by Ben Reeder
“Here’s an idea,” I said. “Why don’t you hold your breath while you wait for that to happen?”
“The Mercantile Guild demands an immediate return to bondage for the sprites, Copperbottom,” Harland said. “We will not employ them or sell to them, and we will see to it that anyone who does is punished until our demands are met. And if you don’t actively work to meet our demands, we will bankrupt you, Copperbottom.”
I turned away, unable to think clearly while I saw Harland’s face. While Melton fumed behind me, I tried to remember everything Dr. C and Kim had taught me about strategy and tactics to turn this around. Everything I knew about the Mercantile Guild said they could do everything that Harland had just threatened. They had the money and the power, and their relationship with the Conclave was solid. My eye fell on one of the decorations near the door, a stone slab with a bronze plaque set in it. The words registered in a bolt of inspiration, and I turned to move toward it.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, you demon loving piece of shit,” Harland said, breaking into my thoughts. He grabbed me by the shoulder, and reflexes that still weren’t completely mine kicked in. My right arm slipped under his left, snaked around behind his shoulder until my hand was at the back of his head and grabbing a handful of greasy hair. While my right hand was reaching for his hair, my left had come up and grabbed his left arm by the wrist.
He cried out when I pulled back on his head and marched him to the big stone block. “Are you familiar with this?” I asked. “Do you know what it says?”
“Let go!” Harland demanded. “Copperbottom, do something!”
“The boy is clearly defending himself,” the gnome said, his tone casual. “You did lay hands on him first.”
I brought Harland’s face down onto the stone a little harder than I needed to. “Can you read it now? No? Let me get you a little closer.” I pressed down and shoved his face across the stone. “Line one says ‘We reserve the right to refuse service to demons, devils and their worshippers.’ Oh, and look there, what does that part say?” I raised his head an inch and brought it back down on the stone. “It reads ‘The Mercantile Guild.’ So, let me ask you a question. How do you think I freed the sprites?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t give a-OW!” he cried out as I thumped his head on the table again.
“I freed them during the Rending. You’ve heard of that, right? Of course you have. You know how it works.”
“It’s a demonic ritual, that’s all I need to know.”
“Yeah, but this one...this one’s special. See, the Rending lets you undo any demonic accord. So I ended up freeing the sprites during the Rending. Guess what that makes sprite slavery? You guessed it. A demonic contract. So, here’s the deal. You back the fuck off of the sprites, or I start telling people how the Mercantile Guild is actively enforcing a demonic contract, and has for the last seven decades. And that you know it’s Infernal. That will effectively end any support you ever had with the Conclave, and drive business far far away from any Guild merchant. I will destroy you, and the Conclave will help me.”
Harland paled and his eyes turned toward me. “But we didn’t know!”
“You do now,” Copperbottom said, peering over the edge of the stone. “And I’ll make sure that gets spread around. You should let him up now,” he nodded at me. I let Harland go and stepped back, my hands reluctant to relax. I wanted to smash his head back down until it was soft and squishy, and rip his arms off. Maybe not in that order. Instead, I turned away from him and gritted my teeth, fighting the wolf back down.
“This isn’t over,” Harland spat. “We’ll fight this, and we’ll make sure the Conclave sees this our way.”
“If you try, I’ll make sure your grandfather’s name on the original contract gets dragged into the light,” Copperbottom said. “For now, I’ll let you get away with claiming the Guild ‘didn’t know’ that it was an Infernal agreement. But I was there when those accords were signed. And I refused to sign them. Your granddaddy wasn’t so scrupulous. You’re dismissed.” Judging from the sounds behind me, the minotaurs weren’t very gentle in escorting Harland out, and looking out the window onto the Bazaar, I watched him walk away. Before he was lost to sight, he turned and looked back, then pointed right at me. I replied to his index finger with a different digit, and he scowled at me before turning to disappear into the crowd.
“You made a powerful enemy today,” Copperbottom said, coming up beside me and climbing onto a chair.
