The Red King: Wilde Justice, Book 1

by Jenn Stark

  “Wait for us, sweet lips, and we’ll pay you double on the way back. But if you get called away, no harm, no foul,” Nikki said. “We’ll only be a minute.”

  We stepped out of the gondola, listening to the creak of the wood against the water, and stepped up onto the pier. The Riva de Biasio looked like any other location along the Grand Canal, with shopfronts and homes stretching up and away from the murky waters, but it seemed unusually dark despite the cheery lamplight that lined the canal.

  Setting off across the pier, I pulled my mask off, welcoming the cool brush of air against my skin. “It was worth it to come all this way just to do that,” I moaned.

  “I second that emotion,” Nikki said, her voice far clearer now that she’d removed her own mask. “You see where we’re going?”

  I let my third eye flicker open, and once again, as it had in the courtyard of Balestri’s palazzo, I could see an overlay of the world as a network of circuits. These electric streams zigged and zagged and rounded on themselves in a rush of light and movement for all that the pier was empty and dark, and they led down the street in a tumbling profusion until…

  I stopped short, staring, and Nikki bumped into me.

  “Whoa—what?” she asked, her voice instantly guarded. “You see something?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, my voice slightly awed. “I see…nothing.”

  I moved forward almost automatically, Nikki by my side, her firm hand on my arm as if she thought I might topple over with my compromised sight. She wasn’t wrong. The cheerful blur of electrical circuits I could see showed the flow of natural and manmade electricity as well as the circuits of other sorts of energy, the ones that flowed between all living things and particularly between all Connected organisms.

  But they all stopped at the doorstep of a nondescript storefront, a card shop, from what I could tell. The place didn’t look deserted. The printing of the signage in the window was neat and stylized, the items on the shelves looked new, the place was clean. But from a magical standpoint it was…

  “It’s like a blank slate,” I said, confused. “Like a hole in space.”

  “Help me out here, dollface. I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s like someone cut the circuits clean through and never reconnected them.”

  “Huh.” She tilted her head. “Can you join them back together? Or is it better to leave well enough alone?”

  “I…” I swallowed, unnerved by the complete absence of magic. Still, I’d healed people, certainly. I’d put buildings back together after they’d been broken by magic, and I’d filled in holes in the world. How hard could it be to reconnect a couple of lines of magic?

  The sound of a crash and tinkling glass echoed faintly behind us, a trick of the wind. I could almost hear the far-off sounds of laughter as the Carnevale festivities got underway.

  Still, I hesitated. “Who would have done this? And why? The ground wasn’t evil, the air, the stones. Why cut the area off from the energy of the world?”

  “Are we thinking it was done at the time of the butcher’s story? That long ago?”

  I looked at the dead space in front of me. “What else could it be? This damage is old,” I said. “I don’t know how old, but it would almost have to be tied to the butcher shop, wouldn’t it?”

  Nikki nodded, squinting at the building, though she couldn’t see what I did. “Almost as if the magic was completely wiped clean, the earth sewn with salt.”

  My brows lifted as I felt the truth in her words. “That’s exactly what’s happened here,” I said. “

  “Bellissima!” The sound of running feet down the street made us turn, and Nikki straightened as our gondolier came racing around the corner, his eyes wide, and his face scorched. Only then did I let my third eye snap back closed, and I realized that there was substantially more light than there had been at the canal when we’d left it.

  “Bellissima, there were men—bombs! They bombed my boat! And they—they’re coming!”

  He ran into us at full speed, his arms spread wide, catching us with surprising strength as a flare of gunfire zipped overhead. “They’ve got guns!” he said, a little unnecessarily.

  “Ease it up, buttercup,” Nikki said harshly as she hustled us across the cobblestoned street and behind a low wall. “What happened exactly?”

  The gondolier spoke in a rush of English. “I was at the pier, waiting for you, and they came. They told me to move along, and I said I was waiting for my charges and—no warning at all—they threw glass bottles in my boat! They burned my boat!”

  “We’ll get you a new boat, sweetie,” Nikki said.

  Another round of gunfire burst across the open space, and she chanced a look. “You know what I’m thinking?” she asked thoughtfully. “I’m thinking it’s a hella long walk to Ca Daria. I’m thinking maybe someone doesn’t want us to get there on time.”

  “They burned my—”

  “Gun!” Nikki barked, and as the young man looked back, she cold-cocked him. He slumped in her arms, and she sighed. “I really didn’t want to do that, but he was kind of getting on my nerves.”

  I snorted. “It happens.” A third blast of gunfire rang out, but it wasn’t advancing. “I’m getting the idea they don’t really want to hurt us. Because they certainly could have well before now if they’d wanted to.”

  “Unless they realize you can command flaming balls of death,” she said.

  “True. But where does that leave us? We can’t sit here trapped all night. We’re going to be late as it is if we can’t pole our way back to Ca Daria.” I pressed my lips together. “It’s almost as if someone’s trying to make us late.”

  “Not all that surprising, if we’re dealing with a wolf in the magician hen house. Maybe the Red King wants the party for himself tonight.” She looked at me and waggled her brows. “Lucky for us, we have options. You do remember the Grand Canal stop for the house, right?”

