by Rachel Caine
I drop the mental walls restraining the Quarrel and a warm flush spreads across my skin. The air buzzes with magic. Balthazar frowns, sensing the change immediately, and takes a step back. He gives the crowd a cursory glance as he tries to figure out the source.
“Something wrong, Mr. Balthazar?” Julius asks.
Across the room, voices rise in sharp tones. The Quarrel is doing its job. Julius’s arm tightens around my waist as he feels it, too—the irrational urge to contradict someone, to get in their face and challenge them. Over by the werewolf’s cage, two of the male guests are facing each other down, arms gesticulating, faces red. Balthazar strides toward them, his black cape flowing behind him.
Now or never.
I slip over to the harpy’s cage and touch the smooth surface on the left side. Balthazar’s magic hits me like an electric jolt. I ignore it and push through to get a sense of the material—wood, as I thought. Good. Sharp pain stabs between my eyes as I reach for my djinn power and begin vibrating my entire body. Full djinn move through solid objects with no trouble. Being a half-breed means experiencing the unforgettable sensation of being ripped apart, body on fire, while I do this. Add in the burn of Balthazar’s magic, and I feel as though I’ll explode in a shower of flames.
And then my upper body is inside the harpy’s cage. Unhappy with my presence, she reaches for me. I’m vibrating too fast, my body more like a ghost than a corporeal being. Her phantom touch scorches my skin like acid, and I want to scream. She does scream, a piercing shriek that is half bird, half woman. Someone else is yelling. Stuck half inside the cage, the Quarrel going at full steam, my own natural magic battling with Balthazar’s abusive magic, I’m a monkey wrench.
I push my vibrations outward, even though I’m terrified of actually turning myself inside out. Agony is my entire world, marred only by a memory of my father’s loving face. This is all for him.
I push again.
The harpy screams and rushes forward. She bursts through the front of the cage, shattering the glass in a frightening cacophony of noise, and the burn of Balthazar’s magic fades.
Someone yells my name, and I move toward the sound blindly until the fire of passing through a solid object disappears. I pitch forward, landing hard on my hands and knees. My head throbs and my stomach twists with the start of a migraine. I vomit up the champagne I drank, the sour liquid scorching my throat and nose. My eyes sting with tears as I dry heave. Activity around me continues, and I try to focus, to see what results my freeing the harpy has wrought.
Instead, I get a face full of dirt—not vomit-covered dirt, thank Iblis—and the breath knocked out of me. A sensation like a million ants crawling over my skin tells me I’m being touched by abused magic. Black fabric swirls around me, and I struggle to get out from under Balthazar’s weight. If I hadn’t just walked through the harpy’s cage, tossing him off wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, I’m wrung out from that particular party trick. I don’t have the energy to buck off a chipmunk, much less a pissed-off warlock.
Hands close around my neck from behind. Dad’s yelling somewhere far away, audible even through his magic glass.
“What are you?” Balthazar asks, his voice pitched with anger.
“You shouldn’t . . . have messed . . . with my dad,” I choke out.
“Your . . . what?” His grip on my neck slackens, like he’s forgotten he wants to throttle me in favor of puzzling through which of his captives is old enough to have spawned me.
I twist hard, and his hold breaks. As I scramble away, a whoosh of air knocks me over. No one attacks, and I’m utterly confused as to what’s just happened, so I take a deep breath and lurch up into a sitting position. The tent is practically empty of guests. Only two of the rich patrons remain, both cowering among the chairs. The other five cages are solid, their occupants still caught. Julius is nearby, gazing up.
I crane my neck, which makes my head spin a little bit. The harpy has Balthazar by the throat, and she’s holding him near the peak of the tent, her great wings swirling the air as she keeps them aloft.
Her voice fills the tent with its fury. “Free them now!”
“I do not follow the orders of monsters,” Balthazar replies, with no less force. “Kill me, little bird, and be done with it.”
