Dungeon Crawl (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 8)

by Annie Bellet

Technology had a lot to recommend it, but preserving secrecy like shifters and other supernaturals have to do makes tech an enemy as much as a friend sometimes. We tend to stay away from cameras.

  I spent some quality time early the next morning playing with the wards on my shop and home, making sure they were stable and would warn me about anything non-human entering the facility. It would be annoying, since half the people who came through my shop on a regular basis weren’t human, so I’d get humming warnings a lot inside my brain, but I figured a little vigilance now if some kind of shifter trouble was brewing would be worth the headache. Alek and I ate lunch inside two days in a row, despite the beautiful weather.

  The second night, trouble arrived, but it wasn’t in the form of a wolf shifter.

  Alek and I were eating a late dinner after I’d locked up the shop when my wards hummed. Alek tipped his head to one side, listening.

  “Car,” he said. He rose from the table and went to where his gun was hanging by our unused coats near the door.

  “Wards pinged,” I said, tugging on my magic, just getting it ready. In case. I’d been tense enough the last couple days that I kind of wanted a fight. Or at least an enemy, if there was one out there, that I could see face to face. I didn’t like being worried about a phantom threat.

  Footsteps on the stairs. I’d made them nice wrought iron for a reason. Nobody walked up those stairs quietly, not even Alek. We’d tested.

  My doorbell rang, the chimes playing the Song of Storms run from Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Would evil ring the doorbell? Maybe.

  Alek stepped to the side where he would have a clear shot when I opened the door. Which I did, slowly, with my other hand glowing with a readied spell that would slam whatever or whomever was on the landing off it if they were a threat.

  A tall white man in a suit stood on the landing. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him.

  “Miss Crow,” he said in a polite, even tone, as though I wasn’t standing there with a glowing hand and a huge Viking behind me holding a gun. “The Archivist would like to talk to you.”

  So, not exactly an enemy. Noah Grey, the Archivist, was a vampire, and had been key, if I was being honest, in defeating Samir. He’d helped my find my father, who had helped me get my magic back and shown me who I really was.

  But the Archivist was a vampire and well known for selling information to whomever might bid highly enough for it. No matter how he’d helped me, there had always been that nagging feeling inside my gut warning me it wasn’t for my sake, but in his own interests. If someday our interests no longer aligned, I wasn’t sure what would happen.

  Hopefully today wasn’t that day.

  “I’m not going to Seattle tonight,” I said, looking past the suit to where a dark car was parked below.

  “He is here,” the suit said, “in the car.”

  I looked back at Alek. My mate had lowered his gun, his finger alongside the trigger. Ready, but not expecting immediate threat. Question was, did I invite the vampire inside my home? Or did I go down and climb into a car with him?

  “I’ll come down,” I said, letting my spell fade as I closed my fist on the magic. “Let me put on shoes.”

  I closed the door before the suit could answer and went to grab my All-Stars from the shoe bench.

  “Watch from the porch?” I asked Alek.

  Alek stood there with his gun, looking unhappy. “You are in danger? I thought this vampire helped us?”

  “No,” I said. “Probably no danger. I just don’t know. I can’t read him at all. Besides, why would he show up now if it weren’t some kind of trouble?” The only times I’d met Noah were when things were going really poorly in the fight against Samir. Once to get a book from him, once when he rescued me from Boise and helped me find a lot of answers.

  I knew the other reason I was nervous. “I owe him a favor,” I told Alek. “I think he might have come to collect.”

  “He will not want something small,” Alek agreed with a head shake. He didn’t seem surprised by this news. I’d told Alek most of what had happened after I’d turned back time and everyone got split up, including the part where his sister had been hired by the vampire to help me break my biological dad out of jail. I’d sort of glossed over the favor thing, but knowing Alek, he’d put it together anyway.

  “Probably not.” I stopped the middle of tying my shoe and looked at Alek. “Should I make him get out so I know it’s really him? We just have suit guy’s word on this.” I needed to start thinking like a paranoid survivor again, but it sure sucked.

