Whatever herb mixture Karyn had force fed me worked alongside the magic she’d used to counteract the poisonous effect of the henbane. When the last haze of fogginess subsided, I felt considerably more clear-headed than I had in months. It was only after I’d shut off the water and dried off that I realized what had changed.
Wrapping the towel around myself, I wiped condensation from the mirror and stared at my steamy reflection. Ever since popping those two Oxycontin pills back at Samuel Jenkins’s apartment half a year earlier, I’d been riding the constant ups and downs of opioid addiction. Other than a few fleeting moments of blissful elation that came immediately after ingesting another pill, I’d endured far more time suffering in withdrawal than I’d spent high. Nothing but the next fix was enough to counteract the desperate hunger for detachment that hounded me from one dose to the next. Though six months might not seem long to some, it was a relative lifetime in terms of not being able to remember when I didn’t want to be high every second of every day.
And that’s what was missing. It had been nearly three days since I’d last taken a pill, yet somehow I didn’t feel even a hint of a craving. The stupid decision to take henbane as a temporary substitute hadn’t come anywhere near what I felt after a couple of green monsters. Scariest of all, after the insane combination Trey had given me, even Oxy had felt weak and ineffectual by comparison.
And now I felt strangely clear. Whether intentional or not, Karyn had taken the lingering effects of my Oxy addiction along with the poisonous dose of henbane. Whatever she’d done to me had served as a kind of magic methadone, only without the need for regular maintenance doses. The hurt and anger that had led me to the doorstep of addiction still remained — there was nothing anyone could do to relieve me of that particular burden — but my withdrawal had been put on hold, giving me a fresh chance to consider whether or not I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to hide from my problems in the bottom of a pill bottle.
I left the bathroom more determined than ever to tie up the loose ends I’d left dangling between Trang, Montgomery, and Trey. They made up three sides of a deadly triangle that would continue to wreak havoc whenever they clashed. Trang would be nearly impossible to go after, what with him being an ancient and unimaginably powerful dragon and all. Montgomery wasn’t much better. She’d proven herself a formidable mage in the few brief encounters I’d had with her. That left Trey and Johnny. With no inherent abilities, they’d be the easiest to shut down. I still hadn’t figured out how to manage that without killing them, but there was still time to work out a deal with Trang if I could figure out how to get them arrested. All Trang seemed to care about was getting his stolen product back. If I could retrieve that for him, maybe I could keep him from using his influence to get his new foot soldiers out of police custody.
Snatches of conversation from the living room let me know Karyn had finished cleaning up, so I sorted through my pockets for anything salvageable. My phone was dead after being soaked in the bath, but the folding knife was still serviceable after a quick wipe down.
My clothes were worse than done for, so I tiptoed across the hallway to Karyn’s bedroom where I poked through her dresser and closets. Her underwear drawer held a shocking amount of impractical lingerie that made me blush just looking at it. After an exhaustive search of every stitch of clothing she owned, I managed to collect an outfit of capri-length yoga tights, a light purple racerback top, and the single thin hoodie I found on a hanger at the very back of the closet. I’d look like I was on my way to spin class, but at least I wasn’t covered in my own blood and filth anymore.
I took the clothes into Karyn’s en-suite and took another look at the hole in my shoulder. It was surprisingly small, only about the size of a dime. Other than a bit of light bruising around the entry point, my shoulder didn’t look that bad. Now that it was no longer packed with herbs, I could see that Karyn’s work back at the safe house had caused the muscle and sinew around the wound to partially knit back together, leaving more of a small divot than an actual hole. The whole thing was angry and red, weeping sticky fluid only slightly tinged with blood. Thankfully, there were no obvious signs of infection.
Using some gauze and tape I found in the mirror cabinet, I did a half-assed job of dressing the wound with my less than co-ordinated left hand. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it’d do to keep the area clean until it had time to scab over naturally.
Despite the magically accelerated healing, my shoulder still ached as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. I could use the arm to pull on the underwear and tights I’d found, but it hurt like hell when I tried to tug the sport top over my head. The tight elastic of the built-in bra would have been difficult enough to pull over my shoulder even without the injury. Between the pain of the pressure on my shoulder and the uselessness of my weakened arm, I managed to get myself stuck with the shirt hooked under my left armpit and pulling painfully across my right bicep.
“Let me help you with that,” Karyn said from the doorway.
I yanked the loose bottom of the shirt down to cover my chest as much as possible while she wrestled the elastic band down over my elbow. She then helped me fold my arm up through the wide shoulder opening, smiling at my discomfort while she adjusted the shirt over my breasts.
“Thanks,” I mumbled when everything was firmly locked in place.
“Still the same old Alex,” she said. “You’d rather get hopelessly stuck than ask for a bit of help.”
“And you’re the one I should be turning to for help right now?” I said with a huff and a shake of my head.
Karyn held the hoodie for me to slip into. Despite the lingering heat of the day outside, I still felt chilled from my near-death experience. Or maybe it was the AC in Karyn’s condo. Either way, it would be dark soon, and in Vancouver that meant a significant temperature drop.
