Chapter 4
I tightly hugged a cushion, visions of an eternity as a bone wall dancing in my head. “Is it another test?”
“Not like you’re thinking. They’ll still determine your worthiness, but either I’ll be allowed to give you the information or I won’t. No death involved.” She paused. “Probably.” She frowned. “I’ve never had this request before.”
How reassuring. I sighed. “I’ll ask.”
A pair of brass scales appeared on the table, the left side sitting lower than the right, and I flinched.
Daphne peered at me, her brows furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
I dug my fingers into the cushion, goose bumps exploding over my arms. I’d agreed to a game of three questions using similar scales with Delacroix. He’d abandoned the game when he didn’t like my first question and beat me up with his fucking water magic. What would some magical protector of a power word do?
“You didn’t say you worked for shedim,” I said tightly.
“I don’t. The magic protecting the power word is…” Daphne gently shook the scales, rattling them on their slender chains. A golden glow swam up from the base. “Something else entirely.”
Nope. Still not reassured. I rubbed my forehead. “Do we each ask three questions? Should I think of a forfeit equal in weight to the importance of the question?”
“Ah.” Daphne nodded sagely. “I see you’ve encountered this before. Happily, this isn’t Demon Quid Pro Quo. One question for you alone. But yes to the forfeit. Lay your?—”
“Yeah, I know.” I placed one hand on each scale, the brass warm under my palms just like it was with Delacroix. I shuddered, my jaw set.
What forfeit would be equal in weight to the importance of the question? This mattered to me, but in the grand scheme of things, how significant was the name of the last supplicant to this magical force?
Best to err on the side of caution.
It wouldn’t care about a memory or Maccabee intel. It was magic, so I’d bet the same. I wager losing my blue flame magic for an hour .
I’d placed this forfeit once at the Copper Hell. It had hurt like crazy to have it taken from me, but even if the hour started now, it’s not like I could illuminate the weakness of a magic force. And I’d have Ezra to keep me safe for the return journey. Most likely, it would happen when I was sleeping and I’d be right as rain in the morning.
Daphne’s chair hadn’t turned around like Delacroix’s had, nor had any hologram of my forfeit appeared over the left scale. This reassured me that this game wouldn’t end like the last one had.
Keeping my forfeit firmly in mind, I silently asked my question. What’s the name of the most recent supplicant?
Unlike last time, the scales didn’t balance. I cursed softly; I wouldn’t be allowed to ask my question. That said, I didn’t feel any magic loss, and the glow didn’t change in any way. I frowned. “Are you sure this thing is working properly?”
“Yes. It rejected your question and took your forfeit.” Daphne started to rise.
I stopped her. “It’s still glowing. Can I try again? Same question, different forfeit?”
We stared at the scales as if they’d provide guidance.
Daphne opened her mouth. Closed it. Checked the runes on her arms. “I guess?” She tensed as if braced for a blow.
Nothing happened.
She waved at the scales. “Be my guest. But just one more.”
I’d been wrong about wager. The test for the power word involved proving one’s worthiness. I’d do the same for this question.
Instead of wagering magic, I offered my ring.
I silently told whatever was listening all about my dreams of becoming the best Maccabee ever. How I’d be a force for change so no other half shedim would have to hide. I shared how putting on my Maccabee ring and saying the vow of tikkun olam, to fix the wrongs in the world, meant more to me than anything.
It didn’t matter that we’d learned the magic cocktail we stored in our rings was corrupted, the ring itself was what was important. It was the embodiment of my dreams, my talisman, and the physical manifestation of my oath. I’d never taken it off, no matter how dire the situation.
I bit my lip. If my question was refused, I’d lose the ring and Daphne wouldn’t give me a third try. I’d have failed.
Pushing aside my unease and the desire to snatch the words back once I bet the ring against the right to ask the question, I centered myself. What’s the name of the most recent supplicant?
For one heart-stoppingly long moment, nothing happened. Then with a slight creak, the left scale rose up under one hand and the right one descended.
I let out a breath; the scales had balanced.
Unlike with my previous try, the magic sentience had accepted my proposed forfeit as being of equal weight to the question. Thus, I’d fulfilled the condition and could ask my question without having to pay up.
I squeezed my hand, assuring myself the gold band was still securely on my finger.
A clear plastic bag filled with water popped into existence on the table next to the scales. It was sealed at the top with a twist tie, like a container for a goldfish from a pet store. The creature inside, however, was no cute coppery fish. It was a wriggling black maggot, pulsing and angry.
I grimaced. “What the unholy…?”
“It looks nasty on its own, but en masse, they’re actually quite soothing to watch.” Daphne handed me the bag. “There’s an underground lake full of them whose shore is perfect for meditation after a long day of customer service.” She shook her head. “Some of those supplicants whine like nobody’s business. They knew the deal, the big babies.”
