The fibers chafed my skin, binding me tight. I called forth a red blood dagger and cut myself free.
The ferryman rose up to a terrifying height. “You’re Mundane.”
“I’ve been Mundane in my past.” I flipped the blade to my dominant right hand. “But this is a beautiful new world.”
“Even if you’re Nefesh,” he boomed, “you can’t have two kinds of magic.”
My spiky blood armor snapped into place. “I’m a well of surprises. You can find out how deep and dark I run, or you can return me to safety.”
The air crackled with tension, the boat bobbing like mad in the waves that churned angrily. I stood there, feet planted, jaw firm, not giving an inch.
For one blinding moment, the sun blazed blood red above the horizon.
Then all was normal: a cloudless sky, a kraken-less sea, blood-free clothing.
Arkady sat in the same spot, midway through some story about another sailing trip.
I held up my hand to interrupt him. “Did nothing out of the ordinary just happen?” I squinted against the sunlight, mourning the loss of my sunglasses.
“Other than I deigned to dazzle you with a fascinating tale that you apparently failed to listen to? Nada.”
Jacques, you fucking Houdini. “Take us in to shore and no tricks,” I said to him.
He leveled a steady gaze at me, taking my measure, then he nodded reluctantly.
Once he’d complied, I sat down beside Arkady. Failing to find an elastic in my pockets, I twisted my hair up and shoved the blood dagger through it to hold it in place.
“Well, that’s a look,” Arkady said.
“It’s all the rage in Paris.”
The craft slowed to a stop, bobbing gently about fifteen feet from shore. Jacques cut the engine, watching me warily.
“Are we supposed—?” I yelled, my ears still ringing from the roar of the motor. “To jump?” I finished at a normal volume.
“Yes.” Jacques engaged the anchor.
“From where? Show me.”
Jacques walked to the back of the boat. “Here.”
“Fine.” I held out a hand to Arkady. “My love? Some help?”
Arkady pulled me up and escorted me to where Jacques stood. In a beautiful move that didn’t telegraph a thing, he twisted and swung his fist, knocking Jacques’ lights out.
The captain swayed and crashed to the deck.
“Why the code word?” Arkady said. We’d arranged that if either of us called the other “my love,” to assume we were under attack.
“There was a whole thing with a kraken and a ferryman. Very Greek myth.”
Arkady shook his head. “Illusionists.”
“Right? Remember that where your hero is concerned.”
“Nah, Levi’s different.”
“Whatever, fanboy. Stay here and keep an eye on Jacques.”
“No way. I’d be skinned alive if I let you go onto Inferno by yourself.”
“Tough. I’m pulling rank. You have to keep him unconscious because we can’t have a Houdini running loose and messing with us.”
Arkady conceded the wisdom of keeping Jacques out of an already volatile situation, but it was the best of all the suck-ass scenarios, since we had no way of gauging how long my reunion would take and the illusionist could not be allowed to wake up.
“Keep yourself safe.” Arkady sat down on the top step of the metal ladder leading into the sea, his jeans rolled up, and his feet dangling.
Flip flops in hand, I jumped into the warm water, which was only thigh-high, and waded to shore. This was much more pleasant than the glacial lake that Camp Ruach had been situated on. I stepped onto the white sand beach.
My hair had tumbled down onto my shoulders. I looked around for the dagger but it had vanished and I couldn’t call up another one.
My magic was gone.
I waded back out into the water.
“What’s wrong?” Arkady leaned out of the back of the boat, his hands cupped around his mouth.
I made it knee-deep before another dagger appeared in my palm. “Inferno is a magic-free zone.”
Chapter 16
“Get on the boat, Ash.”
“But we’ve come all this way for our blessing.” I couldn’t turn around now. Chariot could not be allowed to get their hands on another piece of the scroll, and I couldn’t walk away from the best lead on finding my dad that I’d ever had. I threw him a thumbs-up. “Back soon, babycakes.”
