really need to learn what it is.”
“Even if we don’t, I’m still going there.” If she didn’t want to join me, I’d go by myself, because the more she spoke, the harder it was for me to trust that she’d have my back, no matter what happened.
“Have you tried again?”
“No. I don’t want to. It’s a live dragon, Elisa. What if it actually comes to life?” It was a good enough reason to stop me from trying, right until I’d have no other choice. I tried it once the night before while we were still in the car in front of the Lair, but it hadn’t worked.
“Isn’t that the point? If it comes alive and turns into a sword, it can kill demons. It’s what you should be aiming for.”
“I didn’t exactly have time to focus.” She knew that. She was with me the whole time.
“You do now. We have nothing but time to kill before the black market. I say we lock ourselves in the human diner’s bathroom, and give it a go.”
Suddenly, the air grew thicker. “It won’t work.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.” She had no idea, just like me.
“See why we should give it a try?” She grinned as if we hadn’t even had this conversation at all.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or run. “Who are you?” I asked instead.
Elisa shrugged. “I’m just a girl, trying to live a normal life.”
“There’s nothing normal about either of us.” It was the ugly truth, only because the world made it so. “I can’t figure out why the ECU would want to imprison you. You’re a Hedge witch. That’s not a crime.”
“They don’t want me for being a Hedge witch.” She sounded awfully sad when she said it. “But that doesn’t matter.”
Of course it did, but I didn’t say so. “Can I ask you why you’re doing this? I know I asked you to help me, but why did you say yes?”
Elisa thought about it for a long time, and before we reached the human diner that was going to fill my tummy with pancakes, she said, “Let’s just say that I have a lot to make up for. A lot of debts to pay.” And that made sense to me no more than most of the things she said.
Six
The black market was on.
It was on!
“So what do I do? How do I act? Is there some code or something? Maybe a password?”
Elisa rolled her eyes. “It’s just a market, nothing fancy.”
“Remind me again how you managed to get invited while being here for three months only?” I’d been trying for two whole years, and nobody who ever promised, got me in.
“Connections,” she said with a grin.
We spent almost two hours in the human diner, eating and drinking coffee, and then another twenty minutes in the bathroom, trying to get the dragon to turn into a sword. I’m not sure if it was because deep down, I really didn’t want to be doing it, or because it really wouldn’t work. Maybe it was just a one-time thing. Who knew?
All I knew was that, before figuring out exactly what the real dragon could do, I’d never convince myself to truly try to use it again. Unless it was life or death, of course. Unfortunately, the way things had gone for me lately, a life or death situation couldn’t be too far ahead.
After we’d eaten, we’d found a rooftop—Elisa insisted—in a building full of humans, to keep away from prying eyes, and to wait. We’d waited for another four hours before she got the text message announcing that the black market would take place in Hell’s Kitchen, in one hour, which was why we’d decided to walk. We’d even bought matching blue caps to hide our faces and my hood hid my hair perfectly. Elisa insisted that there was no need, that her spells would keep prying eyes off us, but I wanted to make sure, especially now that I was so close to maybe finding out about the dragon attached to my skin.
“Are you absolutely sure that I don’t need to know anything?” I asked again because I didn’t think she realized that I’d never been there before.
“Yes, just follow my lead. And don’t touch anything.”
“So there is something I need to know!” I laughed but it came out forced. It was the excitement.
“Get a grip, Scarlet. And stop smiling.”
I did as she asked but only because she was right. I had an impression to make, and more importantly, I doubted anybody in the black market would rush to report me to the ECU, considering they were doing something illegal by going to the market in the first place. I’d be safer in there.
The pyramid shaped tower Elisa took us to was huge, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was the few paranormals around the neighborhood that did. Too few.
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
“The text says so. Why?” she asked, looking around.
“Does it normally generate much interest? I don’t see a whole lot of people going in.” We were across the gates, and Elisa was going to take us to the back, where she said there’s be an illusion of some sort, hiding the market from anyone who didn’t know it was there. I had never heard of illusion spells of that sort, but I never claimed I knew everything.
“They’ll be here soon
. Trust me, you don’t want that place overcrowded. The sooner we can get out, the better.” She probably knew what she was talking about, but the black market was something I’d wanted to get into for two years, so it wasn’t going to be easy.
