Minimum Wage Magic (DFZ Book 1)

by Rachel Aaron

  “Whatever,” she said dismissively. “It’s still menial, and you’re still broke.”

  “How do you know I’m broke?” I challenged. “Cleaning’s a lucrative business. Maybe I’m rich and just too busy to worry about little family debts.”

  She laughed at that, a beautiful, musical sound. “Please, darling, don’t play these games with me. You’ve been down to the wire on every payment since March. It’s painfully obvious that you’re drowning, so stop being stubborn and come home. You’re so young, and your magic is so dreadful. The DFZ is no place for lazy, sloppy children.”

  “I’m twenty-six, Mom,” I said, reaching up to rub my suddenly aching head. “Get a better argument.”

  “How can I see you as anything but a child when you insist on acting like one?” she snapped, the sweetness vanishing from her voice to reveal the steel that was always waiting just underneath. “Your father has been exceedingly generous letting you roam for as long as he has, but enough is enough. Your failure is obvious to everyone. A better daughter, one worthy of being called Yong-ae, would have realized this and come home ages ago, but alas! I am cursed with an ungrateful, defiant sow of a child who is incapable of appreciating the great privilege she was bred into. Can you even comprehend the suffering your selfishness has caused?”

  “I’m sure you’ll survive,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes. “I’m hanging up now. Tell Dad I’ll have his money on time.”

  “You can tell him yourself,” she said. “He’s already there.”

  I froze. “He’s here? In the DFZ?”

  “Not for you,” she said. “He has business in the city this week, but that just makes it more convenient for him to pick you up when you inevitably miss your deadline.”

  “Well, I hope he didn’t change any plans,” I growled. “Because I’m not going to miss the deadline.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she warned. “Never forget, Opal, this is a bed of your making. You were the one who insisted on this debt. Your father has been very lenient thus far. Too lenient, I think, but even his patience is not infinite. You know what he is capable of. If you continue to defy him, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

  She was right. I knew exactly what my father was capable of. It was why I’d risked everything to go to school overseas. Why I worked an untraceable job and cut myself off from all of my legitimate friends like Heidi, who’d only seen me four hours ago and yet had somehow already managed to leak my new number to my mother. Now I’d have to change it again.

  I’d already warned her I was hanging up, so I didn’t feel the least bit bad when I cut off the call without a word. I brushed my hair with furious strokes until it hung straight, black, and shiny again, and then I pulled it back into a ponytail to keep it out of my face and because my mother hated ponytails. I did my poncho next, pulling the plastic over my head and rinsing it off in the shower. When all the dirt was on the floor of my tub instead of the spellworked plastic, I shook off the excess water and walked back into my living room to start recharging the wards.

  The preprinted magic circle that had come with my poncho was in the corner of my living room where I’d left it yesterday, draped over the top of my empty mini fridge. I knocked the stiff plastic ring onto the floor with my foot and dumped my heavy plastic warded coat into the middle, sucking magic into my hands as I went. When I had enough—or maybe too much—I shoved the power into the circle, filling it until the tiny lines of laser-printed spellwork flared and the magic pushed back at me. Satisfied I’d dumped enough in to replace what I’d used, I left my wards cooking and went into my bedroom to change.

  Cleaning is a dirty job. Even with my poncho to keep the worst off, my jeans and T-shirt were sweaty, dusty, and still smelled vaguely of dead body. Disgusted, I stripped naked and shoved everything I’d been wearing into my work clothes hamper, the one with the sealed lid. Since I was still working, changing into another pair of jeans would have been best, but it was beastly hot, so I opted for shorts and a tank top, which, though far less protective, were much cooler. I was still lacing up my running shoes, because like hell was I putting my bare legs into my filthy work boots, when someone knocked on my door.

  “Dammit, Nik,” I muttered, checking the clock on my nightstand. Sure enough, it had been exactly ten minutes. I would have wondered how he’d known which apartment was mine, but after everything else he’d pulled tonight, I was starting to think Nik could follow my scent like a bloodhound. Cursing my stupid mother for wasting my time and stupid punctual jerks for rushing me, I yanked my shoelaces tight and stomped to my front door.

