Kazimir #2
As soon as the door closed, I immediately second-guessed myself. The idea of Devon on the main floor in close proximity to patrons would likely cause the monster in me to rise. I pressed the call button on my desk. “Nikolay.”
He arrived three minutes later. Nikolay was my paradox—a bruiser by build, but soft-spoken and thoughtful. He wore a slate-gray suit that made him look like a bodyguard in an art gallery, and his hair was pulled back in a scholar’s ponytail.
“Sit,” I said, and he did.
“I hear the club is running smoothly,” he said, voice pitched to neutral.
“For the moment. But there’s a complication.”
He waited.
“There is a woman,” I said. “New to the city. I believe she may be something we have not encountered before. Possibly celestial in origin.”
He raised both brows this time, genuinely surprised. “The woman from earlier? Is she… fallen?”
“Either that, or some experiment gone awry. I want her monitored, but discreetly. No intimidation.”
He nodded. “You want her brought in?”
“Yes. For her own safety as much as ours. I’d asked Bohdan to make her a server. But on second thought, I want her contact with the patrons limited.”
He considered this. “You want her as an assistant, then.”
I hesitated. “For now.”
“I can make her my admin. Do you want the others to know?”
“She will be impossible to miss. If any of them ask for specifics, tell them it’s no business of theirs.
She will have access to our schedules and private offices.
You are to train her in procedures, but…
” I caught myself before the words could escape, but they came anyway. “You are not to touch her. At all.”
There was a long pause. Nikolay’s eyes flickered, and I could see the thoughts: amusement, shock, calculation.
“As you wish, Father.” He said it quietly, and for the first time in years, I realized that he was afraid of me.
“Any questions?”
He shook his head respectfully.
I stood, signaling the meeting’s end. “Good. There will be a package for her in my private safe by morning. You are to see that it gets delivered to her apartment without incident.”
He nodded and left as silently as he’d come, the closing door clicking like a trigger pulled.
The hour before closing was my favorite, always had been.
The music dimmed by a shade, the neon brights of the club warming to velvet, the air grown heavy with spent desire.
I reviewed the numbers on my screen—bookings, staff rotations, a blip in the blood inventory that told me Bohdan’s new “crowd pleaser” donor was going to become a problem by Thursday.
“Amelia. My office, please.”
She arrived before the echo of her name faded, boots thudding against the hardwood as if she meant to claim territory with every step.
Her hair was up tonight, twisted and speared with what appeared to be a pen repurposed as a hairpin.
Ink smudged her hands and wrists, and there was a faint tang to her skin, a side effect of heavy spell-casting.
She gave a mock salute and dropped into the chair opposite me, slouching until she resembled a pile of bones in black cargo pants.
“You wanted me, Boss?”
“I want you to tell me how many layers of defense are on the club now.”
She squinted, lips twitching. “Seven and a half. I say ‘half’ because the leyline at the northeast corner keeps misbehaving, and every time I patch it, the energy rebounds in a way that makes my fillings ache.”
“Which means?” I pressed.
She wiggled her fingers. “Means a determined witch could slip a compulsion through if she knew exactly what to look for, but nobody’s going to set off a magical grenade in here without tripping the alarms. We’re safe.”
I nodded. “Good. And the wolves?”
Amelia’s smile flattened. “We picked up more chatter about Ryder. Apparently, some lone wolves in the Midwest have formed a coalition, and they’re sniffing around for leverage. I don’t like it.”
“Do you believe they’ll move on the city?”
“I think they’ll try to lure Ryder first. But if not—yeah, they’ll come here. And they’ll be desperate.”
She studied me, eyes narrowed. “You want me to set specific wards on the estate?”
“No. He’s not the primary target right now.” I allowed myself the faintest smile. “But there is someone else I need watched.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “The girl?”
She said it so casually, as if I hadn’t spent half the night reconstructing my sense of reality after seeing her. I kept my face blank.
“She’s important,” I said. “I want you to personally oversee all magical surveillance. No one else. Not even Bohdan.”
Amelia grinned, teeth white and sharp. “You got it. She feels…” She trailed off, searching for words.
“Familiar,” I supplied.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe she’s new. Sometimes the universe throws a weird one at you.”
I motioned for her to follow as I stood. “Come. Walk with me.”