“Did I make a friend, too?” I asked.
“I try not to take sides where business is concerned,” Copperbottom said. “It gets messy. But Harland threatened me, and you gave me leverage on him. That’ll earn you a little bit of goodwill for a while.”
“But not forever,” I said.
“Nothing lasts forever. Not contracts and especially not gratitude.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said, turning to walk toward the door.
“Then remember this too, Fortunato,” Copperbottom said. I stopped and turned back to him. “You came in here with an army at your back. That will earn you more leeway than anything else you can bring to the table. Don’t underestimate the sprites. Your master probably didn’t tell you that the sprites didn’t ask the Unseeligh Court for protection. The Court offered the deal to the sprites to keep them from siding with the Conclave. You can have that little bit of wisdom for free.”
“I promise, I won’t tell anyone about the free part,” I said with a lopsided smile.
“That would buy you a little more good will,” Copperbottom replied.
There was a crowd of sprites waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. The elder sprite landed on my hand again, spread his hands and bowed his head, the sprite version of a bow.
“We owe you another debt, Liberator,” he said. “What happened to day may not change things much, but it is a start. I am Elder Hok, and I pledge my clan to you in gratitude, and to your clan.”
I inclined my head to Hok and brought my left arm out to the side, the best sprite bow I could make with him on my right hand. “Elder Hok, my clan will always help the sprites. Ren has saved my life and helped save a lot of other lives. I owe your people, too. Look, if you need a place to be, talk to Wizard Corwin, and some of the other members of the Conclave. I’ll make sure everyone in my circle knows to look out for you.”
“And we will look out for you,” Hok said. “The Honorable Copperbottom was speaking truth when he said we were once a force to be reckoned with. And we will be again, thanks to you.”
“That part is up to you guys,” I said. “But I don’t doubt it.”
“Go in peace, sprite friend,” Hok said, lifting into the air. “May the spirit of the wildlands watch over you and yours.”
“May the winds always lift you up,” I replied.
Chapter 9
~ Never try to get between two people who are deeply in love. They will crush you. ~
Advice to a young succubus
My wolf wasn’t a patient creature. I’d been at the kitchen table for two hours, and every attempt I had made to pay off some of our bills had been met with frustration. Most had already been paid, which didn’t make sense. There was no way Mom had come up with all the money necessary just from working at a part-time job and her job at Spirit Garden, and I knew she wouldn’t just accept charity from someone else. I stood up from the table and clenched my fists to keep from flipping it. Besides, if she had somehow come up with the money, she would have stopped taking the extra shifts at work so she could have more time with Dee and me. Instincts honed from years of working around my father’s side of things were practically screaming that something wasn’t right.
I took a couple of steps away from the table then turned back, trying to figure out what was bothering me. There was a piece of paper stuck under the chair leg, so I bent down to pick it up, thinking to throw it away. But when I turned it over, I almost hit the floor. It was a deposit slip for five grand. I had given Mom five hundr
ed. A cold chill went down my spine. Everything I was seeing pointed to a cash loan. Something that at least two letters on the table told me Mom had been turned down for a few weeks before. That meant one thing: loan shark. Mom had gotten a loan off the books. The money I had given her had probably gone toward a first payment.
My magick was a lot weaker, but I still had a tiny bit left, hopefully enough for a simple divination. Moments later, I was in my room and pulling my amethyst pendant from my backpack. With it dangling from my right hand, I closed my eyes and focused.
“Show me yes,” I said, and it started spinning in a circle. “Show me no,” and it swung forward and back. “Show me unknown.” It swung left and right. “Okay, I need to find the loan shark. The source of the five thousand dollars Mom deposited. Show me the way.” Immediately, the pendant started swinging at an angle, and I moved that way. The arcs got longer, and suddenly, I found myself at Mom’s bedroom door. I took a deep breath, suddenly nervous at entering Mom’s space, but this was too important. If I was right, this overrode normal manners. I reached out and turned the doorknob. Her bed was pushed up against the wall to my right, and she had two tables set up in an L in the corner on the far wall. A heavy chest was set at the foot of her bed, and her dresser and mirror were set up on the wall to my left, with her closet on the left hand wall. I followed the pendant to the tables, where her sewing machine and other crafting tools were set up, and found a piece of paper sticking out from under the edge of a box.
