Though if we were still here tomorrow, I was so dropping by the chocolate marketplace and denting my credit card. Thankfully, portal magic didn’t melt artisan chocolate. Of course, getting it by the dragons unplundered would be a feat.
Warner and I hustled by the square with its taunting, massive steel signage screaming GHIRARDELLI over my head. You know, as if the entire building contained nothing but vats upon vats of chocolate … Okay, obviously I was having a hard time letting that dream scenario go.
I managed to pass Norman’s Ice Cream & Freezes without stopping, though I cranked my neck awkwardly to peek through the crowd at the window. Then all that stood between us and the wide, dark bay was Fisherman’s Wharf.
We took a right turn on Embarcadero after the Chowder Hut. “I could seriously go for some halibut and chips. Or clam chowder,” I said. Yeah, so I was highly suggestible. What else was new?
I checked my phone. “According to the blue dot, we’re here.”
“The vampire wants to meet us at …” — Warner glanced up at the sign hanging above our heads, which depicted a mermaid riding a giant crab — “…the Franciscan Crab?”
“Can’t you feel it, dragon?” Kett’s cool voice emanated from the darkness at the top of the beige-and-black-tiled stairs that led to the second floor of the restaurant. I imagined the eatery boasted some of the best waterfront views in San Francisco.
“Can’t I feel what?” Warner snapped into the darkness, not bothering to turn toward Kett. Probably because he couldn’t sense the vampire’s dark peppermint magic and it bothered him. I often forgot that he — or Kandy or Kett — couldn’t taste magic like I could, and didn’t think to mention when we were approaching a magical object or person.
“The magic,” I murmured, reaching out with my dowser senses beyond the two of them. “Lots and lots of Adepts are near.”
Kett stepped down the tiled stairs, his hands casually tucked in the front pockets of his designer jeans in a learned human gesture. Not a white-blond hair was out of place, despite the fact that the evening offered a cool breeze. He had nary a wrinkle on his gray cashmere crew-neck sweater either.
Warner grunted at Kett’s appearance. Though the sentinel was particularly skilled at using shadows to his advantage, he hated when others had the ability to sneak up on him. But then, didn’t we all?
“Well,” I said, “that’s enough of the ‘standing around and staring at each other’ portion of the evening, don’t you think? You said something about dancing.”
“Hunting is what he said,” Warner corrected. Ah, so dragons did read other people’s text messages.
“That’s what vampires do.” Kett’s cool smile was meant to utterly infuriate.
“Am I tasting a bunch of Adepts nearby?” I asked to deflect the tension. “Or just a few of significant power?”
“A gathering,” Kett said. Then he slipped off into the shadows to move farther up the quiet, mostly empty street.
“Are we just supposed to follow?” Warner asked through gritted teeth.
“Yeah. He deals out information in bits and pieces. It’s part of the hunting instinct.” I meant the last part as a joke, but judging by Warner’s grunt and nod, he agreed with my assessment.
On the edge of the bay, San Francisco felt like a quieter, smaller city. A few cars drove by, but the sidewalk remained mostly empty. All the buildings and businesses that encompassed Fisherman’s Wharf appeared closed — or closing soon — for the evening.
“So you don’t actually know this amplifier?” I asked the darkness between me and the strip of grass that bordered the bay on my left. A mostly empty streetcar passed us on the right.
Kett didn’t immediately answer.
“This isn’t going to be the same thing that happened with the skinwalkers, is it?”
“Skinwalkers?” Warner asked.
“Adepts of First Nations ancestry. They have the ability to cloak themselves with the form of a spirit animal,” I said. “They were thought to be extinct. Kett had me hunting for them without … you know, telling me that we were hunting rare Adepts.” I glanced at Warner. He kept his gaze on the sidewalk ahead of us and his mouth shut. “It doesn’t sound so good when I put it like that.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“This Adept is … shy.” Kett fell into step beside me, placing me momentarily in a peppermint-and-black-forest-cake sandwich. It was less appetizing than I would have thought. Good to know …
“Shy, as in scared of you?” I asked.