The dagger disappeared again as soon as I hit the beach. I was magicless, but I wasn’t weaponless. I had my brain. Jezebels were chosen because we were the best Seekers. Magic and strength were handy tools in our toolbox, but deprived of that, it came down to our wits.
I could do this.
Behind the beach, about fifty feet from shore, was a dense press of palm trees jutting out crookedly from the ground and blocking any view of the rest of the island.
Shading my eyes with one hand, I scanned the island for any tell-tale elevation where a house might be located. There was a rise off to my right.
I headed into the jungle. The thick canopy kept it dim and cool under the trees.
Other than birds and some creepy crawlies, the dirt path up the hill appeared deserted, but the back of my neck prickled. I was being watched but, for some reason, not apprehended. Yet.
I’d been walking briskly for a few minutes, when there was a loud snuffling and crashing of dry branches to my left. I pressed back behind a tree in time to witness three wild pigs barrel past. One of them stumbled, close to where I’d been walking.
A volley of arrows shot out of a hidden hole to embed in the tree across from me. I pressed a hand to my racing heart. Another couple of steps and I would have been the one to set off that tripwire.
To badly misquote Shakespeare, “Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of a boobytrapped jungle, or wave my arms and call out the guards?”
I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. “I demand an audience with Caligula Jones.” When nothing happened, I called out again. “Tell Paulie Peterson that he’s got a visitor.”
Three square-jawed men built like tanks melted out of the trees. Each man was armed with a sub-machine gun slung across his chest.
“How do you know that name?” The one whose forehead was more of a twelve-head stepped forward.
“Take me to him and find out.” I tried not to stare but he also had this vast swath of unibrow and I couldn’t help mentally fitting him for a Flintstone loincloth.
“Mr. Jones doesn’t like tourists.” He unslung his gun.
“Wait! Kill me and Paul—Caligula will be very displeased. We all know what happens when he’s displeased, right, gentlemen?”
They exchanged an uneasy glance and I felt a stirring of unease. Geez, Uncle Paulie. How far off the deep end had you gone? If I’d believed his behavior was as extreme as their reactions suggested, I’d never have left Arkady on the boat. “On second thought,” I said, “I could just leave, never to return.”
Unibrow grabbed my arm and dragged me in an entirely different direction than I’d been headed. I tried dragging my feet to slow his progress but without my enhanced strength he hauled me along like I weighed nothing.
Eventually the trees thinned out to a large clearing in front of a run-down plantation-style house featuring a dilapidated veranda, weather-beaten eaves, and missing siding.
“This is where the illustrious Caligula Jones lives?” I said, hoping to shake the visions of serial killers dancing through my head. “What kind of lame-ass hedonist is he? Sheesh. Where’s the miniature replica of Versailles?”
“He burned that one down,” Unibrow said.
I’d been kidding. Yikes. I struggled in Unibrow’s hold, but he dragged me up the stairs.
Unibrow banged on the door, which was rotted through in places. “Mr. Jones?” Receiving no answer, he opened it and pushed me in ahead of him.
I gagged at the overpowering stench of stale
booze and unwashed body.
The ratty curtains were drawn in the front room, but through the holes I could just make out a tanned man in a leopard print bathrobe seated on a shabby brown recliner. He was face down on a mirrored tray.
“Mr. Jones?” Unibrow gently prodded his shoulder.
Uncle Paulie started, jerking up with traces of white under his red nose. He stared at me through bleary eyes. “Who’s this? Never mind. Don’t care. Kill her.”
Unibrow smirked in triumph, still gripping me in an iron-clad hold.
No. I was not about to die on this godforsaken island at the whim of this narcissist. I planted my free hand on my hip. “Too busy with your pity party, Uncle Paulie?”
Paulie’s bathrobe fell open to reveal a pair of leopard print Speedos. “What did you call me?”
“You heard me, old man.” I averted my eyes. “Gawd. Cover up. Circumcisions shouldn’t be visible through swimwear.”