  I groaned, but she was right. It was the quickest way. “I remember it enough to get out of here,” I tugged on my mask before grabbing her by one arm and the gondolier by the other.

  “Try not to singe my feathers this time,” Nikki said, sliding her own mask back into place.

  “And you try to hold on to your admirer. And find out where he lives or whatever so we can get him money for his boat.” I closed my eyes and pictured the picturesque pier by the Grand Canal…too late remembering that it would be filled with people.

  Whoops.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After an unfortunate collision with a family of unsuspecting tourists, all of whom thoughtfully assumed responsibility for our poor passed-out gondolier—who would shortly be substantially richer despite the fact that we had no idea how much a gondola cost and he was in no shape to tell us—it took us several minutes to extract ourselves and break away. We made it to Ca Daria with only five minutes to spare.

  “How do I look?” Nikki asked, smoothing down her cape.

  “You forget, I can’t see in this thing. Not well, anyway.”

  “Seems like kind of an idiotic design. You sure you have it on right?”

  “I have it on the way Signora Visione put it on.”

  “Well, she’s a little short. And old. Maybe she got confused. Here.” She reached out and fussed with my mask, even as I jerked away.

  “Maybe you should mind your own—hey,” I said, looking around. I could see much more clearly now. “What’d you do?”

  “There’s false eye sockets in that mask. I have no idea why. I simply flipped them up like eyelids.”

  I blinked at her through the suddenly unfiltered holes. “You’re kidding me.”

  She grinned, then tapped her own mask. “Anything you can do about the mask-phyxia I’ve got going on here?”

  “I…” I poked at her mask, marveling at the softness of the sculpted surface. “You can open the mouth from this side.”

  “You can?”

  “Here.” I pushed at the soft sur
face of the mask’s mouth, grimacing as its lips parted into a delicate moue. “This feels a little rude.”

  “Keep it up, it’s the most action I’ve gotten all da—hey, that does make a difference. I can breathe.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Is it time?”

  The question was answered for us as a bell tolled somewhere deep in the heart of Venice, probably at Piazza San Marco.

  We moved up to the front step, and the door opened as we approached. No one else was in sight, which once again put my nerves on edge. Who would want us delayed from our appointed time? Only someone who knew when our appointed time was. That cut down the crew of likely suspects to right around…

  “Um, how many of these magicians are supposed to be here tonight?” I whispered.

  “More than enough, I suspect.” As we moved deeper into Ca Daria, which looked like nothing so much as an ordinary house, no haunting required, a series of motion sensor lights tripped on as soon as we entered their space. It gave the eerie effect that the house was watching our every movement, and I shot Nikki another look. She snickered. She didn’t need to read my mind to be open to belittling the hocus-pocus the magicians of Venice were serving up.

  “They’re not motion sensored.” The voice beside us was so unexpected, I jumped sideways, smashing into Nikki, who, fortunately, was solid enough not to go flying.

  Valetti stood beside us, masked and caped, but it was definitely him. No one else in Venice could manage to be so fiercely proud and self-effacing at the same time.

  “What?” I managed.

  “The lights. You must suspect they flicker on and off electronically, but they don’t. We’ve had the wiring checked more times than we can remember. It’s a quirk of the building that it follows guests through their first time. It only happens the first time too. After that, the lights stay dark unless you flip the switch.” He shrugged. “And sometimes they stay dark even if you do flip them on.”

  I tried not to stare at him. “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not. Forgive me for indulging myself in the delight of a new guest. It’s been some time since Ca Daria welcomed a stranger into her midst.”

  Valetti moved past us down the corridor. Sure enough, the lights remained dark as he passed them, illuminating only when we drew close.

  “He’s gotta have some sort of remote,” I muttered to Nikki.

  “Well, you’re the one with the magic eyeballs. What do you see?”

  Belatedly, I allowed my third eye to snap open. It was getting a workout tonight, but when it surveyed the hallway in front of me, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Hallway, lights, electric signature of Valetti, Nikki, myself, and some people in a room at the end of the hall. No bright sideways electrical pulses, no Slimer waiting behind a door. “Nada,” I confirmed.

  “Huh. I was kind of banking on the remote control idea, myself.”

  “Yeah, well.” We quieted as Valetti turned and gestured us into the room, and my stomach tightened as I stepped inside. This room was brightly lit, and though I was completely prepared for a séance, the men sitting around it—assuming they were all men—appeared relatively normal. Not counting the masks, hats, and giant capes, of course.

  “Gentlemen and ladies, Magicians all, we welcome you to Carnevale,” said the man at the head of the table—instantly recognizable as the prelate when he spoke—without a trace of irony or self-aggrandizement in his voice. “There’s much to discuss.”

  “There’s not much to discuss, at least not yet.” A heavy man’s voice boomed from the body of a diminutive jester, making me blink. “I received one of Butcher Biasio’s book of recipes, and I’m not happy about it. I thought that bastard had been so damaged there wasn’t even enough left of him to haunt this city. Why now?”