“She doesn’t know me … yet.” Kett flashed a toothy grin.
Warner shook his head.
“She’s a mercenary of sorts,” Kett continued. “Just difficult to contact and hire on short notice.”
“Amplifiers of any real power are exceedingly rare,” Warner said. “Her freedom is probably her top priority.”
“Witch magic?” I asked.
“A form of it,” Kett said. “But she hasn’t forged ties with the witches’ Convocation or the sorcerers’ League. Both would be options for her.”
“Just another set of chains,” Warner said.
“Indeed,” Kett said.
The sentinel didn’t seem pleased by the vampire’s amiable agreement.
“Then she doesn’t have any protection?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Kett said. “Though I doubt it would be anything we three couldn’t handle.”
Warner grumbled something under his breath. Kett laughed quietly to himself.
Wow, this was going to be a fun evening.
“So the dancing?” I prompted.
“Time is tight,” Kett said. “Too tight to wait to make contact through proper channels.”
“So you propose to use the alchemist as bait.” Warner’s disdain was almost as impressive as it had been in the nexus with the treasure keeper.
“There’s a lot of that going around today,” I said.
“The alchemist is far from bait.” Kett paused before a two-storey building complex, set before what appeared to be a number of huge piers jutting out into the bay. “More like the trap.”
Bold white lettering on a turquoise and orange sign drew my attention. Across a narrow bank of grass and a pedestrian walkway, nestled between a bike rental place and a moored yacht, an oasis beckoned. I gripped Warner’s arm in excitement and gestured toward one of the most beautiful buildings I’d ever seen. “Oh my God! He’s taking us to Ben & Jerry’s!”
Kett pivoted and darted completely in the wrong direction, across the tram tracks running up the side of the street to the opposite sidewalk. There, a four-storey concrete parking garage took up the entire city block. Stairs of blue steel and concrete wound up the exterior.
“No,” I moaned. “He completely tricked me.”
“I think the ice cream place is closed,” Warner said helpfully.
“Don’t take his side! He lured me with ice cream because he didn’t want me to see the parking lot!”
“You have an issue with parking lots?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
I watched Kett slip around the dark side of the lot. I sighed. Heavily. Warner was a silent but comforting presence at my side. Just a couple of blocks away from us the city was quiet … in that way that ever-present car engines, sirens, murmured conversations from balconies, door chimes from twenty-four-hour convenience stores, and wind through tall buildings can be quiet. So not quiet, but normal.
I trusted Kett. And I wanted the map back. That’s all any of this came down to. So no matter where the vampire was leading me, I would go for those two reasons.
Pushing previously disastrous choices out of my head and remembering to look both ways, though there wasn’t much traffic, I jogged across the street toward the open-air parking garage.
∞
Floodlights jutted out over the top of the Pier 39 public parking lot, illuminating a mural of humpback whales sticking their noses out of a bright blue sea. Behind us, small shops and restaura
nts blocked most of the pier from sight, though I could see a white and blue boat — perhaps some sort of small ferry — moored off to one side. The entire vista reminded me of Granville Island and Fisherman’s Wharf in Vancouver. Though the buildings were older here and more tightly packed together.
I found myself thinking about coming back by day and wandering down one of the piers or side wharves. I wondered if I could buy crab fresh off a boat. I used to love doing that. Crab … sweet spot prawns … You know, before my life became consumed by cupcakes, portals, and duty.
I could see a bus depot a block ahead and to the left of us, but halfway along the base of the parking garage, Kett veered off to the right. And apparently went down a set of stairs, since he disappeared from sight and didn’t have the ability to walk through walls. Not that I knew, anyway. I probably would have missed the stairwell if I hadn’t been following his peppermint magic.
