Chapter 2
Ezra rummaged in the pack. “I left the two of you alone for less than ten minutes only to return to whatever the hell that was.”
“Weren’t you listening?” I said. “That was Shiny Jim?—”
Ezra clapped a hand over my mouth. “No naming things in the Brink. Do we require yet another lesson on how to conduct ourselves?”
I bit his finger, batting my lashes innocently when he jerked his hand away.
“Does this use of ‘we’ mean Avi and me as usual,” Maud piped up, “or are you actually including yourself this time?”
My ex stared at her deadpan, before once more searching through the backpack.
Maud gave an “ugh” sound and drank some more water.
I motioned for Ezra to hurry up. “You were AWOL from the one job you had, bodyguard. So, if you think about it, that little episode was on you for not being here to keep us safe.”
Ezra pulled out a scroll. “I’m your guide. The leader and map reader, not the muscle.”
“Not according to that poker game you lost,” I singsonged.
“And it wasn’t just any poker game, was it, pet?” Maud patted his cheek. “It was the much-touted tournament between the Crimson Prince, co-owner of the Copper Hell, and a five-time world poker champion.”
Ezra pulled the elastic off the scroll. “Yes, well, I didn’t expect your bluffing skills to trump my enhanced senses. You weren’t even using a shielding device.”
Maud mock-cried, miming with her fists on her cheeks for emphasis. “No one has better bluffing skills than a half shedim in a world that despises them.”
I clinked my water bottle to hers.
Ezra flattened the map against the ground. “Five bucks says we’re stuck on this path.”
I brushed dirt off the parchment. “Can we go in literally any other direction?”
Appearances were deceiving here in the Brink, the boundary between earth and the vampire megacity. Six steps down this flat path and we could be buried alive in an avalanche. Or fall into a lake that didn’t previously exist. Or just dally with another sentient wall.
Maud splashed water on her cheeks, drops flicking onto her red T-shirt with the Flaming Flapjacks dancing pancake logo that I’d been eyeing this entire trip.
“Incoming.” Ezra shielded his eyes with one hand, tracking something in the sky.
It took me longer to clock the tiny black dots swooping down toward us.
Two supe-vultures, the only animal life known to exist in the Brink, landed with an odd grace about ten feet away atop the wall. They swiveled their featherless heads, lasering us with their beady-eyed stare like they could hasten our expiration dates.
Ezra unzipped his shirt pocket, carefully removed what looked like a jeweler’s loupe, and set it on the map.
“Did you ever have those little toy dinosaur sponges when you were little?” I patted my damp curls. “The ones you put in water and they’d swell up?”
The clear glass of the loupe turned iridescent, and the band snapped open, segmenting into a lizard’s body and face with beard: a tiny demon and our actual guide, despite Ezra’s claims. The shedim was doing this job in lieu of a forfeit owed to the Copper Hell.
Maud snickered. “Your hair is sucking the moisture from the air. I assumed my eyes were playing tricks on me, but you’ll be giving ‘80s metal bands a run for their money soon.”
The wee shedim beastie’s sticky little feet scuttled across the map.
Storm clouds pulsed darkly overhead, and while the air had grown hotter and muggier during our hike, there hadn’t been a single drop of sweet, sweet rain.
Trust me, when a Vancouverite longed for a deluge, things were dire.
Ezra glanced up from watching the tiny demon’s path and smirked at me. “I either transposed a number calculating follicle growth, or your hair will soon achieve black hole status.”
I kicked a pebble at him. “Hilarious.”
My sister winked cheekily. “At the very least, we’ll be able to camouflage you as a shrubbery.”
“Ni!” Ezra said.
Maud blinked at him. “Did the Crimson Prince just make a Monty Python reference?”
He looked down his nose at her. Amazing trick since he squatted next to the map. “The Crimson Prince does not engage in such silliness.”
“Prime Playboy?” she said.
I shook my head. “Not slick enough for him either. Mazel tov, Maud. You’ve just witnessed a pure Ezra nerd moment.”
“Tell anyone and I’ll be forced to kill you,” he said.
The demon plopped its butt on the map and a trail of magic light appeared on the ground in front of us—sticking to the path along the bone wall.