“I know how all of this looks,” Karyn began.
She’d dressed herself in skin tight leather pants, wicked looking boots with a three inch heel, and a midnight blue cashmere sweater. Hair pulled back in a still wet ponytail, dark liner around her eyes, and lips coated dark crimson; she looked like she was ready to kick someone’s ass. The creamy matte smoothness of concealer around her nose was the only subtle hint that I’d most likely broken it. She’d have had no better opportunity to exact revenge than a moment earlier when I’d been caught in a lycra bear trap of my own making, but I gathered a bit of energy for a hasty shield spell just in case.
“It looks like you sold us out,” I snapped. “It looks like you knew what Trey and Johnny were up to this whole time. Worse, it looks a hell of a lot like you’re the only one who could have taught them to use human sacrifices as a focus to channel nexus energy into themselves.”
“That was not me,” Karyn said adamantly. Anger flashed across her features. “I admit it; I was the one who taught Trey and Johnny to cast the spells they used to break into those warehouses. That’s all I did though.”
“You’re telling me you had no idea what they were doing?” I pushed. “You never once questioned where those two morons were getting their power? How they were able to shield themselves from observation? Viktor told me he hadn’t heard anything about what Chase and I saw that night at the nexus. Do you really expect me to believe you didn’t have a hand in that?”
Karyn sighed and walked over to the bed. She sank down onto it, tugging at the hem of her sleeve in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. Her dark red lips pressed tightly together as though fighting to keep some big secret from spilling out. After a moment of silence, she looked up at me, shoulders melting into a tired hunch while she shook her head and pressed her wrist to the corner of her eye where tears had begun to form.
“Montgomery used me,” she said, her voice cracking ever so slightly. “She hired me as a consultant, then had me research a dozen different things for her a few months ago. The money was so good I didn’t even question what she asked for. By the time I put it all together
, it was too late. The questions about harnessing power from the nexuses were buried in theory on how to channel that power into a technological system using a simulated organic conduit. We’re talking super high level theoretical concepts here. It never even occurred to me that she might use any of what I told her the way she did.”
“So she used your research to teach Trey and Johnny how to tap the nexuses for power.”
Karyn nodded, sniffling now.
“By the time I knew what she’d done, it was too late,” she continued. Tears fell freely, and she had to pause several times to collect herself. “She told me if I didn’t give Trey and his gang tools to shield themselves from the Conclave, she’d make sure they knew I was the one responsible. You know how the Conclave would react if they thought I was teaching ungifted how to capture nexus energy. I don’t know what Montgomery’s deal is, but she’s far more connected than I am. I don’t doubt for a second that the Conclave would take her word over mine if it came down to it.”
“Crying? Really?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. If Karyn had ever cried over someone trying to manipulate her, I was SpongeBob SquarePants.
She blinked away her tears, cold fury replacing her little display of false feminine weakness. Her posture stiffened, and she stood up and paced across the room to snatch up a tissue that she used to blot away the tear streaks on her cheeks.
“Habit,” she said flatly. “Learning to cry on command has been more useful than any spell I’ve ever learned.”
She balled up the tissue and stalked into the bathroom to throw it out. When she emerged, she had her hands in her back pockets, hips canted as though she was a petulant teen trying to explain why she should be allowed to stay out all night.
“Montgomery used her threats to strong arm me into taking part in the first ritual,” she said. “After that, they had everything they needed to perform it on their own. Montgomery could have had them do it alone the first time, but she used her leverage to make me wholly complicit. I’ve been stuck working for her ever since.”
“What about the knife that Chen kid had when he tried to kill Chase at the night market?” I asked. “Did you enchant that blade? Were you the one who placed the compulsion on him?”
“I didn’t know what it would be used for!” Karyn shrugged in exasperation. “People ask me for things, then they send me e-transfers with several zeroes behind the numbers. It’s literally in my contract that I don’t ask questions. There may be no love lost between you and I, but I have no reason to want you dead. I have even less reason to want Chase dead. Between the two of you, he’s by far the better person.”
“No argument there,” I muttered.
“Did I hear my name?” Chase stood in the doorway, arms crossed and grinning as though he’d been listening for far longer than either Karyn or I had realized. “Let’s say we give you the benefit of the doubt here. What happens next? Are you going to help us take down Montgomery and those dipshits she turned into magic-wielding mercenaries, or are you going to disappear on us the first chance you get?”
“I’ll help you in whatever way I can,” she said. “I’ve been hoping you’d figure it out all along. I knew what you’d find at the SkyTrain station that night. I wish now that I’d just come clean and asked for your help back then, but I was too afraid to be exposed. If you’d told Trang or run to the Conclave, I’d have been as good as dead.”
Chase nodded. He unfolded his arms, revealing the gun still clutched in his hand. His finger moved from its position along the side of the trigger guard to rest on the trigger itself.