I tucked the amethyst away and pulled the page out. On it was a number and a date only a few days from now. Below that was an address and a name. It was time to pay this guy a visit. Smiling, I tucked the paper back under the edge of the box and headed for the door.
The address turned out to be an old payday loan office with the signs taken down. White letters on the glass door read “By Appointment Only”, and no one inside seemed to be there to actually work. The door was locked, so I did the polite thing and tapped on the glass. One of the guys lounging in the lobby, a brick wall of a guy in slacks and a pastel polo shirt, came up to the door and pointed at the sign.
“You got an appointment?” he asked through the glass, his accent vaguely Slavic. I could see tattoos peeking up from under his top.
“Do I need one to pay you?” I asked in return, not bothering to correct his grammar.
“I don’t know you. So, yes.”
“Seriously?” I said, holding up one of the stacks of bills. “I’m here to give you money, and you want me to call first?” He flipped me off and turned to go back and sit down. I felt a surge of rage that left me shaking, and the laughter from the other men in the room just opened the door for my wolf to try to come out. I took a few quick breaths while I fought it down, then reached for the door handle.
The metal frame warped a little, then the glass shattered and the door popped free of the frame, hinges and all. It hung up a little on the hydraulic thing at the top, but a quick twist and a yank backward freed the whole thing. I tossed the mangled door aside and stepped into the lobby. Two beefy guys with dark hair and track suits came at me. The one on my right threw the first punch, and I caught his tattooed fist in the palm of my hand. His buddy followed his example a half a beat behind him, and I caught that punch in the other palm. Then I squeezed hard enough I could hear knuckles popping while I brought my arms out and down, forcing the two goons toward the floor. The guy in slacks came at me from the left, and I let his friends go to dodge the kick he aimed at my head.
Then he swung the bat.
Ninja assassin level martial arts, superhuman strength, speed and reflexes made for a potent combo. As the bat whistled toward me, I leaned back, then reached for it as it passed, catching it and stopping it with grip strength alone. With a yank, I pulled it from the thug’s grip, the flipped it end over end before throwing it at the wall. The blunt end stuck in the cinderblock. The room went silent, and I turned to the one guy who hadn’t moved, a skinny looking man in a white, button down shirt and a black tie on the other side of thick glass. A steel door separated his part of the office fromt he lobby, and I ripped it off its hinges before walking over to his desk.
“Bats don’t normally do that,” I said in a calm voice. “Now, we can talk, or I can show you a few other things bats shouldn’t do.”
“Let’s talk,” the man said, his accent much thicker. “Let us start with names. I am Nicolai Velenkov. But I’m sure you already know that, if you come...knocking...on my door looking to pay me. What I am interested to know is who are you?”
“I’m Chance Fortunato,” I said. “I’m here to pay Mara Murathy’s loan.” I pulled five grand out of my backpack and laid it on his desk, then pulled out half that and set it next to the first stack of bills.
“This is not enough,” Velenkov said. “There is early payment penalty, because I lose all the interest she would pay me. And fee for dealing with you. That is another ten thousand. Plus five thousand for...insurance.” I looked at him for a moment, trying hard not to give in to the urge to rip his throat out. Finally, I pulled the cash from the bag and set it on the desk. “And another two thousand for your attitude.”
“Fine,” I said, pulling the two grand from the backpack. “Now, we’re through.” I turned and started for the door.
“You are through,” he said when I was a few steps away. “But I like doing business with your mother. And I am worried for her. She is surrounded by dangerous people. She needs… protection. Protection I will happily provide. For a price.”
“I’ll pass,” I said.