I shook my fist at the tiny demon. “Screw you, Gimli.”
Ezra cackled. “Told you I’d get you using his name.” He extended his index finger and the lizard obligingly crawled onto it. My ex carefully deposited the little guy on his shoulder where it settled in, rubbing its tiny beard with its wee claws.
I sighed, gaining a new appreciation for my mother cautioning me against anthropomorphizing shedim, and followed my sister and ex, who were now tromping along the dirt path and bickering about at what point Ezra was to step in once we were in place outside the fortress (Maud: never, Ezra: cue sarcastic laughter).
“You’re just sore that I won this map from Delacroix while you were stuck pumping the Bilge,” Maud said.
Ezra shuddered. “I may never get the smell out of my nostrils.”
“Next time listen to me,” she chastised, “and don’t get cocky with your forfeits.”
“Hang on.” My ankle wobbled on a pile of loose stones in my way. “Isn’t everything on the yacht automated? Why would you guys have to pump your own bilge, whatever that is?”
Maud’s lips quirked. “Bilge is one of Delacroix’s shedim Brimstone Breakfast Club cronies. The one with the pompadour?”
She’d probably been properly invited to those gatherings by our demon daddy. Unlike me, who tended to be harassed into last-minute attendance, only encountering his buddies in passing.
Thin whisps of fog drifted toward us.
“Oh yeah. I met him.” I scrunched up my face. “And pumping this Bilge involves…?” I mimed giving a hand job.
Maud roared with laughter, causing the supe-vultures to fly toward us.
Ezra smacked the birds away like volleyballs. “I’m not providing happy endings to shedim.”
I shrugged. “Not with that attitude you’re not.”
“Bilge has two stomachs,” he said, “one of which tends to get stuck and require massaging.”
“Still a rub and tug,” Maud chortled.
Ezra jabbed a thumb at her. “Between Michael, Delacroix, and now this one?—”
“You mean the woman who managed to kidnap and torture another Prime?” she interrupted cheerfully. I was surprised she could joke about it, but she had pulled off the unthinkable. My sister was not to be underestimated.
He scowled at her. “Spending time with my family is looking pretty good.”
“Rude,” she muttered.
I waved my arms and growled at the supe-vultures who’d circled back. “Your father bribed me with the missing infernal blood to never see you again, and considering I have yet to be taken on this big date you were so eager to impress me with, discussions of family time is premature.”
The birds fell into lazy circles above us, watching our every move.
“Maybe quit rain-checking me with important Maccabee stuff and let me astound and delight you.” Ezra held out his hand to test the fog. “The rain checks aren’t the problem. I just can’t stand Delacroix gloating that you only did that to him once.”
My father got me back by outing Maud as an infernal to Sachie, along with the fact that I’d lied to her about it. I hadn’t seen Delacroix in a month, not since I’d told him to pull his head out of his ass and help the Authority find the shedim imprisoning other demons.
I didn’t miss him.
“Trust me, Aviva,” Ezra said, leaning close, “I very much want to take you on that date.”
I shivered, but it wasn’t desire. Well, not only, because I also coughed. The fog was growing denser, colder, and smellier—like chemical waste.
Despite finding the shedim jailers being in his best interests, Delacroix had thrown my offer back in my face. That said, he’d been surprisingly helpful (for him) assisting our search for the missing infernal blood that would allow vampires to regain procreation abilities.
Delacroix was totally against any more Primes—or Prime-like—vamps in existence. He’d maneuvered the only one into being his partner on the Copper Hell and helping to stabilize my father’s siren magic. More would pose a threat to his power.
I coughed again, the fog now so thick it sucked in all light, and closed my eyes against its sting, my hands out in front of me. “Maud? Ezra?”
“Here.” My sister fumblingly grabbed one hand.
“Steady on. I’ve got you both.” Ezra placed a hand on my shoulder. “Walk slowly. Let me be your senses.”
Maud’s hand trembled. “Are the supe-vultures still with us?”
“Yes,” Ezra said calmly. “But I hear them.”
“You’re assuming sound works properly,” I said.
“Let’s stick with that hypothesis for now,” he replied, amusement in his voice.