“No,” I croak out, unable to get any volume. Even though no laws exist preventing what Balthazar has done, I want him alive to face justice for the lives he’s interrupted. The pain he’s caused. But what lawyer will prosecute him? What judge will bother hearing the case? There is no police force, local or federal, capable of handling men like Stefan Balthazar.
We need one. Badly.
This need, however, won’t be filled in time to save Balthazar.
“You are a foolish, greedy little man,” the harpy screeches. “And your wealth at our expense will bring you nothing.”
She cleanly snaps his neck and then releases him. I shut my eyes. I don’t see it, but I cannot block out the crunching thud Balthazar’s body makes as it slams into the ground. Another sound, like distant thunder, breaks. It buzzes over my skin and right through me as Balthazar’s magic dies with him.
I open my eyes to a forest floor covered with dead leaves and fallen twigs. Freezing air wraps around me and sets my teeth chattering. The chairs and cages remain, but the tent is gone, as is the warmth. The illusion is broken. The locks are broken as well, and the pixie cloud has descended on the bus, preventing it from leaving.
Julius wraps an arm around my waist and helps me stand.
The harpy is gone. The skin-walker and werewolf jump down from their respective cages, give each other a look—likely seeing the other face-to-face for the first time—then help themselves to Balthazar’s clothes.
The leprechaun toddles over to us, his pint-sized body vibrating with excitement over his release. Julius says something to him in a language I don’t know, maybe a greeting, and the little man responds in kind. The only word I recognize is “Midas.”
Neither of these men matter as much to me, though, as the man walking toward me from the far side of the circle of cages. My father . . . The pride in his smile as he approaches swells my heart and knocks away some of the chill of the evening.
“Shiloh,” he says.
“Dad,” I reply. I don’t miss the startled look this gets me from Julius.
Dad pulls an epic frown. “I missed your birthday.”
I laugh and launch myself into his arms, hugging him, feeling his heart beat, his arms warm around me. We hold each other until I’m aware of low voices speaking behind us. I disengage and turn to the rest of the group, and am surprised to see Will has joined us.
“The bus isn’t going anywhere,” Will is saying to Julius. “I slashed all four tires, and the pixie cloud seems to be taking it upon themselves to act as guards.”
“Good,” Julius says.
“The humans won’t remember anything in an hour,” the skin-walker says with a slight twang to his voice. “Balthazar drugs the champagne and hors d’oeuvres.”
That revelation makes me glad I vomited up the champagne I drank, but I give Julius a concerned look.
He smiles at me. “I’m good at pretending to drink in social situations.”
Score.
“We owe you a great deal of thanks,” Dad says. “Gaius Oakenjinn.”
“Julius Almeida.”
Will and I introduce ourselves, too, and so do Kale (the werewolf) and Jaxon (the skin-walker). The leprechaun stays quiet, lurking near Julius’s left leg. The harpy is long gone.
“Are you cops or something?” Kale asks.
“Or something,” Julius replies. “Is there someone we can call for you?”
Turns out neither Kale nor Jaxon has family missing them, and, like Will, Kale is a forced wolf. Recently turned, too, and the pair strike up a conversation while Julius and I disperse the pixie cloud holding the bus passengers hostage. Since we have no legal right to keep them, I can only hope the story about the
drugged champagne is true.
Who are we gonna call, anyway? The Denver police?
Julius and the leprechaun disappear into the woods. Two minutes later, Julius returns alone.
With that, we remaining six descend the slope and hit up a twenty-four-hour Walmart in order to buy real clothes for Jaxon, Kale, and me (I’m not spending another minute in this awful dress), and then we hit an all-night diner.
It’s the first time I’ve been to a diner—or out to dinner anywhere—with my dad. We make idle conversation over plates of greasy burgers, fries, and coleslaw. The three shifters at the table split an entire blueberry pie for dessert.