“What about the safe house?” he asked firmly. “How did Montgomery’s goons know to find us there?”
“They’d tracked you on their own,” she said, holding her hands up as though they’d do anything to stop a bullet fired from such close range. “Montgomery had to believe I’m working entirely for her. I lied to her about how much I’d healed you. As far as she knew, you were both drugged and helpless. When she told me about the fight with Trang’s agent and the ensuing car chase, I just went along with it to keep suspicion away from myself.”
Chase stalked forward, his usually shy and hesitant posture nowhere to be seen as he backed Karyn up against the wall. When she had nowhere else to go, he closed the last few inches, pressing the muzzle of the gun into the soft hollow on the underside of her jaw.
“I don’t know what kind of history you and Alex have, but all I see is a conniving bitch who’ll do anything to save her own skin,” he said in a terrifyingly calm and even tone that said he wouldn’t hesitate to splatter Karyn’s brains all over her bedroom wall if he didn’t like what she said next. “What’s to say you won’t just hand us over to Montgomery first chance you get?”
Karyn’s eyes flicked nervously towards the gun before locking back on Chase. She let her hands fall by her side, standing as composed as the situation allowed. The tension in the room was so thick it was almost difficult to breathe. Karyn’s magic relied heavily on ritual and ceremony. She couldn’t conjure on the fly like I could, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have any tricks up her sleeve. For all I knew, her clothing had been enchanted to act as a last ditch protective spell that would kill or incapacitate anyone too close to her. My mage sight revealed nothing obvious, but I was beginning to learn just how unreliable it was when it came to truly talented magic users with the ability to hide their power from me.
“Chase, let’s not do anything hasty,” I said slowly. “Everything Karyn has told me rings true. The only way she can break Montgomery’s hold is to shut her down. The only way she can manage that is with help from us.”
“I don’t like being trapped,” Karyn said, a dangerous smile creasing her lips. “Something you’re going to learn the hard way if you don’t get that gun out of my face.”
Chase just laughed. “This whole magic thing may be relatively new to me, but I’m pretty sure there’s not much you can do before this little hunk of lead rips through your brain at twelve hundred feet per second.”
“Fine,” Karyn said. “Will a blood oath suffice?”
Chase glanced at me for confirmation.
“A blood oath is a powerful binding,” I told him. “But it cuts both ways. Literally and figuratively. She’ll have no power to act against you should she break the oath, but you’re going to have to give something of your own for the binding to work.”
“Like what?” Chase asked.
“I’ll swear to aid you and Alex so long as Montgomery is a threat,” Karyn said. “And in return, all I ask is that you protect me to the same extent you would safeguard Alex’s life.”
“Careful, Chase…”
“It sounds fair enough to me,” he said. “How do we do this thing?”
Karyn’s eyes flicked to the gun. “First you put that down, then we perform the oath.”
“Nice try.” Chase said. “Oath first. Still carrying that knife, Alex?”
Awkward as it was being jammed up against the wall, Karyn still managed a careless shrug. She held her left palm out to me, not even flinching when I drew the tip of the razor sharp blade along her skin. Knowing a thing or two about blood oaths myself, I ensured my incision crossed the prominent lifeline that arced from her wrist up to the fleshy pad between thumb and forefinger. A thin line of blood welled up quickly. Chase stared at it a moment before twisting his body so he could present his left palm while still maintaining pressure on the gun with his other hand. I sliced his palm in exactly the same manner, cutting only deep enough to draw enough blood to fulfill the oath.
Chase swore and winced in pain. A slice across the palm was brutally painful, and it would take ages to heal. There were better ways to draw blood from yourself, but ritual magic was rarely about doing things the easy way.
The two gripped hands, giving the blood a chance to mingle between their palms. From the indentation beneath Chase’s thumb, I could tell he was squeezing Karyn’s hand with considerable force. Karyn, for her part, seemed to b
e enjoying the process as she repeated the terms of the oath. She then murmured the words to an incantation, once again reverting to the Old High German that was her preferred casting language.
The binding settled into place with a nearly inaudible sound like rustling drapes or a broom just barely sweeping the surface of a sandbox. I felt the little ping of magic ripple out into the room, and I saw Chase’s eyes widen quickly then return to normal. He shuddered once then simply stood there staring into Karyn’s eyes.
“Do you mind lowering your weapon now that we’re on the same team?” she asked sweetly. “You can also let go of my hand now.”
Seeming to snap back to consciousness from wherever he’d just gone, Chase looked at the handgun as though just remembering he’d been holding it all along. He let his hand drop from hers, then backed away slowly, gun still trained on her face.
Then he squeezed the trigger.
I recoiled from a bang that never came. Karyn, to her credit, only blinked in surprise before leaning her head back against the wall and letting out a loud throaty laugh. She ran her unbloodied hand over her hair and shook her head.
“It was never loaded,” Chase said sheepishly. “Montgomery’s body guard must have had some kind of magical back-up plan, because he didn’t have any reserve ammo.”
Black Market (Black Records Book 2) Page 23