Vision Quest (The Demon's Apprentice Book 3)

by Ben Reeder

  “Hardly a glowing recommendation of your services,” Gage said.

  “What else do you think a human therapist does but manipulate people into acting healthy?” Synreah asked with a laugh. “No one else knows what you’ve both been through like I do. And no human is going to keep your secrets like I will.”

  Shade turned to me. “I don’t know …” she said.

  “We don’t have to decide anything right now,” I said. “But she’s right. She knows what we’ve been through. And we can trust her.”

  Shade nodded, then turned to Synreah. “We’ll talk about it,” she said.

  “Very well,” Synreah said. “In the meantime, do you want to get rid of it?”

  “You can do that?” Shade asked, suddenly sixteen again.

  “I can’t,” Synreah told her. “But I know someone who can. Interested?” The words were barely out of her mouth before Shade was saying yes.

  Synreah led us through more of the maze that was the Hive, until we reached a shop that was set between two relatively intact walls and a roof that came three-quarters of the way to the front. Inside, we could see a handful of lamps that kept the place well-lit. Two old-style exam chairs were set up with a pair of stools next to them. Out front was a painted wooden sign that said “Dragonblood’s Ink” over a tattooed dragon holding a tattoo gun.

  “Syn!” one of the artists called out as we walked up. An easy seven feet tall, he was heavily muscled and bald as a cue ball. And green. Even though he had six inches on her height-wise, when he bounded out and grabbed Synreah in a bear hug, he seemed somehow smaller than she was.

  “Ash, it’s great to see you,” she said as she put one hand on his arm, then turned to us. “This is my friend Chance, and this is Shade. She needs some ink removed.”

  “Removed?” Ash said, his face creasing into a frown. “Why?” Up close, I could see a fine sheen of scales covering his face, and the vertical reptilian slit to his dark red eyes.

  “She didn’t ask for it,” Synreah said.

  He turned to Shade and looked her over, then raised one smooth eyebrow. “Hard to imagine anyone making you do a damn thing you didn’t want to,” he said to her. “But if you want it gone, it’s gone.”

  Shade nodded, then turned to me. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked. “Can you … go somewhere else until he’s done?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You don’t want me with you while he … you know?”

  “No,” she said and shook her head. “I don’t want you to see his … I don’t want you to ever see it on me. I don’t even like looking at it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “You know I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

  Synreah stepped up behind her and took my arm as she led me away.

  “She has to take herself back,” she said as we walked away. “I did the same thing after I got my freedom back. Go get the other things you need for your wand. We’ll meet you back at Ari’s when she’s done.”

  Junkyard barked his approval of that plan, so I motioned for Gage to follow me.

  “Don’t you have to be eighteen to get a tattoo?” Gage asked as we pushed through the crowd.

  “Not here,” I said as I headed for a gem seller. “All you need is the silver.”

  Shopping with Gage was nowhere near as much fun as shopping with Synreah. It was quicker, but more expensive. As soon as a merchant’s eye fell on his cloak and jeweled mask, prices had a bad habit of doubling. I had to haggle hard to get them down to merely exorbitant. By the time we made it back to Ari’s, I was exhausted, and out two hundred trade ounces. But seeing Shade’s smile as we walked back toward Ari’s shop felt like the first warm day of spring. Synreah said something that made her laugh, and I would have sworn that the sun had just come out.

  “You look like you just ate a canary,” I said as she put her arms around my waist.

  “Something like that,” she said before she kissed me and left my lips tingling. “I won’t be wearing a bikini for a few days.”

  “Inside, you two,” Synreah said. “Or you’re going to put someone into insulin shock.” We led the way in to find Ari behind the counter looking almost as pleased with herself as Shade. My wand blank was on the counter in front of her, and as I crossed the room, I could see that it was smooth and straight, with the bark removed and no signs of the grain being broken. Ari held it out to me when I got to the counter, and I slowly turned it in my hands. The grain made a beautiful pattern all the way around and along its length, and it fairly vibrated against my fingertips. It tapered slightly, and both ends were slightly concaved to accept a stone. A narrow band had been carved a few inches from the base to mark the wand’s handle, and I knew the second I let it slide into my grasp that it would fit my hand perfectly.

