The Red King: Wilde Justice, Book 1

by Jenn Stark

  “And then it all fell apart,” I said. “You weren’t augmented in the rush of magic that swept over the planet.”

  “I was,” he countered. “But not enough. Not to the same degree as Greaves and Marrow, of all people.” He curled his lip. “Or even ridiculous Budin.”

  The disdain with which he said the magician’s name was as chilling as it was loud, but the diminutive man didn’t step forward to defend himself. I glanced his way, startled to see he’d stepped out of his mask and hat, that he’d even stripped away his body armor. He stood next to Nikki wearing the ordinary clothes of an ordinary man, but still shimmering with power. And he stared at Valetti with an expression I wouldn’t have expected.

  Pity.

  Valetti, fortunately, couldn’t see him. “None of them had done the work to move their family into the proper position in the senate. I had! I and all those who had come before me.”

  “You discovered the butcher’s secret,” I said. “Your family did, anyway. You knew he’d created the Nul Magis toxin by mistake.”

  “He wanted to be one of us,” Valetti mocked, drawing himself up to his full height. “A simple butcher, with blood on his hands and gore on his feet. We did not kill him. His ambition killed him.”

  “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “He didn’t,” Valetti said, disgusted. “Until we helped him along with that, whispering the truth that we had discovered, planting the severed fingers, then we destroyed him and his filthy shop. Because we had learned something else too, something the dark practitioners would not use…but we would. We would and we did.”

  “The plague years.” A new voice spoke now, gray with horror. The prelate Alfonse stood, still masked and cloaked, staring at Valetti with his expressionless face. “All those magicians who died. How many of them were helped along by the Valetti family?”

  “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the Valetti family,” the count retorted. “Your family should have been burned for heresy for even having the sorcerer’s gene, let alone acting on it. It’s only through the efforts of families like my own that you were spared.”

  The prelate dipped his head, acknowledging the truth.

  I made a face. “I’d ease back on the self-congratulation, Valetti.”

  “You don’t have the strength within you to know what I know—do what I’ve done,” he seethed. “Back in the 1500s, it was the roughest beginning. The very first iteration of Nul Magis…and of Black Elixir, five hundred years before we would be graced with enough of a supply of demon blood to change the world.”

  “You killed three people—more if you were behind the deaths of the assassins. I assume your man Alessandro wasn’t harmed after all.” Valetti made no response to that, and I pushed on. “You attacked us at the site of the butcher’s shop, and could have killed our gondolier instead of merely destroying his livelihood. Then there was Signora Visione and your attempts on Budin. Who else?”

  “I do not answer to you.” With a jerk, Valetti wrenched himself away from Armaeus, who let him go. I caught the look in Armaeus’s eye as he did so—it was pure fascination. The Magician was going to be the death of me.

  Valetti threw his hands in the air, and I could feel the pulse of magic in the room, my right hand stinging with the recognition of the demon blood coursing through the count’s system. “I command you—” he began in stentorian tones

  “You command nothing,” I countered in my mildest tone.

  Or what I thought was my mildest tone.

  The walls around me seemed to bow out and snap back again, but I held Valetti’s gaze. “You are marked for Justice,” I said, and I saw it now—the flash of silver at his temple he’d managed to hide from me for days. “I couldn’t see it. Didn’t want to see it. But that makes it no less true. Speak your crimes.”

  “You have no—”

  I lifted my hands slightly, and Valetti convulsed, his eyes flashing wide as he spoke the truth I compelled.

  “It had taken years,” he cried, glaring at me. “Nul Magis wasn’t possible, but Black Elixir—that I could create, cobbled together from the most depraved souls who made their way to Venice. Years. Decades. And then…then you and your Council paved the path for me, when I thought it would take yet more time. I could strike! And I would strike. There would be no mercy. I had only to ensure that there was a quorum in the senate to see my triumph.”