Turning away from the piers was enough to remind me that I had no idea where we were anymore, or how to get back to Haoxin’s apartment. Yeah, my sense of direction was terrible. I wasn’t sure that was a skill I would ever be able to hone, actually. It would probably have been a good idea to note the freaking address of the apartment building before we left. Then I could have at least followed the blue dot on my map app back.
Would have, should have, could have. That was my life. Right?
“Why have us meet him at the restaurant in the first place?” Warner grumbled at my side as we neared the almost-hidden set of stairs.
“Maybe he was enjoying a glass of wine and the view,” I said.
Warner snorted, then momentarily lagged behind as I cut right down the concrete stairs. I’d forgotten — again — that he couldn’t track Kett like I could. No wonder being around the vampire bothered him so much.
I paused halfway down the stairs to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and to assess the well of magic I could feel beneath and before me now.
“What does his magic taste like to you?” Warner asked from behind me, his tone hushed.
“That’s a rather intimate question.”
“I thought you wanted to be intimate,” Warner teased.
“I do. Just not in the dark on a grubby set of concrete stairs.”
Kett laughed from within the deep shadow that cloaked a nondescript steel door at the base of the stairs. Warner grumbled underneath his breath. Vampires had great hearing.
The door was either dark blue or black, but I couldn’t distinguish the color in the low light emanating from the street behind me. Nor could I see a handle. But the aboveground parking garage obviously had a sublevel.
“Peppermint,” I murmured, answering Warner’s question. “And something else I haven’t figured out yet.”
Kett stepped out of the shadows and triggered a motion-sensitive light above the door.
“Blood?” Warner asked mockingly.
“No.” I stepped down into the concrete vestibule at the base of the stairs. Kett was watching me with that slight head tilt he often seemed to get stuck in, but he hadn’t fallen into one of his fugues. “I know the taste of blood.”
Warner moved to occupy the space one step up behind me. He didn’t comment further. Kett slowly turned his head to regard the sentinel with a look he usually reserved for interesting magical artifacts.
And, technically, that’s what Warner was. A magical artifact. I stifled a smile. Kett noticed, lifting the corners of his mouth in response.
“Sixteenth century here is accustomed to working alone,” I said.
Kett inclined his head half an inch. “As am I. Though only for the last few centuries. I had two companions throughout the sixteenth century.”
This intimate detail was dropped before us as if we were simply friends and it wasn’t actually a thinly veiled assertion of Kett’s elder status.
“Yeah, we get that you’re older and wiser, vampire,” I groused.
“Older, maybe.” Warner’s tone was almost teasing, almost banter. But then he ruined it by gruffly adding, “The door and immediate area are warded.”
“Only for sound … outside,” Kett replied, even more coolly.
“There’s no handle on the door,” I said, stating the obvious to insert myself into the conversation.
“Not yet.” Kett backed into the shadows so deeply that the motion-sensor light flicked out. The vampire wrapped himself so completely in darkness that he disappeared from sight, though I could still taste a tingle of his peppermint magic.
Warner grunted, impressed despite his ingrained prejudices.
“Yeah, Kett has mad hunting skills,” I muttered. “I’m hoping it’s a learned trait and not particular to every vampire, because there are a couple I already wouldn’t want to meet in broad daylight.” I still hadn’t gotten over the encounter with Kett’s maker in London, who dressed like Audrey Hepburn but could probably rend me limb from limb. And, as terrifying as she was, I shuddered every time I thought about coming face to face with his grandsire, the big bad who’d banned me from reentering the United Kingdom.
“I doubt they would enjoy such a rendezvous either, dowser,” Kett said dryly. “But back to the matter at hand. I believe your magic will gain you entry.”
“Because yours won’t?” Warner asked, more interested than snarky.
Kett didn’t answer as I stepped up to the door. “The vampire is magic,” I said as I pressed my hand to the middle of the steel-plated entrance. “So he doesn’t exude a residual signature or trace.”