  “Yeah, that’s sweet,” I said as I turned my hand slowly. “How much?”

  “Three hundred,” Ari said. I’d been prepared to pay more than that, but it was still a low starting price.

  “Done.”

  Gage’s jaw could have bounced off the floor, and Synreah gave a quick little snicker before she got control of herself. I laid a trade bar on the counter next to the wand, and both were gathered up in the same smooth movement. She slipped the wand into a long leather pouch, then laid that in a box that she closed slowly and presented to me with a flourish.

  “Always a pleasure doin’ business to ya,” Ari said. “Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I have ta see about findin’ a third apprentice to start trainin’ up.”

  “Of course,” I said. “And I have a wand to make.”

  Shade fairly skipped beside me as we made our way out of the Hive. I couldn’t resist her infectious smile, and I ended up buying her a new bracelet and a bolero jacket. The bracelet was a thick metal cuff that was enchanted to stay bright and shiny without cleaning, a benefit the gnomish jeweler claimed would also affect any other jewelry she was wearing at the time. The jacket was the bigger steal, though, since it was enchanted to meld her clothes into her wolf form when she changed.

  Synreah pulled me back at the iron gate that led onto the street and put both hands on my shoulders.

  “You need to either keep that girl next to you as much as possible or get her as far away from you as you can,” she said. “There’s a bounty on you for live capture that’s big enough to tempt half the Hive.”

  “That would explain a few things,” I said. “I’m surprised no one tried to collect on it today.”

  “Two reasons for that,” she said softly. “One, people here know you; they know what you’re capable of, both good and bad. Two, and the biggest thing that bothers most of us: It’s an Infernal bounty.”

  “Do you think it’s Dulka?” I asked.

  “No one knows. It was offered through an empty suit. Word is, the pay is good.”

  “How good?” I asked.

  “Fifty thousand.”

  My eyes went big at that. “No way that’s Dulka,” I said. “He’s barely got more than a tenth of that.”

  “Doesn’t matter who it is, you just be careful. And if you need my help,” she said as she slipped something around my wrist, “just call my name.” I held my arm up to look at what she’d put on me.

  A pewter band went three-quarters of the way around my wrist, with a pair of dragon’s heads facing each other across the gap. A small tag dangled from a thread, the word “disseptum” written on it in neat, rounded script. I pulled the tag off and tucked it into my pocket before I looked back to her, half-expecting to see her back as she left. Instead, she was kneeling next to Junkyard, accepting slobbery kisses on her cheeks as she wrapped a yellow bandana around his neck to go with the red one she’d originally given him. His tail whipped back and forth as she cooed at him and ran her hands down his sleek coat. When she stood, he came to me and turned around once before he reared up and put his paws on my chest.

  “Looking good,” I said. He leaned his head forward and licked my cheek before he dropped back down on all fours. Synreah had ba
cked up a few steps and gave me a dainty little wave before she turned and disappeared back into the depths of the Hive.

  “What was that all about?” Shade asked as I caught up to her.

  “Evidently, there’s a bounty out on my head.”

  “What is it with you and people wanting to kill you?” she asked.

  “Oh, they want me alive this time.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Shade said.

  Somehow, I wasn’t so sure a live bounty was any better.

  “A live bounty isn’t any better,” Dr. Corwyn said. He looked up from the collection of materials I’d bought for my wand and peered at me over his glasses with raised eyebrows. “Though it is something of a change of pace. It would help if we knew who was fronting the silver for it, but you said it was an empty suit?”

  “Yeah, standard for Infernal contracts.”

  “What’s an empty suit?” Gage asked.

