by C. C. Mahon
“Can a guy join in the fun?”
“You,” Barbie said in an accusatory tone, “you let anybody in here. There was a guy, just one guy, that wasn’t allowed in here, and you…”
Nate hung his head, and one of his blond locks escaped from his ponytail.
“I know,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think he would show up here. Otherwise I would have looked up pictures to see what he looked like. And besides, when he came here with a dryad, he smelled so strongly of magic, and I thought Carver was human…”
“What magic?” I asked.
Nate lifted his head and took a moment before answering. “Sulfur, like a dragon. And something sweeter…”
“Something you recognized?”
“It was almost like… It was similar to… No.”
“A phoenix?” I asked. “Phoebe?”
“No one smells like a dragon and a phoenix,” said Nate. “I’m probably wrong. More than likely because Phoebe’s death has been eating at me more than I’d thought. In any case, I messed up. Professional misconduct. I feel obligated to fix it.”
“Did you go to Customs to tip them off?”
His mouth twisted in disgust. “I don’t like turning people in. But yes, I went. They took notes and told me they would keep me informed.”
“You’ve redeemed yourself then. That’s good enough.”
Nate took one step forward, shaking his head in a movement that reminded me of a bear. “I’m not letting you go alone.”
“You need to stop thinking that I’m some fragile little thing. You don’t need to protect me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need my protection. But I need to protect you.”
The words hung in the air between us as Nate shot me a troubling look.
Barbie aggressively cleared her throat to get our attention.
“If you want to, um, ‘discuss’ all of this,” she said in an acidic tone, “please do it somewhere else. I’m not done sweeping, and I still need to clean up the back room. And with all that, boss hasn’t told us when we’re attacking the villain’s castle.”
I peeled myself away from Nate’s gaze to collect my thoughts.
“We have to wait for Brit to find a way in. It could take a few hours or several days. Go to bed, both of you. I’ll keep you in the loop. I promise.”
I grabbed my sword from under the counter and went to take refuge in my loft. I was exhausted and as tense as a bowstring. I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t even think about sleep. I was too tired to take it out on my punching bag. And the anxiety settling in my gut and throat was keeping me from breathing…
I took a long burning shower, put on my favorite PJs, did some yoga, and concluded that none of that was working.
Across my bed, the sword glowed softly. I grabbed it, sat cross-legged on the floor, and placed the weapon on my knees. The magic worked instantly. Soft vibrations passed from the metal to my fingers, to my legs, before making their way through my whole body. The weapon was warm, like a living being, and it seemed like it was quietly humming, so low that I couldn’t make out the sound. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and breathed slowly.
The melody of the sword made my chest vibrate, and my stomach and the inside of my eyelids. My ears remained deaf, because the music was magical. Like a lullaby whispered by a mother to her child after a nightmare. A memory rose up from the bottom of my gut, like a bubble coming out from the mud. Fleeting ideas. A smell that reminded me of my mother and the baby’s milk that made me think of my sister. The feeling of the room we shared as kids. And our mother’s voice chasing away the terrors of the night.
The memory rose up to my stomach, tore through my heart along the way, and reached my throat, where it burst out in sobs.
I hadn’t taken the time to grieve my family. I had learned of their deaths while I was still under threat from a psychotic Valkyrie. She had killed them a few weeks earlier, and I hadn’t known anything about it, because in the eyes of the world I was no more. By changing your name, you renounce your family. I hadn’t gone to Chicago. What for? They were still in the morgue for the purposes of an investigation that would never be solved. I couldn’t claim their remains, because officially I no longer existed.
I had screamed when Lola had told me the news. And then I’d bottled it up, because there were people to protect and a goddess to defeat. I had pushed down the tears and cries, very deep in my gut, where I had already locked up the memories of Callum and what I had done to escape him. Now I was trying to add the terror I had felt when Callum had arrived at my club and back in my life. And the anxiety caused by what I still had to do to get rid of him.
My gut was filled with repressed emotions. Full to the brim. And they were spilling over.
I curled myself into a ball around the sword and let loose the cries and tears, rocking back and forth like a child trying to soothe itself. Exhausted, I ended up falling asleep, on the ground, pressing my sword against me.
27
I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, muscles aching and my head in a vice. I dragged myself into the shower again, turned on the coffee maker, and stood in front of my dresser.
A few years earlier, owning a giant dresser would have meant shopping sprees for hyper-feminine dresses, stiletto heels, and lace of all kinds.
Six months on the run had made me re-evaluate all my criteria. I had a few nice blouses, one suit and one pair of pumps, for the days when I had to look like a respectable business woman. The rest of my wardrobe served one purpose; I had to be able to run and fight in those clothes and shoes. Out with the high heels, the sandals that didn’t stay on your feet, and the skirts that restricted movement.
I put on a pair of black leggings and a matching T-shirt. Dressed like that, I looked like a cat burglar, ready to rob one of the casinos on the Strip. But I doubted I’d have to play the part: the front of Callum’s building was as smooth as a mirror, and the windows probably didn’t open. This type of building worked on a closed circuit, with mechanical ventilation and air conditioning. Opening a window to get some fresh air was too low class a concept for luxury architects.