“Leave us,” he snapped at the guard, belting his robe tight.
“Told you.” I smirked twice as hard at Unibrow as he released me.
“You still have to make it off the island,” he murmured. He snapped out a salute to his boss and left.
“Ash. I…” Paulie looked around at the shambles of the room and sprung into motion, gathering up empty bottles, while I pretended to be fascinated by the clutter of vinyl albums spilling off a threadbare sofa.
I picked up one of the covers. It was a greatest hits of polka music.
“Even as a kid, I knew your taste in music was shit.” I crouched down by the record player on the ground. The album on the player was David Hasselhoff singing “Do the Limbo Dance.” That appalled me more than the coke.
“You never came to see me,” he said.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. Paulie sat in the recliner once more, the bottles shoved unceremoniously in a corner. I moved aside some of the records and took a seat, the sofa creaking. “I was busy being angry and then you were busy being whatever the hell this is.”
“A legend.”
Uncle Paulie had been at the top of his chosen profession, illegal though it was. But he’d fled to this island, throwing parties that pushed every known definition of self-indulgence. I glanced at the coke on the mirror. He’d had to fill the void in his life with constant numbing—where were his real relationships? He’d had my dad. Had that been his sole social lifeline? Could I have ended up this way if Priya hadn’t pushed me out of my comfort zone?
I twirled a finger around the room. “You’re more like a cautionary tale.”
Paulie laughed, a rusty unused sound, and my heart clenched. “Why are you here?”
“What happened to my dad? And don’t give me the same BS you told Talia. You knew his secrets.”
“And I’ve damned him every day for it.”
“Then tell me.” My words came out thick and pleading. “Did he mean to leave us or was there an accident?”
Paulie scrubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t make me do this.”
My stomach dropped into my toes. “He meant to...”
“…Yeah.”
I gave a strangled laugh. “Don’t hold out now, Uncle Paulie.”
He closed his eyes briefly and swore.
At some point, when I was twelve, Adam got hired for a job. The ultimate score. Paulie didn’t know what the gig was, just that over a few months, Adam became withdrawn. One night shortly before my thirteenth birthday, my dad came to Paulie, scared. Whatever he was involved in, it was deep and deadly. In order to protect us, my father decided to leave. Pretend we didn’t matter.
Paulie’s words washed over me, reducing me to a ghost wandering through my youth, searching in the blackness for a spark of hope and finding none. If Dad had cared about a get-rich con to set him up for life, he could have charmed some wealthy asshole into handing everything over. He was ironically unmaterialistic. He liked the con more than the gains. This wasn’t about money, which meant that Dad’s ultimate score was the promise of immortality.
“Did he ever mention Chariot to you?”
Paulie shook his head. “Like some name for the con? Nah, nothing like that. He called it the Holy Grail payout.”
The Sefer would seem like a Holy Grail to those obsessed with it.
Chariot. Chariot. Chariot. The word thudded dully in my ears with each heartbeat. Should I mourn my father for being a fool? Hate him for that same reason?
“Who was he working for?” I said.
“There were some secrets he wouldn’t even share with me. Adam called him 26L1.”
“Real helpful. Where did Dad go?” My voice sounded tinny. Or maybe my body was just too far away.
“Nowhere at first. He had to stick around and see this job through.”
A vein pulsed in my forehead. “Was he in town for my birthday?”
Paulie nodded.
Mom had planned to throw a party, because thirteen was a milestone, but to me it was simply one more day in my tally since he’d left. Talia had tried to make the day normal. She’d bought me a sugary supermarket cake and queued up my favorite films, like the three of us had always done.
It was so normal, it hurt.
“When did he leave? As far as you know?” I glanced longingly at the bottles of booze in the corner but they were empty and there wasn’t a fresh stockpile.
“Not until after your accident.”
“Which was a Friday,” I said.
