by D. N. Hoxa
“Now, we wait for someone to show up,” he said, amused by my nervousness.
“Right. I’m going to walk around and see if I know somebody.” I turned around, but he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me.
I looked at him. What the hell? He seemed to think it was okay to grab me any time he wanted.
“We already have eyes everywhere. When we have something, we’ll move,” he said, his sharp voice indicating that he wasn’t to be argued with.
I pulled my hand away from his. “You’re not the boss of me. I’m not your team,” I reminded him and I turned to the crowd again. If he thought he could control me the way he did his team, he was in for a hell of a surprise.
I’d barely taken one step before I felt like suffocating. Fuck, these people had no idea what personal space was! I raised my head to breathe a bit better, when something caught my eye. There, on the second floor, atop the railing, sat Kit.
He was either looking for me, or he wanted me to see him.
I turned around once more, desperate to get away from these people, until I saw Damian’s face.
“Second floor,” I said, pointing at Kit sitting on the railing. His eyes zeroed in on him instantly, and with a nod, he shot forward. This time, he didn’t take my hand, and it sucks to admit that I wished he had. People stepped away from him or tried to make a little bit of way when he passed, but nobody gave a shit about me. Elbows, shoulders, people stepping on my sneakers every step of the way. It got old fast, and when I finally made it to the stairway, it felt like an hour had passed. There was a bouncer there at the bottom stair, too, and he didn’t look as friendly as the ones by the main entrance.
Damian walked up to him, and the man raised a hand toward his chest to stop him. Until he looked at the vampire’s face. The bouncer flinched and pulled his hand back as if he’d seen fire. Damian leaned closer to him and whispered something in his ear.
The bouncer swallowed hard. I could see his Adam’s apple moving. He looked back at me, and in his dark eyes I saw the panic. He was terrified, but he also had a job to do. Supernatural or human, everyone could feel raw power when it was near, and Damian had plenty of it. He also wasn’t moving from in front of the human, no matter how many times he shook his head.
Cursing under my breath, I raised my hand in front of my chest and began to conjure a spell. I stepped next to Damian just as I finished, and a weak purple light left my hand. It moved toward the human and slipped through the fabric of his shirt, into his skin, searching for his thoughts. A simple confusion spell. I’d done it before when there’d been humans around a hellbeast. They couldn’t see hellbeasts, and they saw altered versions of the supernaturals who looked different, like Moira, but they could still feel us. It was better to give them something else to focus on.
The bouncer’s eyes opened wide, then glazed over. He blinked rapidly and turned around to look at the stairway, then back at us, at the club. Terrified that someone had seen me, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down the stairs. “Go have a drink,” I said in his ear and pushed him toward the bar.
Damian grinned ear to ear as he looked at me. I walked up the stairs to find Kit.
“Aren’t you full of surprises,” said the vampire as he walked by my side. Finally, I could see Kit waiting for me at the top of the stairs. “What else have you been lying about?”
“Nothing,” I spit angrily. When we reached the top, Kit didn’t climb onto my leg. Instead, he shot to the right and disappeared on the other side of the club. I went after him.
“So everything the Guild knows about you is a lie?” Damian asked. “Because your record says you’re a Level Two, but that spell you just did says differently.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I reminded him. We’d made the deal—he’d agreed to never tell anyone about me. Ever.
Finally, I saw Kit. There were half as many people up here, and there were three balconies on the other side of the room, all the doors open. Fresh air filled my lungs, clearing my head instantly. Kit was standing by a dark door at the end of the room. People stood by the walls on either side of it. Kit squeaked as I got closer. Nobody seemed to notice him. He climbed on my jeans and sat on my shoulder, pulling at my earlobe, pointing his paws at the door.
“Somebody’s been here. Very recently,” Damian said. I turned to see that not only him but the rest of his team were right behind me.
“It’s them,” Emanuel said, sniffing the air. “I can pick up the magic scent of one of the thieves.”