  “Seriously,” I said as I yanked it open. “You couldn’t give me one extra minute before…”

  I trailed off, eyes going wide. The man standing in front of my apartment was not Nik. He looked very legitimate at first glance: tall and handsome with a tailored suit, slicked-back brown hair, tan skin, and expensive leather shoes. But his blindingly white smile was too aggressive to mean anything good.

  “Miss Yong-ae?” he said politely.

  My answer was to shut the door in his face. It might have been too much—I got a lot of door-to-door salesmen, and annoying as they could be, they weren’t usually bad people—but this was too close on the heels of being shot at and my mother’s phone call to take risks. Also, door-to-door salesmen didn’t ask for me by name. I almost managed to get my door slammed and locked before the man wedged his foot in.

  “I just need a moment of your time,” he said quickly. “I want to make you an offer. My name is—”

  He stopped suddenly, voice cutting off like a switch. It happened so fast my first thought was that he’d finally realized how much getting your foot slammed in a door hurt. A second later, though, I realized his silence had nothing to do with me or the door I was shoving against his wing-tipped shoe. He’d shut up because there was a gun sticking past the side of my door frame, its muzzle pointing directly at the side of his head.

  Chapter 5

  “Why, Mr. Kos,” the stranger said, raising his hands over his head. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  I couldn’t see who was holding the gun from where I was standing, but sure enough, when I opened my door wider, Nik was standing in the old motel’s open hallway with his sleek gun pointed at the tanned man’s temple.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in a deadly voice.

  “Same thing you are, I imagine,” the man at my door replied. With remarkable calm, I thought, given the situation. “Pursuing a business opportunity.” The stranger’s sly brown eyes flicked back to me, and the brilliant white smile returned to his face. “You’re Miss Opal Yong-ae, correct? The Cleaner?”

  I glanced nervously at Nik, but he was keeping his eyes—and his gun—pinned on the newcomer. He looked more pissed off than worried, though, and I took that as a cue to play it cool. “Who’s asking?” I said, opening my door all the way to show that I wasn’t afraid.

  The tanned man smiled wider, which didn’t seem physically possible. “My name is Kauffman,” he said, nodding down at his chest. “There’s a business card in my front jacket pocket.”

  Which he couldn’t get for me because he’d be shot if he moved.

  Sighing at the ridiculousness of it all, I dug my fingers into his pocket to grab the card. I made sure to press my knuckles into his chest as I did, giving him a good feel of the magic I’d instinctively pulled into my hands. It was supposed to be a warning, a rattle of my own to match Nik’s pulled gun. To my surprise, though, the man was already buzzing with power when I touched him. It was a neat, orderly pulse, much better shaped than my sloppy handful. Apparently, this Kauffman was a mage as well, and not a bad one. Better than me, actually, which made me much more grateful for Nik’s gun as I stepped back into my apartment with the business card.

  “Andrej Kauffman,” I read, noting the expensive embossed printing and, more importantly, the tracking spell woven into the ecru card stock. “President, Creative Solutions L
LC. Magical risk management and asset recovery.”

  That last one made me sweat a little, but I managed to keep the worry off my face, leaning casually on the door frame so that my body blocked Kauffman’s view of the bag full of the papers we’d taken from Dr. Lyle’s house, which was still sitting on the coffee table not three feet behind me.

  “If you’re here to recover something, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” I said innocently, reaching out to tuck the bugged business card back into Kauffman’s pocket. “I haven’t found anything worth sending someone after in weeks. Just ask Nik. He knows how bad my luck’s been, and you two seem to know each other.”

  “We’re not friends,” Nik said sharply, sliding his gun a bit closer to Kauffman’s skull. “He’s a fixer. He helps corporations find criminals to do their dirty work.”

  “I prefer the term ‘consultant,’” Kauffman said crisply, giving Nik a cutting look before turning his dazzling smile back on me. “I understand you recently purchased the Cleaning rights to a town home in Magic Heights, yes?”