“Men like Balthazar operate without fear of capture or reprisal,” Dad says once the pie arrives. It’s the first mention of Balthazar since we sat down to eat. “There is no human justice for Paras.”
“I thought you didn’t care about human laws,” I say. It isn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact.
“I didn’t, until they affected my family. You could have been killed tonight, Shiloh.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you in a cage. None of you deserve that kind of life.”
Will makes a soft sound that I can’t identify.
“I agree with Gaius’s comment,” Julius says. “It’s something I’ve considered since before I left the service. There’s no recognized authority that polices Para-related crimes.”
“Are you thinking of starting one?” Jaxon asks.
“I am, actually. I have contacts in the U.S. Marshals Service, and they’ve floated the idea to me more than once. I just never realized how it could work until now.”
“And how’s that?” I ask.
Julius smiles at me. “By populating the teams with Paras.”
“But there are no Paras in law enforcement.”
“Not yet.”
I return his grin, my own excitement growing. We need this, and I want to do this. For the first time since graduating college, I see a future for myself. A group I can be part of, feel at home with, and help to make a difference in the lives of other Paras. Especially those of my fellow half-breeds, who rarely find a place to belong on either side of their genetic pools.
“If you make this happen, I’m in,” I say.
Next to me, Dad grunts.
“Excellent,” Julius says. “Will?”
“No.” Will shakes his head and puts down his blueberry-stained fork. “No, that’s not the life I need right now.”
I’m disappointed, but I get it. Everyone has to choose their own path. Jaxon and Kale don’t jump on the bandwagon with us, but they don’t dismiss the option outright. There are still questions to be asked, answers to be found. Right now a Para-based law-enforcement group is still a pipe dream—one that could just as easily fall apart as it could come to fruition quickly.
“If I can be of assistance in this endeavor, Mr. Almeida, please ask,” Dad says to Julius, surprising the crap out of me. I figured on him actively disliking the entire concept. “I owe you a debt, and this is something my people take very seriously.” To Will, he adds, “And you as well, Mr. Carson.”
Julius and Will acknowledge the debt, but I don’t think they fully comprehend the enormity of having a djinn owe you a favor. I just hope that, when the time comes, neither man abuses my father and his generosity.
Or they’ll answer to me.
“The Inside Man”
A Jane True Short Story
Nicole Peeler
When someone comes into your office and tells you that small towns in the Midwest have gone dull, you don’t rush out with the cavalry.
But when the biggest, meanest supernatural boss in Chicago knocks at your office door, with the same complaint . . .
Well, then you take notice. It’s either that or risk losing an appendage.
Which is how I, Capitola Jones, found myself in a football field in the middle of nowhere, fighting for my soul and the souls of those I loved.
And here I thought the worst thing to be found out in the country were cow pies and rednecks.
They don’t tell you about the killer clowns.
—
EARLIER IN THE week, the assignment had sounded like a joke, even though the guy asking us to do him a “favor” was the least funny person I could imagine.
“So we’re supposed to drive south and find out what makes country towns so boring?”
The man across from me tore his gaze from my breasts to stare at my Afro, then looked back at my breasts, only to return to my Afro. Once again, the hair won. I wear it natural, and as big as I can make it. It’s sort of my trademark.
“If you want to put it like that, sure,” said Vince the Shark, pulling on his goatee with one of his small hands. Those hands were attached to short arms, which were attached to a lion’s body. His face, however, was human enough to leer at me.
But while Vince the Shark looked like something from Dungeons & Dragons and talked like a mobster off The Simpsons, he was no cartoon character. A pureblooded manticore with tremendous power, he had tiny arms that hadn’t stopped him from carving out for himself a large chunk of one of our most lawless cities, Chicago, using brutal force and extreme cunning.
I stayed well off his grid for a lot of reasons, the main one being that Vince was a psychopath. So to say I was displeased at his sitting in my office with me and my business partners, Moo and Shar, was the understatement of the year.