“That isn’t wise, and I wasn’t making suggestion,” Velenkov said. “You come in here and damage my place of business, you hurt my employees and you interfere with my livelihood. You should worry more about your mother’s safety.
“My mother’s safety is very important to me,” I said, turning and walking back toward him. “And it’s important to you, too. Because if anything happens to her, or my sister, or anyone I even like a little, I’m going to come find you and express my...disappointment.” I reached down and took a baseball off his desk and held it up. “There’s no place you can run to that I won’t find you, and nothing you can do to stop me.”
“If anything happens to your mother, you’ll have to kill more than just me, little tiger. Now go, before you make a threat you can’t back up.” He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. I reached forward and slammed the baseball down on the desk, leaving a hole in the wood.
“I don’t mind starting with you,” I said. “And I’ll be happy to show you what you shouldn’t be able to do with a baseball.” I turned and walked out the door, secretly fuming. As much as I could smell his fear, I couldn’t smell enough of it. They were Russian, and based on the tattoos, they were Bratva. Killing Velenkov would be just the start of a long war, and the Bratva played harder ball than my father did. I couldn’t fight an army on my own. As much as I hated to do it, I needed some outside help. It was going to be a long couple of days. I fired off a quick text to Mike Cassavetes, then wiped my hands and headed for the Mustang.
With nothing else on my plate to distract me, I found myself drawn to one place. I got in the Mustang and headed for Shade’s house. I couldn’t trust her phone, but I could trust that she’d be home at some point, if only to keep her parents happy. Eventually, I ended up ringing her doorbell. When no one answered, I headed back to the car and drove to the next block, then parked and headed back. There were lots of trees in Shade’s neighborhood, old ones with their lowest limbs twenty or thirty feet off the ground. I went to the base of one and looked up. The lowest limb was well out of reach, but with my new strength, it was an easy jump to grab the bottom limb. I pulled myself up and found a comfortable place to perch.
The sound of a car’s tires hitting the driveway woke me from a light doze, and my head came up. I turned to look toward Shade’s house and fought to keep quiet. Shade’s silver Mustang pulled into the driveway, but it wasn’t Shade driv
ing. She was in the passenger seat. The car pulled to a stop, and the windows rolled down.
“Valmont is really a step up over public school,” Kain’s voice reached my ears. “It’s a way to make a clean break with Chance, and start mixing with a more...acceptable crowd.”
“I’m not breaking up with Chance,” Shade said, her voice soft.
“Do you think you love him?” Kain asked. “Is that it? You’re too young to know what you want. That boy isn’t in your league, and he never will be. For all of his failings, Dominic King was a very powerful alpha, who came from a line of powerful Weres’, which means you come from that same line. Fortunato, on the other hand… he’s a gamma, Alexis. At best. He’s a Gypsy and a wizard. Weakness is in his blood. The best he can hope for is to become a beta in a very weak pack. You’re too strong and too good for him. Just look at the chaos of your relationship. He should never have allowed you to even talk to the beta Sinbad sent to court you. If that boy was the kind of real man you needed, he wouldn’t have allowed you to get away with any of your antics.”
“Antics?” Shade said, her voice rising. “Look, I might have made some mistakes, but I’m not some histrionic bimbo. I don’t do ‘antics,’ you chauvin-”
Kain reached out and grabbed her, pulled her to him, then mashed his mouth to hers. She struggled for a moment, and I started to move toward them, then stopped when she went limp in his arms. He pulled back after a moment and looked down at her. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and she looked up at him with wide eyes.
“That is how a woman naturally reacts when a strong man takes charge,” he said with a smug grin. “If Chance was man enough for you, you would never have had that reaction. Now maybe you’ll finally grasp the truth, that what you feel for him isn’t love, it’s just infatuation.”
“He let me say no,” Shade said, ducking her head. Her voice was so soft it was almost carried away on the breeze.
“If he was truly worthy of you,” Kain said, moving toward her again, “he wouldn’t have even asked, and you wouldn’t have resisted.”