Wow, lady. Five-star brandy but one-star compassion.
I hefted the bag in one hand. It weighed almost nothing, but the creature thrashed so violently that I almost lost my grip on it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Crush it under your bare foot during a full moon and it will speak its name.”
My mouth fell open, my face screwed up in horror. “This is the supplicant?”
“It’s their name.”
I shook the bag, disturbing the maggot and sloshing the water inside, icy sweat dotting the back of my neck. No wonder Shiny Jimmy took the moniker we’d jokingly bestowed on him. What kind of horror show did failed supplicants experience?
A million kinds of thankful that I hadn’t taken the actual test, I asked Daphne to return me to Maud and Ezra.
“Come back and visit sometime,” she said.
“I will.”
She smiled wistfully, like we both knew that was a lie.
A card fluttered down onto the carpet. It had an illustration of an old-timey man with a bushy mustache and monocle surrounded by medieval devils, along with the words “Go Directly to Hell.”
I hastily stepped back, but Daphne picked it up with a smile.
“That’s nice of you,” she said to the room in general, and held out the card.
I waved back and forth. “I’m good, thanks.”
She laughed. “Toss it in the air when you get back to your friends and the card will transport your party back to the Copper Hell.”
“Really?” I took it, flipping it over for any fine print. There wasn’t any. “No strings?”
“None. Every successful supplicant gets a return ticket. You didn’t take the regular test but you still qualified.”
I didn’t want to know how this magic force had our itinerary. “Thanks.”
Daphne waved her hand and the room blurred and swum.
I blinked at the white spots in my vision, grunting when a hard body shoved me aside.
A loud buzzing interrupted my protest. Flies the size of poodles roamed like gangs invading a neighboring gang’s turf. Though they had wings, they were flightless, scuttling at us in a side-to-side motion, their giant amber eyes as hypnotic as oncoming headlights, and their stiff bristles more like spikes than hair.
Supe-vultures were the only creatures native to the Brink. These buggers must have come through a rift and been caught in the chaos magic.
Feeling no pity, I kicked away one of the dozen carcasses littering the dirt, their dried blood dark crimson rivers under an overcast sky.
Gimli, back to his tiny size, dozed on Ezra’s shoulder.
Ezra punched a particularly aggressive fly in the face, knocking it back into two of its buddies. “Stay behind me.”
Happy to stay out of this fight, I backed up, the ground sucking in each footfall like weak quicksand.
Over by the wall, Maud swung the heavy pack back and forth to swat the flies away.
The pack clipped one, blood trickling from the gash in its face. Three other flies immediately attacked, consuming the wounded one.
“What loyalty,” I said weakly.
“What happened in there?” Ezra said, his eyes trained on the winged foes.
I double-checked that the plastic bag with the maggot wasn’t damaged. “I got the name of the last person to fail the test.”
“ And? ”
“And I’m fine.” I kicked a fly that was getting too close. It backed up, but more like it was preparing to charge than fleeing. “Maud, how about you?”
“All good.” She turned a half degree, brandishing the backpack menacingly.
Since that’s exactly what I would have said, regardless of the truth, I asked her permission to illuminate any weaknesses. All my blue flame synesthete vision showed was normal fatigue and a slight strain in the muscles on her right side.
“I’m really sorry for getting you into this,” I said.
“I’m a big girl. I could have said no.” She hissed at a fly who flapped its wings at her, buzzing. “It was an adventure, but now I want a hot shower.”
Ezra killed another couple of insects, taking the numbers down to two of them and three of us.
“Everyone huddle up,” I said.
It took a minute and we did it with our backs against each other’s instead of facing in like normal, but once we were in position, I showed my team the Go Directly to Hell card.
“Catchy. We could use these for marketing,” Ezra said. “But it’s a little disturbing that they knew.”
“Right? Argh!” I batted the fly that had headbutted me in the gut.
The card flew into the air, which constricted around us like a belt after a too-heavy meal, then snapped, flinging us all forward.
Between my second and third stumbling steps, I went from spongy ground to the moss-green carpet on the main floor of the Copper Hell.
Two flies, now normal-sized, came with us, buzzing in a dazed circle before soaring up to the yacht’s ceiling.
Li’l Hellions, the vampire employees, rushed us. They were clad in identical uniforms consisting of fitted gunmetal-gray trousers and collared button-down shirts with the Copper Hell’s logo embroidered above their hearts: a fat flame bound diagonally by a thin copper band.
In typical fashion, they didn’t assist us; they badgered Ezra with business-related questions like he’d been gone for years instead of less than a day.
He was swallowed up by them, only his nose, bewildered eyes, and the top of his head poking up above the fray. The way they bobbed around him made me think of a drowning man. Poor besieged Prime.