  “Man on porch is human,” Alek said. “He was not lying, is easy to read. I would have said something, Jade.”

  “Thanks,” I said, finishing tying my shoe. I stood up and blew Alek a kiss. “Time to go find out what he wants, I guess.”

  “How will I know if you need me to come break things?” Alek asked as I opened the door.

  The suit guy was still standing there, looking slightly annoyed but hiding it behind a façade of professionalism. He was good but that fit. Noah wouldn’t hire anyone but the best, I imagined.

  I grinned up at the suit guy. “I’ll set the car on fire,” I said.

  Suit guy leaned away from me, his face going even paler. “This way, Miss Crow” he said in a voice slightly higher pitched from how he’d sounded before.

  I looked up at Alek as I reached the car. He stood on the small porch, gun in hand but deceptively relaxed. Waiting with the patience of an apex predator. His eyes glinted in the porch light and his hair haloed around his head and shoulders in the evening breeze. It felt good to have back-up. I have him a thumbs-up as suit guy opened the door.

  The interior of the car was lit by a dome light only. It was one of those cars modified to have two bench seats facing each other, like you see in mobster movies. Noah Grey sat on the side facing forward, so I climbed in and took the bench across from him.

  “Jade,” Noah said. He was the same unnervingly still nondescript man he’d always been.

  The suit closed the door behind me. There was some kind of covering on the windows that made the interior dark as a crypt. The car had its air conditioning running, which made it feel even more like slipping into a tomb, or at least that’s what my over-imaginative brain was telling me. My skin broke out in goosebumps.

  “Archivist,” I said, figuring being moderately polite wouldn’t hurt me. “Long drive from Seattle. What do you want?” There was polite, and then there was engaging in small talk with a vampire. I drew the line somewhere, plus I’m terrible at small talk with anyone.

  “I would like to call in my favor,” Noah said. A smile moved his lips into a slight curve but it didn’t touch his eyes.

  “Okay?” My stomach twisted into a rope even as my heart played a little excited tap dance beat.

  “I inherited a house,” he continued. “It used to belong to a magic user. No,” he added, seeing the look on my face, “not Samir’s place. Nobody has found his home that I’ve heard about.” He said it in a way that made it clear he expected he would. Being the Archivist, a gatherer of knowledge and magical items from all over the planet, I figured he was right.

  That he was looking was news to me, but I’d wondered about what had happened to Samir’s cache of magic books, journals, and other things he’d gathered over his lifetime. It was all out there somewhere, a dangerous treasure trove waiting for someone to unlock it. I hoped it was hidden very, very well.

  “Waiting to hear how it involves me, then,” I said, rubbing my palms on the bench. The seats were some kind of buttery soft leather. They hadn’t had anything this nice in the surplus office supply depot I used to refurbish my store.

  “There might be magical items in there that are dangerous or just unknown. Books, weapons, and so on. I know you have done this kind of work for Ciaran. It should be simple, but of course, I cannot promise it will be completely safe. There is likely magic involved, after all.” Noah stared evenly at me.


  The job sounded simple enough. Go to some house, figure out what was and wasn’t magical. Try to neutralize anything dangerous or unknown. I’d done similar, as he’d said. Should be easy enough. Seemed almost too simple to waste a carte blanche kind of favor from a half-dragon sorceress on. Which was the problem I was having.

  “So you drove all the way from Seattle to meet me instead of picking up a phone. To ask me to go to a house and do a little magic sniffing around the stuff inside? And after I do that, we’re even?” I folded my arms, giving him my best skeptical look.

  “You can hang up a phone,” Noah said. “Or ignore a call. Yes, when you have done this task to my satisfaction, we are even, as you say.”

  The thing about dealing with supernatural entities is you have to really listen to the details, and to what they don’t say. Done this task to his satisfaction? That was some crazy politician-level doublespeak if I’d ever heard it. Talk about leaving the door wide open for further demands.