My heart beat like a drum in my chest as I grabbed the handle to open the door. It didn’t budge.
“It’s locked. You won’t get in there,” a man standing by the wall said. He stood next to two other men, all holding beer bottles in their hands, and he smiled at me.
Suddenly, Damian was right in front of his face. “Walk away.”
The guy looked terrified. He and his friends slowly backed away from us. I rolled my eyes. “Would you stop intimidating people? They’re just human,” I said through gritted teeth. He was being an asshole, and what he was doing was illegal. But I was starting to think he didn’t know what legal even meant.
“They were harassing you,” he said with a shrug, as if he couldn’t see the harm in his actions at all.
“No, they weren’t,” I said, trying the handle one more time, even though I knew it wouldn’t open. “And even if they were, I can handle myself, okay? Just stop scaring people.”
I turned to the door, the unlocking spell at the tip of my tongue. I whispered the Latin words and felt my magic grow in my chest. Unlocking spells were a tad more complicated than simple confusion spells. Pale purple light left my fingers and disappeared into the keyhole, as if something was sucking it from the other side.
But it met resistance. A ward.
The spell dissipated into thin air, too weak for the ward. That was the standard Guild-approved unlocking spell.
“May I?” said Moira, and she all but pushed me away to take my place in front of the door. Then, she used her elbow to slam into it. Elves and fae were naturally immune to a certain level of magic, but when she hissed, it was obvious that we weren’t dealing with a simple ward here. Whoever had made it had been Level Three—or even a Prime.
Kit squeaked, scratching me with his tiny claws on my cheek. “I know,” I said angrily. We needed to get to the other side of that door. Who cared if we broke rules?
I looked around to see that Damian and his team were all around me, creating a wall of bodies so that nobody would be able to see what I was doing. The words of the spell Aunt Marie had made me memorize since I was a teenager came alive under my skin, awakening my magic, pulling it toward them until they became powerful enough. The intense color of the magic leaving my fingers was proof of the spell’s strength. Light wrapped in thick purple smoke slammed into the wood of the door, no longer focused on the keyhole. The ward was there, like a thick layer of ice, but my magic was much stronger now. It layered the ward and began to melt it into nothing as I held my breath. The back of my neck tingled, as it always did when I used more complicated spells. When I tried the handle again, the door opened without a sound.
Once more, I thanked Aunt Marie for making me memorize so many spells, for not giving me anything to eat or drink until I could recite them all by heart. At the time, it had been hard to push through day after day, but now, I never had to rely on spell books or Guild manuals or the Shade Net to get around like most people did. I just had to remember what I already knew.
The door led us to a narrow corridor with three doors at the end of it. Kit jumped from my shoulder and ran up to the first door on our left. Before I could walk in deeper, Damian put his arm in front of my chest. He had his head slightly raised as he looked ahead at nothing. I realized he was trying to listen.
“Clear,” he said, and John and Zane were already by the door. Behind me, Moira closed the door, and the music from the club went almost completely away. The vampires didn’t hold back. Th
ey kicked the door hard, both at the same time, and it gave instantly with a weak groan.
Heart in my throat, I stepped inside the room to look at a…bathroom.
The tiles were designed to imitate white and grey marble. The room was square, with three separate stalls, three sinks next to a hand drier, and a large, rectangular mirror over them. Malin’s words came to my mind. Bright lights, a crowd, a mirror. I’d seen all three. The only thing I hadn’t seen was water.
“There’s nothing here,” Moira said, as they all looked in every corner of the bathroom and checked the stalls.
“They’ve been here—I can smell it. Two of them,” Emanuel said, walking around the bathroom, staring at the floor.
“But they disappeared into thin air?” John said. He was by the door now. “The two other rooms are empty.”
I walked over to the sinks and turned one of the faucets on. Cold water rushed out of it. I waited a heartbeat. It was water. So why wasn’t anything happening?