Apparently, Calista had mostly left things in the hands of her very stressed employees. Ezra grumbled that taking an active role in running the megayacht was his personal “no good deed goes unpunished,” but he’d agreed to run the Hell and so it would be done to his exacting standards.
The Li’l Hellions took to Ezra like a pack of unruly puppies falling in line with relief when their alpha dad showed up.
Maud removed her extra clothing from the backpack, cradling it in a bundle to her chest.
I sighed, wishing I could say bye to Ezra properly instead of a wave, and mouthed “Thank you.” Hefting the pack, I looped my arm through Maud’s and we walked back to the small foyer. Somehow the same mesh light portal would return Maud to the exit in Hong Kong and me to the Jolly Hellhound in Vancouver.
We hugged. Maud stepped through first, but before I could follow, I was hauled backward.
Ezra leaned in, the intensity in his eyes making my heart skip a beat.
The Hellions hovered about twenty feet away as if kept back by an invisible force that, if dissipated, would send them flooding toward us.
“Did you threaten them?” I murmured.
“Big-time.” His cologne mixed with the natural scent of his skin, creating an intoxicating aroma that filled my senses. “That okay?”
“Depends on what you plan to do next.”
He tapped a finger against his lip. “Do a thorough debrief of exactly what went down in the fortress?”
“That would be the smart play.”
“And the reckless one?” he said.
I leaned in closer, my heart hammering. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t decide whether or not to give Ezra a second chance before our dinner date, and here I was acting like things were already settled.
Ezra played all his cards close to his chest. It was a survival tactic by a boy raised to be heir to a Mafia in a world where everyone wanted to take him down.
It gave me insight and empathy for how he’d treated me, but I wouldn’t have forgiven him if he hadn’t confided in me his determination to get to the truth of his mother’s suicide. More importantly, he’d repeatedly proven he had my back and that he was trying to be a man worthy of my affection.
Case in point, even though we hadn’t seen each other this past month, Ezra had dropped everything as soon as we had the map to come questing with Maud and me in the Brink.
That said, I’d argued both sides of going down this road with him again a billion times. Each time I tipped in favor of throwing caution to the wind and seeing where a reconciliation between us led, the giant divide between him partnering with my demon father at the Hell and me being a Maccabee swam sickeningly before me.
I raised my eyebrow, though I also made sure that no one other than his staff could see us before I issued my challenge. “Surely, you can figure out the reckless move on your own, Cardoso.”
His lips met mine with a soft, dark laugh, one hand around my waist and the other coiling in my hair. Electricity shivered over my skin, and the scent of lemon and wood polish surrounded me as Ezra pushed me into the wall.
I rose on tiptoe, forgetting my schedules, my plans, and all the stressful things waiting for me back in Vancouver, to lose myself in this moment and make it last longer.
Even now, I couldn’t believe that I could just have this. Whenever I wanted. I deepened the kiss, Ezra’s heart shuddered against my skin and?—
A cheer rose from the hallway.
I opened my eyes. It wasn’t the Hellions encouraging our public display of affection, since most of them glared at me behind his back for wasting their master’s precious time; it was some game played at a nearby table.
Ezra rested his forehead against mine. “Do not bail on dinner Wednesday.”
After certain Authority members almost railroaded me out of the Maccabees for a number of bullshit reasons, I’d kept my nose to the grindstone this past month, spending all my time on my first level three case finding an ugly heirloom vase that was stolen in a vicious inheritance dispute.
All the parties involved were horrible people and didn’t deserve my every waking hour and near burnout, but I’d felt incredible pressure to hit the ground running. The emotions I’d communicated to the scales back at the fortress weren’t fake.
I’d spent my entire career going above and beyond to prove myself as an exemplary operative for the day I went public with Cherry, and even if I was slowly trusting her to my inner circle, old habits died hard.
It was tough telling myself that I didn’t have to spend every waking moment making myself indispensable. It was even tougher convincing myself that I deserved time off.
Especially when that time off involved rekindling a relationship with Enemy Number One to many Maccabee higher-ups.
Everything being what it was, I’d rescheduled on Ezra three times. He hadn’t grumbled (much), but he’d insisted that our big romantic dinner date where he hoped his ex-girlfriend agreed to reconcile happen on a Wednesday.
Hump Day. It was either comically unsubtle or the least romantic day of the week. Was he having similar doubts about us?
“I won’t bail,” I told him now.
“Ezra.” This one male Hellion spoke tentatively, but the entire group had edged closer.
My ex’s eye twitched. “Be safe.”
I squeezed his hand and turned away, walking through the portal with a small smile and the maggot bag. I had the supplicant’s name—more or less—and I hadn’t even missed work.
I was nailing this level three gig.