  “A front company under an assumed name that no one’s ever heard of before. The owner makes a deposit at a trusted depository, also under an assumed name, and the company offers the contract and names an agent to report to for payment on completion. No one ever sees or hears from the company owner again, and the company closes up shop. The most anyone ever sees is a guy in the shadows in a suit who doesn’t exist. An empty suit.”

  “What I don’t get is why they’re offering so much for me,” I said. “I mean, yeah, I’m flattered, but who has that kind of money?”

  “My family does,” Gage said with a hint of pride in his voice.

  “Your family has hundreds of thousands of ounces in silver, yes,” Dr. C. said, “but fifty thousand for a bounty is still a substantial amount.”

  “Who have I pissed off that has that kind of money?” I asked.

  “Thraxus,” Dr. C said after a moment. “But he’s not that stupid. Offering that bounty would implicate him in Etienne’s plot. I’ll do some digging. You go practice and start working on your wand.”

  No matter what happened in my life, that never seemed to change. I stood up and gathered my stuff, then headed upstairs to the sanctum. Practice, lessons, and busy work. When I was Dulka’s pet warlock, it was practice, and work. Now that I was free, more of the same.

  “You know, other kids get to have summer vacations,” I said to Gage as we climbed the stairs. “But not mages. No, I get to go out to the middle of Texas and practice my spells and astral projection. My friends are at bar-be-cues or on dates today, but noooo, not me. I get to take my girlfriend to a Dwarven bank and then go to the Veiled world’s version of the ghetto to buy a wand. Other kids, they worry about getting sunburned or not having the latest piece of tech. Me, I have a massive bounty on my head from Hell.”

  “And lucky me,” Gage said, “I get to listen to you bitch about it.”

  “Don’t you ever just wish your life was normal?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said after a moment. “But today, I wish yours was.”

  For two hours, I worked on casting my telekinesis spell without a wand. It was even more boring than it sounded. Then I started working on my wand, which at this stage meant creating the metal core. I had gone with silver and copper, since they were both receptive metals, and yet both good for conducting magickal energy. A dual core meant more work, but it seemed like the way to go since I was already behind in other ways. It meant an hour of slowly twisting the cores together, making sure they were evenly wound and that they kept a sort of round cross-section to fit into the wand’s core.

  I had just finished snipping the wound wires when my cell phone rang. Since only a handful of people had my number, I pulled it from my pocket. The caller ID read “M. Romanoff.” If Wanda’s mom was calling me, it had to be important.

  “Chance, you’ve got to come home now,” Miss Romanoff said frantically as soon as I had the phone to my ear. “The police are here, and they’re arresting your mom!”

  Chapter 5

  ~ No one looks for subtlety when you beat them over the head with a club. ~ Jacob Cavendish, Master mage & adviser to President Roosevelt

  I hit the brakes and slid to a stop at the curb, still a house away from home. Five police cars were parked in front of the house, and Wanda’s mom’s minivan was parked across the street. And of course, people were out on their lawns, watching the cops put my mom in the back seat of one of the cruisers. I was out of the car and running toward her in a split second, but not before a thick set of arms wrapped themselves around me and sent me sprawling. I scrambled back and got to my feet to find myself facing Tad Zucherman.

  “Back off, Fortunato,” he snapped at me.

  “I want to talk to my mom,” I said as I took a step forward. His right hand shot forward and caught me in the chest, shoving me backward and off my feet. I hit the ground and rolled backward so that I came to a crouch almost instantly. He took a step toward me with two cops advancing behind him, both with hands on their Tasers.

  Something small and fierce hit him about waist high with a high-pitched scream, sending him staggering to one side. The cops drew their Tasers, but kept them pointed at the ground as the small attacker registered for everyone. It was my sister.

  “Leave him alone!” Dee yelled as she grappled with Tad. That she had even managed to stagger him was impressive enough, but with her momentum spent, there was no way she was any kind of threat to him. He reached down and grabbed her arm, then flung her to the ground in front of him. She hit and rolled with a pained cry, coming to rest inches away from me. Manhandling me was one thing, but laying a hand on my sister was asking for an ass kicking no matter who you were. I came to my feet slowly, and Dee rose right beside me. Junkyard bounded up and planted his feet beside me, front legs apart, hackles up, and a growl rumbling from deep in his chest.