“Plus,” Kett said, his tone still dry and lightly mocking. “My kind isn’t welcomed here.”
The door opened a crack. I could now feel, more than hear, a faint beat of music.
I laughed. “You did bring me dancing!”
I pressed the door open farther, feeling the sound-barrier spell tingle along my hand and arm as I did so, but seeing only deep darkness. By its taste, the spell was sorcerer magic. “An underground club for Adepts?” I was completely impressed — and completely ready to dive into the crowd I could feel just beyond the door but not yet see.
“Indeed.” Kett touched my back lightly as he slipped alongside me, entering the curtain of black just inside the door. Riding my magical signature through the door in some way until we both stood in a sort of limbo of darkness.
“There’s a bodyguard,” he whispered against the skin of my neck. His breath was cool, and all about the peppermint.
“Of course there is.”
“She and I aren’t well matched.”
Then the vampire was gone, peppermint magic and all. It was as if he’d been absorbed and diluted into the pulse of magic I could feel before me.
Delightful. I had no idea what he meant.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Warner’s black-forest-cake magic rose and fell behind me. The sentinel’s clothing was just a manifestation of his dragon magic. Something inherited from Jiaotu, according to my best guess — similar to my knife and my father’s sword — but I didn’t know much about the guardian of Northern Europe. I glanced over my shoulder, completely prepared to ogle my new boyfriend in whatever he’d decided was more appropriate clothing for a night of dancing in an underground club.
Groan.
He was still standing in the door. The motion-sensor light an inch or so above his head created a halo effect around his golden-brown hair. He’d swapped out his T-shirt and leather jacket — an ensemble he favored due to Kandy’s influence — for a jade-green silk shirt that fit tightly across his broad shoulders but slightly loose around his waist, tucked into low-rise dark blue jeans. He was even wearing a pair of freaking gorgeous Fluevog boots — brown, zippered 760 Turbo Svenskas with a manly square toe.
An utterly insuppressible grin spread across my face. Warner grinned back at me.
“It’s difficult to look as good as you, Jade,” he said. “But I figured I should try.”
Oh, God. I had nothing to say to that. No witty comeback. In fact, I was rather parched all of a sudden
. I continued to grin like an idiot as he stepped forward to place his hand on my lower back and escort me farther into the building.
“Do you know how to dance?” The curtain of black between us and the magic I could feel ahead swallowed my eyesight.
“I’m a quick learner.” Warner’s words were a whispered promise in the dark.
God, yes. He was a quick learner. And I relished watching him learn … every single minute of it.
We stepped fully through the barrier blocking sound and sight — the sorcerer magic letting us bypass it effortlessly — and were immediately assaulted with pounding music and glaring lights.
All the magic contained in the cavernous room crashed over me. I gasped, completely buzzed within seconds of stepping into the club — instantly high on the wild magic whirling in the air around us. Sorcerer magic. Witches and shapeshifters, and more I couldn’t identify. Every single person before me was an Adept.
A year ago, this would have been too much for me to bear. Now, I reached out with my dowser senses and gathered it tightly around me. My limbs loosened and my spine limbered. I hadn’t realized I was so tense.
“It’s a buffet,” I murmured. Warner didn’t answer me, making me pretty sure he couldn’t hear me over the din.
A guy — big and ugly enough that at first I thought he was a shapeshifter in his half-form — stepped up to greet me with a wide, lopsided smile.
“Payment?” he yelled. He held a flat steel disk out toward me, with a short, sharp spike protruding from its center.
I stared at it, blinking. “Am I supposed to slap my hand over that? You demand a … blood sacrifice to enter?”
The guy laughed. “Nah,” he said. “Just Adepts only, you know?” He was wearing some sort of earpiece. I couldn’t get a taste of his magic, so I was guessing it wasn’t terribly powerful or he was some sort of Adept I hadn’t met before.
“I got through the door, didn’t I?”
The guy lost the smile as he pushed the spiked disk toward me.
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) Page 10