The fog wrapped us in cold, sticky strands, pulsing and physically pressuring us to wander off the path and into unknown danger. After the third time corralling Maud and me back to his side, Ezra slung his arms around our waists, allowing us to resist the pull. He guided us carefully over loose stones while ensuring we all stuck close to the wall.
Until he suddenly knocked us flat onto our bellies.
I cried out, my knee badly scraping a rock on the way down. Thank goodness for denim.
“Avi?” Maud yelped.
“I’m okay.”
Ezra kept his hand firmly on the back of my head. “Keep your eyes closed,” he hissed. “And don’t move an inch.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. The light was a blazing orange that burned my lids and the only sounds over my hammering heart were wet smacks. It sounded like someone messily eating a burger and also soup all while inside an industrial car crusher.
I fought the urge to curl up into a ball because that required moving, but still, dirt flew up my nose. I wrinkled my face against the sneeze building inside me, squeezed my mouth and cheeks tight, and tried to hold my breath. I wasn’t going to die from nasal tickling. For one blessed second, I thought I’d mastered it.
Some kind of barbed appendage scraped against my ankle, and the loudest sneeze in history exploded out of me, spraying a geyser of wet germs.
The fog funneled into a tornado and swirled away into the sky as if it was running late to meet a house from Kansas.
I blinked at the image before me, namely Gimli perched on the wall.
Thankfully, the bones in this section were dry and dusty, but the demon had blown up into approximately thirty-seven times his normal size, his flabby butt drooping over the edge, and a gnawed-up feathered appendage hanging out of his slobbery mouth.
I crept closer and Gimli growled. “Calm your tits, demon,” I said. “Is that a supe-vulture wing?” I whirled on Ezra. “Why doesn’t he require lessons?”
Ezra scratched the demon under the chin. “Because Gimli’s a good boy who’s just hungry and now he’s scared off the fog. Didn’t you, buddy?”
Maud pointed off into the distance with a whistle.
The small fortress stood at the top of a rocky hill surrounded by a moat. Its walls, lined with crenellations and guard towers, were made of weathered gray stone, while the entrance was a heavy wooden gate, reinforced with metal.
“Are we close enough for your magic to work?” I said.
“It’s within my line of sight,” Maud said, “but whether there are flames inside that I can use is anybody’s guess.” She pulled a lighter out of the back pocket of her jeans, her other hand creeping up to the Maccabee ring she wore around her neck. I’d taken her godmother’s ring away once before, since using it would have killed my sister, but returned it after I dumped out the magic cocktail stored in the top compartment.
Maud flicked the lighter on and off a couple of times, centering herself. While we both had blue flame magic, her fire sight was much rarer and cooler than my ability to illuminate weaknesses in people.
My sister could temporarily meld her consciousness with a flame, magically using it to spy. She didn’t even need to see the second flame that she’d see and hear through. It was enough for the building that housed the flame to be visible. Even better than her spy powers was that when she extinguished the flames she saw through, she could erase everyone’s short-term memories along with it.
If there were any lit candles or hearth fires inside the fortress, Maud would find them, get the lay of the land, and deliver any relevant information before our approach.
If there weren’t any flames, well, that would suck, but we wouldn’t be in a worse position.
Maud stared into the lighter intently, going slightly cross-eyed.
Ezra stood with his back to her, standing guard along the path, and even Gimli quit eating to watch my sister.
There were no magic words, just a slight pause before she smiled. “Lovely tapestry.”
I was careful not to touch her and disturb the connection she’d made but I fist-pumped. “Fantas?—”
Then, with no warning, her head jerked back, her face thrown to the sky, and she crumpled like all her bones had melted.
The lighter hit the dirt, but I caught my sister.
Maud’s eyes rolled back to show the whites. Blood streamed from her nose and eyes, and she chanted some kind of gibberish.
“Maud!” I slapped her cheek, but when she didn’t respond, I slid into my blue flame synesthete vision. She was a solid bright blue. “Ezra, heal her!”
His face was tight with frustration. “She’s in the grips of some other magic. I don’t dare add mine.”
My sister sat up jerkily, her eyes totally purple. “Smart thinking, vampire.” Her regular accent was gone in favor of sounding straight out of the depths of Brooklyn. “You really should have listened to Shiny Jimmy.”