My coffee maker emitted a beep to let me know it had accomplished its mission. I cleaned my biggest mug and poured myself sixteen ounces of liquid joy.
I blew on the coffee to cool it and watched the steam blow away into the rays of sun. I was fighting against the fog in my brain, but somewhere under the headache and my sinuses congested by the tears, a part of my mind was doing high-speed calculations, posing hypotheses, refuting them, and sorting the results. I decided to let it work in peace as I savored my first coffee of the day.
It’s only once I got up to pour myself my second cup of coffee that I saw the notification on my cellphone. A text message sent a few hours earlier by Britannicus:
“Protection spells impossible to break, unless you want to blow up half the city. I’m looking for a solution. See you tonight.”
“Impossible to break.”
Blowing up half of Vegas didn’t seem like an option.
I breathed softly to make the steam swirl above my second coffee. If we couldn’t get into Callum’s lair, we could force him to come out. By dangling something that would lure him out. Me and my sword, for example. But that didn’t solve the problem of the prisoners. If Patricia was at Callum’s place, I assumed Kitty was too. And maybe other victims I didn’t know about. Getting Callum out of his fortress wasn’t going to deactivate the protection spells.
Smoke him out, like a fox from its hole, and wait for him at the exit to grab him. And then force him to release his prisoners.
But I couldn’t think of how we would be able to force Callum to do anything. Even when he was human, his will had seemed ironclad. And if he was a dragon…I had seen him heal the wounds inflicted by my sword in the blink of an eye, and it hadn’t taken much longer for him to heal from Mother Dragon’s fire. I should count myself lucky that Callum hadn’t roasted me like a marshmallow.
Speaking of which….
Speaking of which, if he had taken off rather than responding, it was probably because he couldn’t. Like Adam, Callum didn’t yet have the powers of an adult dragon. All the better. It made the thought of our confrontation slightly less terrifying.
I looked at my sword, which I had placed on the kitchen counter, within reach.
“I need a plan,” I declared out loud. “First to get into Callum’s place, and then to defeat him. I have to…I have to…”
Did I have to kill him? I had told Matteo that I wanted to force Callum to leave the city. Lizzie had spoken of a banishing spell.
“Yes,” I said to the sword, “a banishing spell, that seems good.”
“Really?” a small voice asked me. “He already found you once. He could do it again.”
“No,” I said. “If Lizzie banishes him from Vegas, he won’t be able to come back.”
“And if she makes a mistake?” asked the small voice in my head. “After all, she isn’t even a real witch. Just a beginner. A wannabe.”
“Britannicus will help her,” I said. “Callum won’t set foot in Vegas again.”
“And you,” said the voice, “you’ll never dare leave again. Prisoner, once more. Too scared that he’d be waiting for you outside.”
“He’s not going to spend his life waiting for me outside the city.”
“But he could pay people to do it. Or even to come here to harass you, kill you, or kidnap you.”
This small voice was seriously starting to get on my nerves. But I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t wrong. If I banished Callum, I was simply going to move the problem and condemn myself to a life of perpetual paranoia.
“Ah, shit!” I exclaimed.
As an answer, the sword glowed faintly for a second.
I wasn’t going to attack Callum to push him out of my life. I was going there to kill him.
“It’s him or me,” I said to the sword.
It glowed again, like northern lights, and in a way that seemed…appreciative.
“When did I become the woman that decides to kill someone? Was it the day that I had decapitated Goldilocks? The day Agatha had disappeared and I threatened her man?”
The sword vibrated, like a musical instrument, and I knew what it wanted to tell me. I had become this woman the day when, still Callum’s prisoner, I had taken advantage of a moment’s inattention on his part to dare touch the sword displayed in a case. The moment I had placed my hand on its hilt and felt the metal vibrate under my fingers, I had made a decision and begun a transformation. The rest was just a series of consequences.
“I think it’s time to end the cycle,” I said quietly. “You and me, we fled his loft in Chicago to get away from him, and now we’re going to break down the doors of his loft in Vegas, and he won’t be able to escape us.”
The sword caught fire in response, and I knew we were in agreement.
28
Barbie was off tonight, but that didn’t prevent her from showing up, two hours before the opening of the club, accompanied by Nate.
I was finishing my main meal of the day, the one I had mid-afternoon, that served as my breakfast and that I called dinner because…because my life was a mess and I was more than a little eccentric.
They buzzed into the intercom and stood there, in front of the camera, like a couple of idiots with big tight smiles on their faces. I went down to open the door but blocked them from coming in.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hello to you too,” said Barbie.
“Nate, your shift starts in two hours. Barb, you’re not working tonight.”
“I came to see how you’re doing,” said Nate.
“I came so you wouldn’t leave without me,” said Barbie.
“I promised to let you know!”
“I wanted to save you a phone call,” said the harpy playfully. “Are you gonna let us hang out outside or can we come in?”
I let them in.
“Any news from Brit?” asked Barbie.