  If he was going to show up and give me a quest, couldn’t it at least have been something straightforward. Clean out a warren of demonic something-or-others. Torch the lair of an enemy vampire. Save Timmy from the well. Instead I got the “go to this house, look at antiques” quest with a huge open question at the end of “what if I find something really bad?”

  “What if I find something really dangerous?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about handing something over to Noah, where it might be resold to the highest bidder or used against me someday.

  “I understand that concern,” Noah said. He inclined his head, the gesture slow and deliberate. He’d been practicing his humanity in front of a mirror for a lot of decades, I guessed. “If that happens, we can discuss how to dispose of said item. I am not allergic to compromise, if you will remember.”

  “Am I supposed to look for something in particular?” I asked.

  “There might be some anatomy jars with things the public should not have.” Noah lifted his shoulders in what would have been a casual shrug if it didn’t look like he was thinking “flex shoulders now” while doing it.

  “Anatomy jars? What kind of magic user lived there?” This was sounding more sketchy by the minute.

  “Minor warlock,” he said. “He collected many things, I am told. But he will not trouble you.” His eyes bored into me, as though daring me to ask more.

  A warlock. I’d dealt with one of those before. They were basically like male witches. Not born with magic like a sorcerer but just a human who had acquired it through spell book rituals or a powerful item or the like.

  “So we’ll do this together?” I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted him along, depending on what I found, but it was his house. Probably.

  “No,” Noah answered with a slight shake of his head. “I think it best if you go in and make sure it is safe before I or my people tread there.”

  I sighed. I did have to remember that he’d helped me stop Samir from turning into a god. I knew my suspicions were a little unfair. It was hard to trust even now, with my greatest enemy defeated. I wanted to ask more questions, to shake his solemn ass until he told me whatever he wasn’t telling me, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t do any good. Facts were that I owed him and this was how he wanted to be repaid. Maybe I shouldn’t look the gift-horse in the mouth.

  “Where’s the house?” I asked.

  “About three hours drive from here. It should not take you more than a day to inventory. Damien will give you all the information. I would prefer this done as soon as possible since I would like to sell the house once I know it is safe to do so.”

  That explanation made sense, though I wondered how and why he’d gotten it in the first place if he just wanted to sell it off again. Maybe someone lost a bet. Or maybe that warlock had owed him a favor and not paid up.

  With that sobering thought, I mentally reviewed my schedule. “I have to figure out coverage for the store,” I said, which mostly meant calling Lara and begging her to work a longer day either Sat or Sun. “So this weekend is the soonest I can do it.”

  I was also thinking about how to keep this from my friends. I’d have to tell Alek, and he’d probably come along, but if there were magic devices in this place, having a full crew with me might be more trouble than help. On the other hand, I could see an adventure away from Wylde being good for us.

  It was a pretty simple task, after all. I shoved away the nagging feelings of doubt again.

  Noah was very quiet for a moment and I wished I could read his expression, but trying to glean something from his face was like looking at a plaster bust of a Roman emperor and asking it for the time.

  “That will do,” he said in a resigned tone, as though waiting two days would be a chore. “No later than that.”

  I saw no signal, but suit guy opened the door at that point. I took the hint that the discussion was over. Suit guy had a folder in his hand, so I guessed he was the Damien that Noah had referred to.

  “Thanks, Damien,” I said, flashing him a toothy smile as I took the folder. “I’ll be in touch,” I called back into the car at Noah. He made no reply.

  I clanged up the iron steps to where Alek waited. Noah’s car drove away beneath us as we watched. When I couldn’t see headlights anymore, we went inside.

  “What does he want?” Alek asked as I put the folder on the table among our half-eaten steaks and twice-baked potatoes.

  “I can’t be sure,” I said. Then I added a thought, voicing the only idea that made any sense given that weird conversation just now, “but I think the Archivist wants me to rob a house.”