“So you believe some external force has made your sister . . . dull?” Moo’s voice was calm, as always. The daughter of a human woman and an Alfar who’d set himself up as an Egyptian god, Moo had been trained from birth to be his goddess-consort.
Which meant she had lots of daddy issues but great comportment.
“My sister was never a firecracker, but she was never like this. Something changed her.” Vince’s lion shoulders shrugged like a Mafia heavy, his jowly human face giving me a “What are ya gonna do?” look.
“Is she like you? Powerful?” Shar asked, her usually lush voice uncommonly monotone. Half succubus, my friend had tuned her mojo to zero. Vince had that effect on the ladies.
“She’s my half sister. Like you and your friends, she’s got a human mother.”
I wondered what it would be like to mate with a manticore and decided that was not something I wanted to pursue, even mentally.
Vince also didn’t answer my question.
“Moo here is a halfling, and she could tear this building off of its foundations,” I said. My friend acknowledged what I’d said with an elegant nod of her head before settling back into her listening pose, her ebony flesh and long braids motionless as that of a statue.
Victor grimaced, his approximation of a smile, and wheezed out a laugh.
“True, but my sister’s a more typical halfling than are you ladies. To be honest, she’s not gotta lot going for her in any category, and she’s a total dud when it comes to power—might as well be a fucking human. But she’s family, so I like to keep an eye on her.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said drily, thinking of Don Vito Corleone.
“She’s my sister.” Vince gave another wise guy shrug. “But the last time I spoke to her, she wasn’t right. So I sent someone to check on her. They brought her here, to me. She’s not the same person she was.”
“In what way?” Moo asked.
For the first time Vince’s face expressed an emotion other than that of a made-for-TV-movie caricature. Genuine grief tightened his jaw and furrowed his brow.
“She walks and she talks, but she’s not . . . there. It’s like she’s dead inside. Her husband and children, they are the same. I sent out my boys to find out what happened. The whole town is like this. And there is a chain of towns, running to the East Border.”
Vince didn’t mean Indiana, he meant the border where the neighboring, Alfar-controlled lands started. He couldn’t cross that line, so we couldn’t know if the same thing was happening in other states.
“So what do you
want us to do?” I asked, cutting to the chase.
“I want you to investigate. I don’t often ask for help,” Vince said. It felt more like a threat than an admission, however. “But I’ve sent dozens of my own people out there, and they have found nothing. Or . . .”
“Or what?” I asked, although I knew Vince was, undoubtedly, going to drop the other shoe.
“Or they didn’t come back at all.”
I sighed. “Great. So your people keep disappearing, and you want us to investigate?”
Vince gave me a toothy grin. “You are specialists at this sort of thing, are you not?”
Victims of our own success, I realized. We’d started Triptych intending to be simple private investigators for the supernatural community, but we’d had a few cases that should have been straightforward veer wildly off course into shitballs-crazy territory.
Soon enough, we’d earned a reputation for dealing with the weird.
I gave Vince a curt nod. “Fine. But if your people couldn’t discover anything, what are we supposed to do?”
“Simple. Succeed where they failed. Find out what did this to my sister.”
At that point, I looked over at Moo, who gave me a small nod, then at Shar, who shrugged. They were acknowledging what I already knew—that we were going to take this case whether we wanted to or not.
Vince wasn’t a man who took no for an answer.
“All right, Vince. Give us the facts. What’s your sister told you?”
“Nothing. She can’t remember anything. But my boys have been digging, like I said. They know there was something that happened all at once. An event. We just don’t know what.”
“Then how do you know . . .” began Moo. Victor didn’t let her finish.
“We have sources, who talked about getting called.”
“Like a phone call?” I said.
Vince shot me a Look. I wasn’t easily cowed but I felt that Look like the edge of a razor to the thin skin over my throat.
“Who are your sources?” asked Shar, piping up to come to my rescue.