  I could have said no. Cleaning auctions weren’t public record, but it was easy enough information to get. All he’d have to do was talk to any other Cleaner, and they’d tell him all about my crazy bid. Kauffman also struck me as the sort of person who didn’t ask a question unless he already knew the answer, so I nodded, and his smile grew even brighter.

  “Excellent,” he said, clapping his still-raised hands together above his head. “I’d like to buy it from you. My employer has authorized me to offer you a hundred thousand dollars for full rights to the house and everything therein. If you could just tell your attack dog to lower his weapon so I can use my phone, I’ll be happy to transfer the full amount to your account immediately.”

  Nik looked more pissed at the dog comment than I’d ever seen him, but I was too shocked to pay his reaction proper attention. A hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money, and “immediately” was definitely my kind of timeline. If I took his offer, I could pay my debt tonight. But eager as I was to get out of my current squeeze, I wasn’t a total idiot. If Kauffman really was a fixer like Nik said, then he was undoubtedly the one who’d hired the guys who’d attacked me. He was also vastly overpaying, which told me the information I’d found in Dr. Lyle’s home was worth a lot more than a hundred grand.

  “Opal,” Nik whispered, but I held up my hand.

  “You’re offering for the Cleaning contract, right?” I said, choosing my words carefully. “Meaning you’d clean the house up and hand it back to the city ready for a new tenant in exchange for ownership of everything that’s inside it right now.”

  Kauffman’s eyes sharpened above his smile. “Considering you’ve already been there, that wouldn’t be a very good deal for me, would it?” He shook his head. “We’re not making a new deal, Miss Yong-ae. I’m offering a hundred thousand dollars for your contract, meaning I would own everything on the property from the moment you won it at auction, including any objects or papers you might have already salvaged. But I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” he added quickly. “After all, you already said you’ve found nothing of value for weeks, so selling all that nothing to me for a very nice profit should be a no-brainer, right?”

  He finished with a cheerful grin, but I was already shaking my head. Nik was as well.

  “No deal,” he said.

  Kauffman shot him a sideways look. “I don’t see how your opinion enters into this, Mr. Kos.”

  “It enters because sixty percent of that contract is mine,” Nik growled, keeping his gun up as he stepped around Kauffman to join me in the doorway. “Opal and I already made a deal, and if you’re throwing around that much money, all you’re doing is telling us that what was in that property is worth a lot more.” He looked at me. “Right?”

  “Damn right,” I said, crossing my glowing hands over my chest.

  Kauffman shrugged and lowered his hands even though Nik’s gun was still pointed at his head. “That is your prerogative. But before you close the door, you should know that the previous tenant, Dr. Theodore Lyle, is a dangerous and deranged man.”

  I blinked in confusion at his use of the present tense, and then it hit me. Kauffman was only trying to buy my Cleaning contract on Dr. Lyle’s townhouse. That meant he must not know about the basement I’d won this morning, or that Dr. Lyle was dead.

  “A dangerous man, huh?” I said, keeping my face neutral. “What’s so bad about him?”

  “He’s a thief, for one,” Kauffman said. “He was a magical contractor for our mutual employer, but he absconded six weeks ago with some expensive and very dangerous property. I’m merely trying to get it back.”

  “If he’s a thief, why didn’t your ‘client’ call the authorities?” Nik asked.

  “He’s a man who greatly values his privacy,” Kauffman replied innocently.

  “Right,” Nik said, giving me a pointed look.

  As if I needed the hint. This was obviously a case of criminals all the way down. But while I had no idea why Kauffman’s “client” cared so much about a ritual that made cockatrice eggs, I now knew for certain that that spell was worth a lot more than a hundred thousand. No one made money paying fair market price on a buyout. For Kauffman to show up this fast with a six-figure starting number, the actual value had to be multiple times that. Maybe even more than a million.

  My stomach began to flutter. Forget making my payment. Forty percent of a million would clear all the money I owed to my father and then some. I just had to get my hands on it, and that meant getting rid of Kauffman.