“Find the owner. Bring him here,” Damian said.
“The owner is human,” I reminded him. Ellis had told me about it.
“And?” the vampire said.
“He probably has no idea what goes on here. You can’t just bring him here and terrorize him.”
“Why not?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“Because he’s human!”
“And we’re not. Your point being?” Emanuel asked. At least from him I expected better and I don’t even know why. He’d just seemed…softer than the rest. Guess I was wrong.
I heaved a sigh. “Look, it’s our job to protect humans, not scare them shitless and leave them scarred for life.” Because I’d bet my own life that Damian and the others weren’t going to ask the owner of the club nicely. No, there would be blood involved, broken bones, possibly fangs. I’d sworn to protect humans from the madness of our world when I joined the Guild, and I was going to keep that promise until I died.
“Okay, so leave. We can give you a call when we’re done,” Moira said.
My hand flew up to my forehead. I was dealing with idiots.
“There’s no need to question anyone, okay? A friend of mine used to work here. Let’s go outside so I can make a call.”
Damian raised a brow. “Wasted time.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going to let you terrorize a single person here again. Let’s go.” I stormed out of the bathroom, half expecting them to remain there and do what they wanted to do.
But to my surprise, as soon as I walked out into the club again, they were behind me.
By the time we made it outside, I was ready to swear off clubs forever. It was a different kind of hell in there, and I might have already been too old for it, even though I was only twenty-four.
The line of people waiting to get inside had gotten longer. I moved deeper into the alleyway, my phone in my hand. I called Jamie’s number. Cavalieros was back in business, and she should be at work by then, together with Ellis.
But she wouldn’t pick up the phone.
“This is a waste of time,” the vampire John said.
“If you’re so soft, just let us handle it. You don’t have to be there,” Moira reminded me as I called Jamie’s number again. Nothing. They were probably too busy at Cavalieros. I texted her to call me right away, but who knew when she’d look at her phone?
I turned to my audience—all five of them standing with their arms crossed in front of me, watching me.
“We need to go back to the Shade.”
“Why?” Damian asked.
“Because my friend used to work here. If somebody knows what happens in that bathroom, it’s him.”
“Back to the Shade? Are you kidding? Then, what, come back here again?” Moira said, her voice high-pitched.
“Yes, exactly. Let’s go.”
I’d be damned if I let them hurt someone to find out something we could find out without causing pain. I wanted whoever had been at this club found more than they did. This was my brother we were talking about, but hurting people was where I drew the line. It wasn’t going to happen.
I had to wait for the others for a good minute by the car, and when they finally came out of the alleyway, all of them looked at me like they wanted to murder me. All except Damian. He looked perfectly calm.
Moira showed me her teeth before she got in the car. Bliss. It was going to be a hell of a ride.
Before I’d been to Three Hills, I’d thought Cavalieros was always crowded. Now, as I looked at the people on the dance floor and others by the bar, I realized just how many more people this place could fit. Jamie was in her place by the bar, and next to her was Ellis. When they saw us walking toward them, both their faces fell and they stopped moving at the same time. That’s when I realized whom I had come in here with—Damian Reed and the Bane. Shit. I should have just left them outside to wait.
I tried to smile at Jamie and wave my hand, but she barely looked at me until I stopped by the bar. The other people who’d been sitting there casually moved farther away from us.
“Hey, Jamie. Hey, Ellis,” I said weakly. We were in the middle of the long bar, so they were both close enough to me to hear.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Jamie said when she finally caught herself and began to move again. “Who’re your friends?”
She knew who my friends were very well. She’d been the one to tell me that Damian was in the City in the first place. Was that just two nights ago? God, it felt like a different year. I turned to look at the corner of the club, where the explosion had happened.
Nothing. Not one sign of it, and it didn’t smell any different than it usually did in here. Tanner, the owner, had outdone himself.