  Alek wasn’t happy with my plan for us to drive out and take care of this quietly, but he understood that I didn’t want my friends involved in what might be not only dangerous, but illegal. If the human cops showed up, it’d be a lot easier to pull some invisibility magic or something to cover two people rather than five. I figured Harper, Levi, and Ezee would forgive me later, though I knew I’d get a lecture from them about being over-protective and not accepting help. I was supposed to have turned over a new leaf and all that when it came to being up front about things with them.

  New leaves are great and all, but this was either going to be a far more dangerous mission than it appeared or it was going to be a super boring romp through what appeared to be, from the single picture in the file, a two story Elizabethan-style home plunked down in the literal middle of nowhere. What I knew about the area, which wasn’t much since it was definitely in the “drive through quickly” category, was it was rocky, empty, and brown most of the year. For all I knew, this would be the most boring weekend day trip anyone has taken.

  I wouldn’t have even taken Alek with me, but I kind of wanted someone to drive and I didn’t think I could talk him out of it anyway. After crashing my car into a moose earlier this year, I was still kind of leery of being behind the wheel, though I was overcoming it in small bursts of courage. I know, I know. Phenomenal cosmic powers, scared of getting behind a wheel after a single car wreck. To be fair, I thought I’d killed Alek in that wreck, so I felt like my fears were a little justified. I’d seen him covered in blood and presumed dead way too many times since we’d met. Never again wouldn’t be far enough away for my comfort.

  We’d decided on Saturday, since that was the best day for Lara to cover. I hated lying to my friends, but fortunately none of them asked on Thursday night at game what the plans were for the weekend. I think they just assumed they were the same as ever, and I figured I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission so I let them assume we’d be doing Diablo after hours on Saturday. With any luck, Alek and I could be back by late evening. It seemed obvious from my conversation with the Archivist that what he really wanted was whatever was in those anatomy jars I might or might not find. I had to admit I was dying of curiosity about what a vampire would want with a fermented pig fetus or whatever it would be.

  “Maybe it’s an alien,” I speculated as Alek and I went outside to eat lunch on Friday afternoon.
<
br />   He’d come a little later than usual, having been delayed by a prank call at one of the hotels that he’d gone to check out with Sheriff Lee. We’d decided to eat outside after the total lack of anything happening by whoever those two wolves were. They hadn’t contacted the shop or approached Alek. Their SUV, which the partial plate hadn’t been able to identify, hadn’t been reported by anyone and I’d kept an eye out for it and seen nothing either. My wards were now extended to include the parking lot, as annoying as that was when half the shifters in town parked back there at various times to go into Brie’s bakery. My wards had been lightly buzzing all morning. The lunch rush was over and the afternoon coffee rush wouldn’t start for a while, so only my car, Brie’s bakery van, and a couple local cars I couldn’t name the owners of but who I’d recognize on sight as being local were the only ones back there. Tourists and visitors always parked in front since the way around to the back lot wasn’t obvious if you didn’t know the town well.

  I wished there was a way to hone my wards to only identify people who were threats, but I had no idea how to even begin doing something that complex. If I got it wrong, it might backfire horribly. I wasn’t a ward specialist. More of a fireball and ask questions later kind of sorceress. We all have our strengths, I guess.

  “Maybe it is trap,” Alek said, raining on my speculation parade. He was still unhappy about doing this at all with so little information.

  “Noah helped me,” I pointed out. “Why do that?”

  “For that,” he said, motioning at my D20 with his ham sandwich. A piece of lettuce slipped out and splorked onto the table with a wet, mustardy slap.

  “What good would it do him?” I said, rubbing the gem in the 1 spot on the polyhedral die. “He can’t eat it and gain Samir’s power.”

  “Are you the last sorcerer?” Alek asked.

  I saw his point, but I stubbornly refused to make it for him. “If a sorcerer eats this we get boom! Magic apocalypse. Noah doesn’t want that. Humans might think vampires are sexy now, but if they learned all that shit was real? Fuck knows what they’d do, and there are a lot of them. They breed faster than we do and have nukes, remember? I trust his sense of self-preservation if nothing else.”