  “The Arcana Council in Venice would assure that no magicians would stay away,” Armaeus said, almost thoughtfully. “You could take your pick of targets, ensuring your place. We’ve stayed away from Venice too long.”

  At these words, Valetti’s fury seemed to renew itself. “Your Council is on the verge of being overtaken by the real magicians of this world,” he seethed. “You have no jurisdiction over—”

  Another wave of my hand and Valetti got back on track.

  “The recipe books?” I pressed.

  “To stoke fear. Fear is necessary, right, true. Only fear made the senate work together, you see?” He whirled, but a sea of faceless masks stared back at him. “You see. You must see.”

  “They see,” I said. “And they’re not the only ones who do.”

  I stepped forward and grabbed Valetti by the hand as another man broke free of the crowd, lifting off his mask with one hand as he clipped a restraint on Valetti’s wrists with the other.

  Detective Tall, Dark, and Doin’ His Job. Good man.

  However, Valetti was one of the most powerful magicians in Venice, if not all of Europe. So for good measure, I slid my own cuff around one of Valetti’s wrists too. It’d keep him under control while the local police dealt with him, and then would be there when he was ready for his date with Judgment.

  Valetti jerked as he felt the touch of magic, whipping around to growl at me. I lifted a casual hand, and the cuff delivered a jolt of electricity all the way to his toes, leaving him gasping.

  The detective eyed Valetti, then me. “I trust you’ll be leaving Venice soon?” he asked me. “I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold him.”

  “I wouldn’t worry so much about that,” I assured him. “He’s got a date with Judgment, no matter what.”

  The detective nodded, but it was Valetti’s reaction I was looking for. The count stared at me, bug-eyed with understanding.

  I felt good about that.

  As the two of them left the ballroom, a new surge of music swelled and eddied through the suddenly electrified space. Around me, another dance began, this one with steps so ancient, I had no hope of trying to mimic it—nor did I want to try. It was over, finally. The moment passed, the case closed. It was over.

  And, I realized…that felt—really good.

  “Miss Wilde.”

  I glanced up to find Armaeus Bertrand standing over me, his mask and cape gone, his riveting black-gold eyes now entirely focused on me. He took my hands and lifted them to his heart. “You’ve won, it would seem,” he murmured.

  I grimaced. “I wouldn’t go that far. Valetti was a grenade waiting to explode. All I did was pull the pin.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He shook his head. “You have succeeded where Justice Abigail, and the distant Justices before her could not. What do you see around you?”

  I looked where he gestured. There were the magicians talking and laughing, several of them in knots around the High Priestess and the Devil, who were masked and caped but easily recognizable by their golden circuitry. Some of the magicians were now gathered around Budin, still others around Alfonse.

  “I…see a lot of really uncomfortable clothes?”

  “You see the Arcana Council interacting with the Connecteds,” Armaeus corrected me. “Arguably with the most relevant group of Connecteds on this earth, albeit one which we have barely acknowledged for generations. Yet you simply reached out and took on your first case…and here we are. Communicating. Teaching. Listening.”

  His voice seemed to wobble a bit, and its unnatural tenor was d
oing odd things to my heart.

  “Well, you knew I was in trouble,” I said. “Of course you would come.”

  “To help you, of course. But there is more happening here than simple help. What is begun this night will not end this night, but will continue, a pathway for magic to grow and thrive. The Connecteds of this world and the Council, working together, in a way that no one has been able to accomplish in longer than any of us can remember…” He smiled ruefully. “Especially me. And thus you are Justice, and Vigilance, and even more than that. You are the Grace that balances the scales. The Supreme Triad in one.”

  “Supreme Triad,” I repeated, remembering Signora Visione’s slip of the tongue. Nikki was going to be stoked to have the mystery of my new moniker solved, but… “That seems like kind of a mouthful.”

  “I concur.” Armaeus tilted his head, his golden-black gaze once more threatening to swallow me whole. “For me, it’s more than enough that you are Justice. And, now and ever more…my Justice.”