“We’re just here to talk to Ellis,” I said, and Ellis turned his head our way as he put a drink in front of a waiting costumer.
“You want to talk to me?” he asked, his eyes moving to Damian’s face.
“Yes, please. I just need to ask you something real quick. It’s very important,” I said.
“Why don’t you go ahead and talk outside,” Jamie said, waving her dishtowel at Ellis. “I’ll cover for you. Just don’t take long.”
“Thanks, Jamie.” I blew her a kiss.
She raised a brow at me. “Sure.”
“Let’s talk later, okay?”
She nodded. “Call me.”
We left the club, all six of us, while everybody watched us. I never knew how uncomfortable it was to be watched like that until now. I normally didn’t attract much attention, and I liked it that way. Keep a low profile, my aunt always told me. And I always did.
Ellis came out of the club a moment later. His shoulders were rigid, his lips stretched downward, his eyes moving from face to face quickly. He was far from the relaxed, feel-good bartender that I knew.
“See anything you like?” Zane asked, when Ellis’s eyes stopped on his face.
“Assholes are not my type,” Ellis said, and the grin dropped from Zane’s face.
“You f—”
“No!” I said, a bit too loudly. “Stop it. This isn’t a fucking joke.” I turned to Ellis. If they wanted to insult each other, they were going to have to wait until after he answered my questions.
“I apologize for my friend,” Damian said to Ellis, surprising all of us. “He didn’t mean to be disrespectful.” And he shot a nasty look Zane’s way. The vampire lowered his head, but he didn’t stop looking at Ellis.
“It’s okay. I’ve dealt with worse before,” Ellis said. “What’s going on, Sin?”
“It’s Sonny,” I said. “He’s still missing and I’m looking for him. We were just at Three Hills, the club you told me about. We caught the scent of the people who might know where my brother is, but they weren’t there.”
“The smell is fresh. They were there minutes before us, but the entire place was empty. They weren’t in the club, either,” Damian said.
“It’s a bathroom on the second floor,” I continued, as Ellis nodded. “Do you
have any idea where they went?” It was probably a secret door or something, and unless we knew what we were looking for, we’d never find it. That’s why I’d come straight to Ellis.
My friend nodded, clenching his jaw. He looked at Damian, and it was easy to see he was wary of him. Everybody was wary of Damian. Damn it, I should have come alone. What the hell was I thinking, bringing them with me?
“It’s okay, Ellis. They’re helping me. If you know what’s in that room, please tell me,” I said, hoping he’d hear the desperation in my voice.
He let go of a loud sigh. “It’s a tub,” he finally said.
“A what now?” Did he say tub?
“Where does it lead?” Damian said.
“Wherever the traveler wants. It’s been there for years,” Ellis continued.
“Excuse me, what’s a tub?” Because the two of them apparently knew what it was, and I had no clue.
“It’s like a Gateway,” Ellis said. “Except it’s…a tub.”
Somebody give this man the reward for Clearest Explanation of the Year.
“You mean, it takes you to other realms?” Because that’s what the Gateways guarded by the Shades did.
“No, a tub is limited within a realm. Its magic is grounded in whatever world it’s created in,” Damian explained.
“Right,” Ellis said. “But it’s been so long, I have no idea who uses it anymore.”
“But—”
“We got what we needed, Sinea,” Damian said. “Let’s get going.” And he turned around to leave. The Bane followed him.
“Ellis, thank you so much,” I said and kissed his cheek. “You’ve helped me so much.”
“Sin, you do know who those people are, right?” he said under his breath. I nodded. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He squinted his eyes at me.
“I’m fine. Like I said, they’re helping me,” I said and started to walk away. “Tell Jamie I’m okay! She’s probably freaking out right now. Thank you!”
Ellis watched after me, his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. He didn’t believe me. He probably thought that Damian was making me help them or something, which was exactly the truth. Just not the whole truth.