The gates went all around the building, the ground floor of which was impossible to see because of the trees in the front. When we got the back, I searched for a door, but saw none. The iron continued all the way to the other side with no opening. Excitement spiked my blood. There was no way to know that something was going on there, and whoever had done that illusion, they were freaking masters.
“Won’t you need to use your magic?” I asked Elisa. Just walking into a door you couldn’t see sounded pretty problematic. Even Harry saw the wall he had to go through for the Hogwarts Express.
“It’s a vampire friendly illusion.” There was no way a vampire could walk in through there, unless there was another entrance.
“This is going to be awesome,” I whispered to myself. The gates were three feet away from me now. There was no smell of spells, which was strange. It should have stunk all around that place. “So we just wa—”
The view in front of me changed.
One second, we were outside, the sun shining in the open sky, and even before my foot touched the ground, I was somewhere inside. I froze for a second, unable to see until my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. We hadn’t even reached the railing yet!
Ahead of us, there was a narrow tunnel. The smell of wet wood and menthol came at us in waves from the other side. Two more people were walking through, ones I hadn’t even noticed before getting close. On the right of the tunnel, there was a glass booth seemingly going inside the grey walls, and a man was in there, as big as a werewolf. Elisa walked up to him and showed him something: her phone. She’d opened the message they’d sent to her, which held an identifying code only the organizers of the market could read. The man read the message, then looked right at me. His eyes were a strange shade of blue, almost metallic. His gaze was so intense, like he could see right through me, that I lowered my head. He sat on a leather chair, with a panel full of unlabeled buttons in front of him, and a bag half filled with spell stones rested by the legs of the chair.
“She’s with me,” Elisa said, rather annoyed, while I continued to look around the tunnel because there was nothing else in his booth. A foot away from it, a thin, wide steel plate came out of the walls and ground, all around the tunnel. Elisa pushed me forward when the guy cleared us for entrance, but even when I walked over it, I noticed nothing that would give a hint to what it was.
“It’s the lockdown,” she said, her voice echoing in the tunnel. “Magically reinforced steel that shuts down if someone raises the alarm.”
“In case of what?”
“Theft.”
“People actually try to steal here?” Don’t know why I was so surprised.
“Not often, but it has happened. And in case of attacks. The lockdown has weapons, too. Bullets of all kinds to rain upon anyone who breaks the rules.”
I definitely wouldn’t be doing that.
“How much do illegal spells and Pretters cost around here?” I was dying to get my hands on some, to see if they’d work with my magic.
“Everything has a price tag. You’ll see for yourself. It would have been much better if you’d had gold coins instead of money, but it’ll do,” she said. Gold coins were still big among the paranormals. They preferred it over cash, for some reason I never understood. But gold coins couldn’t be transferred via checks, and I doubted my father would have agreed to mail something that could be stolen so easily, so I’d never bothered to ask.
We walked for a good few minutes. The tunnel looked a lot shorter than it was, but eventually, we began to hear the noises, and see the silhouettes in front of the light.
The space wasn’t nearly as large as I’d imagined. I counted twenty-four market stalls, and about eleven people standing in front of single tables filled with stuff. What caught my attention was that all the stalls were covered in black pieces of velvet fabric. Just enough sunlight streamed through the pointy ceiling above us was to see that it was made out of purple-tinted glass. It reeked of spells but I didn’t mind. The stalls were placed into four rows right in the middle of the room. The corners were empty, save for guards, men and women dressed like civilians, holding big guns in their hands and watching in silence. It was useless to check for exit points. The only way out seemed to be the one we came in through, so if something happened, we would be in deep shit. I still had my daggers, though. And my magic, if it came to it.
About a hundred buyers walked slowly through the rows, checking every stall and every table, talking to the sellers. For whatever reason, I’d imagined a very gloomy vibe to the whole thing, but it wasn’t. The people talked and laughed out loud. It was all very…ordinary. I hated to admit it, but I was a bit disappointed. I expected something pretty spectacular.
“Who runs this place?” I asked Elisa.
“Nobody really knows, but it isn’t just one guy. I think it’s a group of three,” she said as we walked up to the first row of stalls. She seemed on edge and I didn’t blame her. Everybody watched us, and to be honest, the caps didn’t really make us unrecognizable.