  I stared back at him, lost in the inexorable pull of his magic, unable to fully process the emotions rolling through me, but desperately wanting whatever was happening to last for a very long time.

  Armaeus, of course, could easily read my thoughts. Something sharp and intense flashed in his eyes, and he lifted my hands to his lips and brushed a kiss over my fingertips.

  “Then I suggest we start with eternity, Sara,” he murmured, as a new whisper of power swirled around us, “and see where life takes us from there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I stood in front of the door to my office in Las Vegas a few mornings later, catching myself as I lifted my hand to knock. I didn’t need to knock, this was my space. My very own proper place in the world.

  The door opened in front of me anyway.

  “Come in, ma’am!” One of the young librarians stood there beaming, his bright eyes dancing. “I’m Tobey, and we saw you coming all the way down the hall!”

  “You did?” I glanced at the door, which looked no different than it had the last time I’d seen it, but as I entered the room, I saw a new station set up to the side of the entrance lobby. Two additional boys manned that desk, peering at a screen about half the size they were. They seemed so engrossed in their work, I felt a twinge of nerves at my first task of the day.

  “Is Mrs. French in?” I asked, watching Tobey scamper back to the desk as well, whispering and nudging his fellows to change the view. Another boy came out of the library, snatching off his cap when he saw me.

  “Right here!” came the brisk British voice from the office, and a second later, two other boys trotted into the lobby from that doorway, touching their caps before they headed for the library.

  “Wait,” I shouted, and that stopped them short. “Is this all of you? Can you tell me your names again?”

  There were six boys in the room, and they looked at each other, then back at me, grinning. I lifted my hands slightly to my sides, not enough to alarm them, but to balance the moment, preserve it in my mind. My right hand throbbed with the extra effort, but not quite enough to hurt.

  “’Tis all of us accounted for, Justice Wilde. I’m Bobby, Bobby Haymoor,” began the first. Then each of the boys chattered off their names, the sound of their young voices pinging around the room. When they were done, I dropped my hands, and they pushed and shoved and went on their way—four of them disappearing into the library, two still manning the desk like impish guard dogs.

  I shook my head, stifling a laugh, for all that my heart was inexplicably heavy. By the time I reached the entry to my inner office, Mrs. French was halfway across the room toward me. She saw my face and stopped.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said quickly, but I tossed my bag on the couch and stood there, immediately unsure. This was exactly why I’d never had employees before. I had no capacity for crucial conversations. “Well, that’s not true. Something’s wrong. A lot of somethings. Starting with them.”

  I gestured toward the main lobby, and Mrs. French stiffened. She nodded once, sharply, then moved forward toward the door, closing it quietly before turning around. “Would you like some tea? Scotch?”

  “No.” I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets, wishing I was anywhere but here—then catching myself as I felt my cells start to destabilize. Poofing out of existence wasn’t going to solve this issue, as tempting as it was.

  I launched in. “I want some answers, Mrs. French. Why are those boys still here? Surely someone could have set them free a long time ago. They should be free, and they should be living a normal life.”

  She blinked at me. Whatever she’d expected me to say, that wasn’t it. “The boys,” she repeated.

  “For starters, yeah. In nearly two hundred years, you mean to tell me you never once asked Armaeus or even Death to look into reversing whatever spell Abigail’s boss laid on them? Because I don’t believe they wouldn’t have helped.”

  “What makes you think the boys wanted such help?” Mrs. French asked staunchly.

  “Nothing. But it doesn’t matter what they want. They’re ten-year-old boys—perpetual ten-year-old boys. You knew better than to keep them in the library. What happens when you die? That will happen, eventually, right? You’re not immortal.”

  “I’m not.” For just a moment, Mrs. French looked like she was going to stiffen to the point of her spine splintering, staring at me across the room. Then something shifted in her eyes, a look of inexpressible sadness, and I knew I had her.

  I didn’t feel good about it, but I had her.

  “You know what I am,” she said, her voice resigned.