  Zucherman took a step back, and the two cops brought their Tasers up. Another joined them, his pistol out but pointed at the ground.

  “Stand down, all of you!” a third voice interjected. I looked to my right to see Detective Collins making his way between two patrol cars. He wore a pair of jeans and a blue Polo shirt with his badge hanging around his neck. I reached out and put a hand on Dee’s shoulder and stepped in front of Junkyard.

  “Back off, Collins,” Zucherman said. “These kids are under arrest for assault.”

  “Bullshit,” Collins said. “You’re supposed to be the kid’s case officer, not a damn linebacker. You press charges against him, I’ll press charges for assaulting a minor against you. That shit means an automatic review board.”

  Tad looked at him, then shook his head and stepped back. “Fine, you take care of him, then.” Tad and the other two New Essex PD officers backed away as Collins came to my side. His dark brown skin was beaded with sweat, and his usually smooth flattop hair cut was a little ragged around the edges.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked after I sent Junkyard back to the car with a quick word of praise. “Last I knew, you were on Major Crimes.”

  “I am,” he said. “But my phone’s been blowing up since someone raided the address of one of my CI’s.”

  “Do you know what they’re arresting Mom for?” Dee piped up. Collins looked down at her, then at me, and I gave him a nod.

  “They think your mom has some things she’s not supposed to have,” he said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Mescaline.”

  My eyes went wide at that. As far as illegal drugs went, it was the one thing that almost made sense for her to have. A naturally occurring hallucinogenic, it was used by a lot of well-meaning pagans for psychedelic trips in their search for enlightenment. And if anyone could get their hands on any, it would be a master herbalist who worked in a New Age store. Hells below, if anyone could grow it, it would have been my mom. The problem was, if there was anyone who objected to urban white people treating Native American culture like a tourist attraction or an exotic way to get high, it was also my mother. She was the last person who would have sold or even given any k
ind of mescaline to anyone.

  “Mom would never have anything to do with that,” I said. “You should hear her go off on people appropriating cultures.”

  “I know, kid,” he said as he put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll see what’s going on, but first, your mom has to get someone to take care of you and your sister.” He headed for the cruiser Mom was sitting in, leaving me with Dee. The words sank through the layers of denial in my brain, hammering home the reality of the situation. Mom was going to jail tonight, and all I could do was watch it happen.

  I took Dee’s hand and led her back to the Mustang. We sat perched on the hood, watching our world fall apart. I felt like my soul had been scooped out as I watched the cops going through the garage and talking to Mom. Dee sat there beside me, for once quiet and still, her arms wrapped around my right arm. Even Junkyard seemed subdued, looking over the back seat at us with big puppy dog eyes. Eventually, Tad walked back toward us, a smile on his face that promised nothing pleasant for us.

  “You’re going to be going to a foster family tonight,” he started off.

  “Mom will want us to stay with Dr. Corwyn,” I said listlessly, not surprised that Tad was so eager to throw me to the system.

  “Well, he isn’t here, and that clock started almost half an hour ago. So unless he gets here in the next thirty—” He stopped as another vehicle pulled in behind us and illuminated him with its headlights.

  “You were saying?” I asked as he shielded his eyes with his hand.

  “Turn those goddamn lights,” he said, then stopped as the lights went dark, “off.” The door of the Range Rover opened and Dr. C stepped out. He’d changed into a blazer and slacks with a gray shirt, and had the air of a man used to being in charge. Even from here, I could almost feel the force of his personality slapping against Zucherman’s usual bluster.

  “Who the hell are you?” he called out.

  “Tad Zucherman, with Social Services. Who the hell are you?”

  “Doctor Trevor Corwyn. Stop your bluster, Mister Zucherman, and go get me a real law enforcement officer so I can take custody of these two kids you people are traumatizing.”