“Do you think we’ll find your fairy friend?”
Elisa flinched. Not a good sign. “He’s around here somewhere.”
For now, I took the dragon off my mind and focused on the stalls. The first stall was filled with cauldrons of all shapes and sizes. They looked pretty usual, which made me wonder why this guy was selling them, when you could get them anywhere in the city, until I heard him speak to the woman and man in front of the stall.
Self-stirring cauldrons. Holy cow, that was so cool.
“Not reliable,” Elisa said when she saw me looking. “They’re good for a couple spells, but they get really wonky afterward. I’d steer clear of them.” That still didn’t make them any less cool.
My eyes moved to the next table. I was feeling giddy and it was an effort to keep a smile off my face.
“I have no idea what any of that is!” I said to Elisa, unable to hide the excitement. The things on the table looked like flowers, a kind I’d never seen before. They were all pastel colors, greens and yellows and blues, with strange leaves and even stranger stems. Three seemed to be coming out of every flower, instead of one.
“Eternal flowers. Self-sustaining. Very dangerous,” Elisa said. She looked at the flowers with longing, almost as if she yearned to touch them, but didn’t dare. “They’ll never whither while planted, but they’ll whither the soil. If taken out, the piece of land will be completely dead, never to be recovered again.”
Definitely not something I’d want in my yard.
Another stand was full of what seemed to be grimoires, some small and some big, and with some sort of zooming glasses with golden handles. My mother used to own something that looked like that. She had trouble with her sight but would never admit it. It wasn’t the kind that could be healed with a spell. It was the kind that required glasses, so she refused to wear them, but whenever she plucked her brows, she’d put something like this zooming glass over her hand mirror, and pluck away.
“Odkin’s looking glasses,” Elisa said. “Those can tell you the nature of every stone from Earth or the fairy realm. Jewelers use these all the time. I hear Borkah sells them to humans as well.”
Borkah was the man in the stall, his bald head shining purple because of the tinted ceiling glass. His fingers were full of golden rings, and he kept them on display by holding his hands over his beer belly.
“How would that work?” Paranormals did business with humans all the time—through phones and computers. But a looking glass full of magic?
“It doesn’t, not fully. The glass requires a lot of magic to do its job, but it does make life a bit easier for humans.” She shrugged, but I was already interested in the things in another stall.
They looked like teeth. Kniv
es with teeth blades and…ugh. Brass knuckles. Just the reminder I didn’t need.
The ones on display though didn’t look like they could do what the dragon around my left hand did. They just looked very strange.
“Wolf teeth.” Elisa grinned. “Lace ‘em with a few herbs and you’ll win any fight.”
I frowned. “I’ve never seen anything like it on anyone before.” If they were so efficient, people would have carried them around at all times.
“Everyday people can hardly afford them. How many do you know that fight for a living?” Most didn’t, in fact. Paranormals relied on magic most of the time. “And imagine being caught by werewolves wearing one of these. You’d never even make it to prison. They’d kill you on the spot.” That still didn’t make the man in front of the stall drop the tiny sword with a tooth blade. He paid the seller, a witch with red contact lenses and a dress in all colors, and put the knife inside his jacket before storming back toward the tunnel.
“These are a nice little trick,” Elisa said, pointing at the next stall. We were already in the second row and I couldn’t get enough of all the things I was seeing. I wanted to stop and ask every seller about everything they sold, but was afraid I’d get in more trouble than was worth. What Elisa was pointing at were…spiders? They certainly looked like it. I stepped to her other side because spiders made me really uncomfortable, especially small, black ones with a thousand legs attached to their miniature bodies. The seller had put them all into a large glass bowl. My body began to itch all over while I expected them to start moving, but they didn’t.
“Spider keys,” Elisa said. “Dead spiders, enchanted to work through any lock. Very powerful magic. Want one? They’re not cheap, but effective, most of the time. But they’ll only work once.”
“No, thanks! No spiders for me.” In fact, I was going to move as far away from them as I possibly could. Good thing I forgot all about them when I saw the next stall. Pretters. Lots of them—and rolled pieces of paper lined into a pyramid. “What are these?” They looked like spells—exactly what I needed.