  “A Revenant. A very long-lived one. Gamon’s the only Revenant I know all that well, but she’s only been around about eighty years.”

  “She is a scary one, I’ll grant you that,” Mrs. French said, but the stuffing had gone out of her. “But barely a child. And now that she’s on the Council, she won’t have to worry about aging at all.”

  I nodded, watching her closely. “But you do.”

  “I do,” she said, her voice wan. She moved over to a straight-back chair and sat on the very edge of it, all that she could reasonably manage with her bustle. She folded her hands in her lap. “You have me dead to rights, Justice,” she said. “I could have—should have—taken the boys straightaway to the Magician for his help. I had no right to keep them with me all these years when they didn’t know anything of the world beyond this library, whereas I knew all too well what it held.”

  “You wanted to protect them.”

  “Oh, of course, but that’s not the whole of it, as you well know. I wanted their company. It was no good for me on the outside, not once I saw what…” She swallowed. “Well, there’s no matter the why of it. It was wrong, plain as day.”

  “Once you saw what?” I asked. “What happened to Abigail, Mrs. French? What is it that happened that made you stay locked up in the library with the boys for almost two centuries?”

  “Abigail…” Mrs. French’s smile was inexpressibly sad. “It wasn’t like what you think. She did nothing to harm me or the boys. But she suffered for her job, Justice Wilde. She suffered mightily every time she encountered the dangerous men and women she needed to bring to Judgment. And, worse, Judgment wasn’t as absolute back then.”

  I frowned, surprised. “In what way?”

  “In the way that resulted in some of the marked being released back into the population. Poor Abigail would go out not knowing if she’d be faced with an angry Connected who was more prepared than she was for their second altercation. She was strong, she had her scales and the weight of most of the Council behind her, but she couldn’t be prepared for everything.”

  “Judgment didn’t have her back?” I could hardly believe it.

  “Not always,” Mrs. French said. “Not enough. And he said—he said that if she pushed too hard, he’d let all her secrets out. He knew, of course. Knew everything about her. You
can’t stand in front of Judgment without him knowing your every sin.”

  “Really.” I thought about what Gamon would be able to judge me for, but I didn’t think that particular issue was going to be a problem between us. “And she cared about that?”

  “She cared about us. The boys. Me. She cared about our safety and the safety of her family, black sheep though they were. She knew where she came from and she knew what she’d done, and it ate at her day and night. The cases were added pressure, but nothing compared to the pressure she put on herself.”

  I lifted a hand and rubbed my brow, trying to keep everything Mrs. French was saying straight. “Abigail ascended to the Council even though she was a dark practitioner.”

  “Her family was. Not her.”

  “Right, her family. But she was broken from that, from that and from what her employer had done to her. Her employer, whom she murdered.”

  “While rescuing someone else!”

  “Another young woman.”

  Mrs. French bit her lip. “Yes. When the Magician interrupted Abigail, she was truly distraught and truly powerful. He told me once that he knew he needed to elevate her or kill her, there was really no other option. And he was in desperate need of Council members in that time period. Your Devil hadn’t ascended yet, nor the Emperor, or the Hanged Man, or—”

  “I get the picture. But Abigail was deeply and irretrievably broken. Surely he knew that too.”

  She shook her head. “At first, he knew only what she allowed him to know. Which was only what she allowed herself to know when she was with him. Her employer thought her a sleepwalker, but that…that wasn’t truly her affliction.”

  I stared at Mrs. French. “And you know what it was?”

  “I surely do. I saw it right away. It helped that I had seen it before.” She gave me another rueful smile. “My family may have been Revenants, but that didn’t mean they were the nicest people. They disapproved of my choices. When I became pregnant by a young man who wasn’t of my kind, they took the baby and—” She cleared her throat. “Incarcerated me at a public institution. It was only supposed to be for a short while, but a short while in a Revenant’s life is a far different thing, you see. I saw…a great many things in that place. It had been built for the pauper insane.”