“I know, kid. Talia phoned me. The sight of you laying there…” He pulled a silver flask out from the side of his chair, uncapped it and took a swig. “Here.”
I took it and drank deep.
“Adam phoned me late Monday night, early Tuesday morning,” he said.
I sat up straight. That was the night he’d visited me in the hospital. The night my magic had first manifested. “How can you be sure?”
“I’ve gone over those last days a million times, trying to see what I missed. If I could have done something different. They’re etched in my mind.” Paulie fiddled with his belt, his gaze distant for a moment. “You know, I was quite the forger back in the day. It’s how I bought Inferno.”
“Yeah. Paintings mostly.”
Paulie rubbed his thumb and index finger together. “Good money in that. But I could forge anything. Adam called with a special request. Two items. A fake passport issued out of Montreal in the name of Avi Chomsky.”
Same initials, of course, because it was easier to remember a fake name that way, and Adam had grown up in Montreal and was bilingual if his French was ever tested.
“And the other forgery?”
“To reproduce a scroll. Rush job.”
The flask slipped from my hand, boozy fumes wafting up as the liquid pooled onto the floor. “Was the scroll old? Yellow, kind of brittle?”
“That’s it. Written in Hebrew and… some other language.” Paulie was starting to slur. I was losing him.
Dad hadn’t bluffed Gavriella about possessing the scroll. But which version had he planned on giving her?
“What happened to the scroll?” I said.
Paulie’s head nodded forward. “Took it. With the fakes. Thursday. Last time I saw him.” The pauses between words got longer.
I reached for him, and his eyes shot open.
“Never rush a con,” he said in a bleak voice, before nodding off.
If my father had lived by a rule, it was that one. Rushing a con was a surefire route to disaster. He’d spend hours in his cramped study with the door locked. I’d crept in once, when he’d gone for a coffee refill. Even with his Charmer magic, he’d compile detailed profiles on his targets, writing cramped notes in some code I couldn’t decipher. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that different from the legwork I put into a case. Except with more fleecing and a deluded self-righteousness about the fact that he only hit those who deserved it.
Amazing what my mother had turned a blind eye to in the name of love. Guess she’d found a strategy that worked for he
r—and kept it up to this day.
“Did you ever hear from Dad again?” I shook Paulie, but he was out too deeply to rouse.
Unibrow returned. “You need to leave.”
“What’s wrong with him?” I said.
“Too much.”
“Of what?”
“Everything. Let’s go.”
“Wait—”
Unibrow grabbed me around the waist, carrying me off like I was a football.
I struggled, but without my enhanced strength couldn’t budge his grip. “I just need to know what happened to my—”
Unibrow carried me through the house, dumped me outside, and slammed the door.
Dad had witnessed my magic and then commissioned the fake scroll. Why?
I sat on the stairs, my head pressed to my bent knees. If he’d initially left to protect us, could that desire have gotten stronger after seeing my magic?
What if Dad had made a deal to give them not just the scroll, but Gavriella as well? In return, Chariot would help him leave town, and set him up somewhere, maybe even to continue doing their bidding. But they’d leave us alone and my secret would be safe.
Adam would have required something irresistible to bring Gavriella close enough to use his Charmer magic on her and capture her for Chariot. If I were Chariot? I wouldn’t risk any real piece of the Sefer getting near a Jezebel. Thus, the fake.
Anger flared in my belly, scorching and bitter. Every replayed word of Paulie’s dripped like gasoline. Adam’s protection was a hollow shield, a shell game. Of all the sins Adam had to answer for, the worst was that a real father wouldn’t have been stupid enough to love the rush of the game over his own family in the first place.
Chapter 17
The rest of the trip was uneventful. I begged off enjoying the island nightlife, staying in with room service and some P.I. databases to track down Avi Chomsky, while Arkady went out on the town. I searched until the words swam on screen. The trouble was that Avi—Adam—could be anywhere in the world, using any date of birth, and that was if he hadn’t gone off-grid entirely.
Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3) Page 16