  “Thank you so much for coming all the way out here, Mr. Kauffman,” I said sweetly, trying not to cringe at how much I sounded like my mother. “But I’m afraid we can’t do business. I have a previous arrangement with Mr. Kos, and I could never go back on a contract with a fellow Cleaner.”

  “You really should reconsider,” Kauffman said, the smile slipping from his face. “This is a one-time offer. I’d hate for you to miss it.”

  “Sorry, but the answer is no,” I said firmly, clenching my fists around the magic I’d packed so tight it was starting to burn my skin. “Good night, Mr. Kauffman.”

  Kauffman’s perfect square jaw tightened as he realized I was serious. Nik tensed as well, his body still and hard as an iron post beside mine. To my enormous surprise, though, no violence broke out. Kauffman simply backed away.

  “A no is a no,” he said, charming smile right back in place as though it had never left. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement, Miss Yong-ae.” He nodded to Nik. “Mr. Kos.”

  Nik didn’t answer. Neither did I. We just stood side by side in the doorway, watching Kauffman like hawks as he strolled away down the open hallway, whistling to himself in the hot, dark night.

  When he’d vanished down the stairs, Nik slammed my door. “You need to pack.”

  “What?”

  “Kauffman’s a professional,” he said, holstering his gun. “He only asks nicely once. The next time it’s going to be men through your window.”

  I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

  “What part of this strikes you as a joke?” he demanded. “You’ve already been shot at once today by men Kauffman probably hired. You think he’ll hesitate to do it again?”

  Not when he put it that way. “Should we call the cops?” I asked, grabbing my bag off the table and digging for my goggles, because if this was getting serious, I needed Sibyl’s eyes. “Even in the DFZ, it’s illegal to bust in through people’s windows, right?”

  “It is,” Nik said. “But DFZ police are all private security contractors. They practically have an 800 number for bribes, and given the numbers Kauffman’s thrown around tonight, he’s probably already paid.”

  I cursed under my breath. Sometimes I hated this city. “So what do we do?”

  “We run,” Nik said, nodding at my poncho, which was still lying in the center of its charging circle. “Is it done yet?”

  I walked over and st
uck my hand in the circle to check. “Almost,” I said, swirling my fingers through what was left of the nearly absorbed magic. “So what should I bring? Are we talking overnight or days or what?”

  Nik shrugged. “Kauffman knows where you live now, so I’d say bring whatever you don’t want smashed.”

  I froze, eyes going wide as I remembered the rubble they’d made of Dr. Lyle’s house…and then imagined the same thing happening to mine. “Oh no,” I said, dangerously close to tears as I turned to my nearly empty shelves, the last treasures I had left. “No, no, no.”

  My reaction seemed to freak Nik out even more than the prospect of gunmen crashing through the window. “What’s wrong?” he asked, voice slightly panicked. “Why are you crying?”

  I was not crying, though I did have to sniff a few times before I could answer. “I don’t want him to break my stuff. I know it’s stupid and it’s not worth much, but…” I shook my head, pushing my goggles up so I could wipe my eyes. “It’s mine.”

  That was all I could say. Before I’d come to the DFZ, nothing had been mine. Everything had belonged to my father, including me. I couldn’t say that to Nik, though. I could already see him assessing my apartment as a Cleaner would. I’d done the same myself countless times, and I knew what he was going to say. The stuff in my apartment wasn’t worth a thousand bucks altogether. It was useless, pointless, sentimental junk, and I was an idiot for caring about it when so much more was on the line. I was telling myself to get a grip when Nik turned back to me.

  “We’ll move it.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

  “We’ll move your apartment,” he said, his face breaking into a rare smile. “We’re Cleaners, right? We do this all the time. I’ve only got my car, so we can’t get the furniture, but we can do the rest. Just tell me what you want to save, and I’ll help you get it out.”

  He said all of this quickly and confidently, but I still couldn’t believe it. I thought this was stupid, and I was the one who was upset about it. Nik had to think I was the biggest idiot on the planet for going to pieces over a bunch of quarter-full shelves. It would be in everyone’s better interest for him to tell me to suck it up, but he was already grabbing the big empty box that my bulk order of Cup Noodles had arrived in.