“Yes. The buildings protections are impossible to deactivate, unless we want to blow up the whole neighborhood.”
“Hmm,” said Nate. “Do you have any ideas?”
I led them down to the club, turned on the coffee maker, and went to get pens and paper in my office. I found my two sidekicks sitting at one of our biggest tables.
“Are you expecting people?” I asked, looking at the chairs they had arranged around the table.
Barbie started counting on her fingers. “Gertrude and Matteo will be here once night falls, Brit and his new friend Lizzie will come once they’re done with some wizard’s thing, and Lola should be here any minute.”
“That’s five,” I said. “Six including me. You have two extra chairs.”
“Julie and Walter will be joining us,” explained Nate. “After all, we’re talking about rescuing their relatives.”
“I see you’ve thought of everything,” I said. “Any news on Enola?”
They both shook their heads.
“Are we going off the assumption that she’s there too?” asked Barbie.
“I guess we’ll see once we get there,” I said. “But first we need to find a way in.”
I let myself slide onto a chair. We always came back around to the same question: how were we going to get into a building protected by a magical system that was impossible to neutralize?
“We set fire to the place to force them to come out,” said Barbie.
“I’d assume the spells include a fire suppression system, like the ones in the club. And if Carver has prisoners, I don’t want to barbecue them.”
“Not to mention dragons don’t have to worry about fire,” said Nate.
I nodded and quickly filled them in about my meeting with Callum in Gertrude’s building, Mother Dragon’s intervention, and the way Callum had recovered. They opened their eyes wide.
“You didn’t tell me Carver attacked you!” shouted Nate in a reproachful tone.
Barbie hit the table with an open palm. “This time, it’s decided. I’m tearing his eyes out!”
I decided to ignore Nate’s reproach and stay focused on the main problem. I turned towards Barbie. “To tear his eyes out, you need to get to him first. And since our goal isn’t just to confront Callum but also to liberate his prisoners…”
“We have to breach his defenses,” finished the harpy morosely. “Boss, do you think we could get in through the roof? I drop you off, and we attack from above. He wouldn’t expect it!”
“In the era of helicopters and drones, I’m sure Callum would have thought of protecting his roof. Especially if he’s living on the top floor.”
“From below then?” suggested Nate.
“You want to dig a tunnel?” I said. “Like we’re robbing a bank? It would take months.”
“A Trojan horse?” suggested Barbie.
The idea was appealing. I started thinking out loud. “I could create an illusion around several people, long enough to get into the building, and again in front of the apartment’s door. But we’ll have to deal with the issue of the smells…”
“Smells?” asked Barbie. “Boss, I promise I’ll brush my teeth!”
“The smells of magic,” I said. “Not of tobacco. The other day I wanted to spy on the new pack of wolves. I took on the appearance of a tourist, but one of the wolves had already noticed the smell of my sword a little earlier, and I didn’t dare get any closer after that, for fear that she would recognize it. And they’re apparently working for Carver.”
Nate nodded seriously. “It’s true that metamorphs are very attentive to odors. We would have to find a way to lure them out of the building. In any case, one less pack of wolves to fight, you can’t pass that up.”
“How can we do that?” asked Barbie. “We take them out to the movies?”
“I have to talk to the coyotes,” I said with a sigh.
“You don’t seem very excited about that,” Nate poi
nted out.
“Max very clearly ordered me not to get involved in his problems with the wolves.”
Nate looked at me with a rakish smile. “Since when do you take orders?”
I called Max’s transportation business. A secretary put me on hold, and after thirty seconds of elevator music, Max’s voice said, “What?”
“Wow, you’re in a good mood,” I said. “I have a favor to ask you…”
“Look, it’s not a good time.”
“Having problems? The wolves again?”
“Mind your own business. Especially now that things are working themselves out.”
“Things are working out? All the better. So you’ll be able to do me that favor.”
Max let out a long sigh and said, “Okay, but not right now. After noon tomorrow, at the earliest.”
“What’s going on tomorrow morning? If you’ve planned a pitched battle with the wolves, let me know so I stay awake and avoid dream-walking in the middle of it.”
“There won’t be any more battles,” said Max. “Tomorrow morning, we’re signing a peace treaty. You were right: Vegas is big enough for two packs, if we put in the effort.”
“Excellent. What made you change your mind?”
“I’ve always been open to cohabitation,” said Max. “It’s the wolves who made concessions.”
“I wonder why…”
“Me too,” agreed Max. “But tomorrow’s meeting will be in a busy café, at a time when people will be having breakfast. We couldn’t have asked for better to avoid a trap.”
“Which café? When?”
“Stay out of it,” growled Max. “It’s metamorph business.”
“I want to avoid running into you by accident. You have to agree that would be crazy.”
“I’m serious.”
He hung up.
While I was on the phone with Max, Nate had gotten up to answer the intercom. He reappeared accompanied by Julie the succubus and Walter the biker.
“Barbie said there was news,” said Julie.
“My wizard friend located Patricia,” I answered.
The young girl’s face lit up. “Where? When? Is she okay?”