  “Well, the reason for now is obvious. The influx of magic. But why him?” Another man with a plague doctor mask leaned forward. “There were far stronger magicians in the city than he ever could have hoped to be. If he was practicing today, he’d have been relegated to the side alleys like Balestri.”

  “Balestri who’s dead, it should be noted. Why bother?”

  I listened, spellbound by the callousness of the voices, and my mind couldn’t help but stray to Armaeus. He was a magician, the only real magician I’d known since I’d started working on the Arcana Council. He was a little on the calculating side, but he still didn’t seem quite as cold as these people. Granted, I didn’t exactly know what a magician was supposed to do to qualify for the senate in Venice, now that I thought about it.

  “Marrow and Greaves planned to visit him, I heard,” another voice, equally callous. “They’ve not been located.”

  That made me sit up a little straighter. These were the two missing magicians Valetti had mentioned earlier. News apparently traveled fast in the senate.

  “Still low-level,” Valetti said, his suddenly cold voice jarring me. How could these men turn from such genteel hosts to, well—asshats? And was one of these guys the Red King?

  Beside me, Nikki shifted. I wasn’t shielding my mind from her. It suddenly occurred to me…should I be shielding it from the rest of the room?

  “Only if you wish, Miss Wilde. You’re a member of the Arcana Council, which is several steps higher on the evolutionary scale than the magicians’ senate. It accords you certain…protections that might not be otherwise available to the average magician.”

  I’d been working long enough with the Magician that I didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. But his presence in my mind gave me the chance to ask—

  And…then he was gone.

  Of course.

  I refocused on the group. They were listing other magicians who’d not yet arrived for Carnevale, apparently waiting to see if anyone else had died. Another subset of the sorcerers were making what sounded like a gentleman’s wager on who the most likely next targets were, based on who had already gone. Suffice to say, it wasn’t anyone in the room.

  After this went on for some time, the prelate delicately cleared his throat. The soft sound had the effect of a sonic boom, and everyone shut up. I found my brows lifting as I watched the clear respect accorded to Alfonse. Though he wasn’t a high-level magician, he clearly made the other members of this senate nervous. Why? Maybe the man had more in his library of arcana than I’d given him credit for…and maybe I’d have to return to it to see for myself.

  “Magicians all,” the prelate boomed. “We have not been idle as this threat has brushed up against our most sacred of celebrations. Through the good graces of a colleague, we welcome a member of the Arcana Council to our midst.”

  With a flutter of noise and movement, the magicians turned to their fellows, trying to seek out who was who. Enough of them hadn’t spoken yet, and so, arguably, they were still in the running.

  “You?” a man on the other side of Nikki said, his voice faint. “You’re on the Arcana Council?”

  “Not in this lifetime, love chop,” Nikki said, her loud, wry voice once again striking the group mute. I allowed my third eye to slide open as I spoke.

  “We’re not going to take up much of your time,” I said. “We’d like to see this matter ended as quickly as—”

  “Justice!” blurted a man on the opposite side of the room. So far, this really was turning into an all-male revue. “I’d heard there was a new Justice on the Arcana Council. But true magicians are exempt from that role.”

  My eyebrows shot up, an effect sadly diminished by the fact that I was wearing a mask. Exempt? Was there no end to what I hadn’t been told about my new job?

  “Always have been,” harrumphed another man who heretofore had been silent. From the jerk to attention of the costumed figures on either side of him, he was someone of importance. So, what, they didn’t think I could make magic? My fingers started itching a little.

  “Always will be.” My attention shifted to the far end of the table, where a slender figure in a cape of obsidian feathers and a traditional
bauta mask inclined her head toward me. Definitely a her. I racked my brain, trying to place a female magician at any time during my six years as an artifact hunter or a purveyor of stolen goods on the arcane black market. But I had nothing.

  “I appreciate the Arcana Council giving this matter the focus it deserves,” the woman continued haughtily. “We have long been far too isolated in our work within the magicians’ senate, and their emissary has been more than lacking these past several decades. Sharing of our resources would be better…at least with actual magicians.”

  “To be fair, this is a very specific situation in which I—we—thought an outsider would see things that perhaps we would miss.” Valetti’s words sped up toward the end of his sentence, his slip about his specific involvement in my recruitment curious to me. Was it intentional? Did he want people to know he was behind this potentially game-changing addition to their team? Or was he still uncertain how it was all going to play out?”

  “So neither of the women can conjure,” came another scoffing voice. “We’ve opened up our ranks, risked our exposure, to people who aren’t even magicians.”

  “Do you think they can’t conjure?” A new voice broke through the ranks, and the men turned once again, clearly rethinking the idea of showing up in masks in the midst of so much turmoil. “Are you calling for a demonstration?”

  The voice was silky, smooth, and…vaguely familiar, emanating from behind a mask in the shape of a lion’s head. The man’s hat and cape were also shaded a light, tawny gold. And he seemed hell-bent on causing chaos in an already untenable situation.

  I scowled behind my mask. Kreios?

  There was no response to my mental door knock. For the moment, it appeared the Devil would be a dumb spirit.

  In the ensuing silence, I lifted my hands. “I’m not here to impress you with magic tricks. I’ve been asked to rout out a threat to the, ah, senate. If I can do that, I will.”