The shift from my office to the Basement Casino was like diving through ice into volcanic water.
Upstairs, the club was all polished indulgence, purple and gold and sex.
Down here, beneath the ground, the air grew cool, and the light faded to a haze of green felt and shadow.
The ceilings were low; the walls padded in velvet, and everything—cards, dice, chips—looked older than any of the men running the tables.
No clocks. No windows. Just the friction of risk, the scent of old money and new fear.
Amelia’s eyes widened. She loved it down here because the rules never changed.
Tonight was busy. Vampires with veins lit blue by recent feeding lounged at roulette tables; chips in various sized stacks.
Witch covens in leather and lace argued in tight, tense clusters over cards.
A handful of demons—never more than three in a room, by unspoken law—smoked clove cigarettes and watched the action with predatory patience.
The noise was muffled, as if everything was happening underwater.
We’d barely made it two steps in before a shout cut the static.
“Bullshit!” The voice belonged to a demon in a white suit, horns lacquered black, eyes burning sulfur yellow. Vaelreth Korr. He stood, knocking his chair back, fists clenched at his sides. The crowd around his table pulled back instinctively, an animal response to sudden violence.
Amelia stopped beside me, tensed for the blast.
I strode forward. “Korr. Is there a problem?”
He sneered. “Your dealers cheat.”
“They have no need to,” I said, voice low. “You lose enough without their help.”
He bared his teeth. “I am owed time. I have the marker.”
“You have the marker, and you are in default. House rules, Vaelreth.”
The demon’s gaze flicked to Amelia, then to the crowd, searching for support. He found none.
I raised my voice just enough to silence the room. “You cannot pay me the money I am due; therefore I will take the hellhound.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then the demon shrieked—an inhuman sound, scraped from bone and hellfire. “You can’t—he is my property—!”
“He was your property, but you owe me a debt,” I replied. “You knew the rules. You signed the contract in your own blood.”
The hellhound arrived before the demon could reply.
I’d seen them before, but never one like this: its head nearly reached my chest, coal-black fur rippling like liquid glass.
Its eyes glowed molten copper, and every muscle under its hide flexed with barely restrained violence.
The scent of brimstone hit first, then something older, sharper: hunger, loss.
The crowd backed up to the walls. Even the witches went quiet.
I met the hellhound’s eyes and waited for the show of dominance. It didn’t come. Instead, the creature stood perfectly still, a slow, deliberate breath raising and lowering its barrel chest.
“What is its name?” I asked.
The demon spat. “Hound.”
My disgust was instant, reflexive. “You are so disrespectful that you dishonor the creature by giving it no name?”
“Why waste a name on something bred to be broken?” The demon sneered, but his confidence was leaking away.
I crouched until I was eye to eye with the hound. Its eyes held mine, unreadable. “What is your name?” I asked, voice as soft as I could make it.
There was a long, nearly silent pause. Then, not with words but with certainty, I knew: Axiom.
I rose, nodding once. “Come, Axiom.”
The hound hesitated, then stalked to my side and sat. Its tail, thick and scarred, swept the floor with a thump.
I turned to the demon. “Your debt is paid, Korr. But you will never play in Obsidian again.”
He tried to snarl, but nobody in the room was watching him anymore. All eyes were on the hellhound, and on me.
“Amelia, escort Korr out. I don’t care if he leaves by the door or the sewer.”
She grinned, and the tension in the air snapped. “With pleasure, Boss.”
As she grabbed the demon by the arm and marched him to the exit, I knelt and placed a hand on the hound’s massive head. Its fur was rough, but under that, the flesh quivered—uncertain, expecting pain.
“Not here,” I said, almost to myself. “Never here.”
The hound relaxed minutely. And when I rose, it followed me, step for step, as if it had always belonged to me.
We left the Basement Casino behind, Korr’s shrieks echoing off the velvet walls and down the stone corridors. The sounds faded, replaced by the soft click of the hound’s claws on marble as we re-entered the club.
Above us, Obsidian’s music resumed, thrumming with the wild joy of risk survived.
I glanced down at the hound, who sat quietly, tail curled around its haunches. In its copper eyes, I saw recognition—not of a master, but of an equal. For the first time all night, I smiled, wide and real.
There were still hours to go before sunrise, but I knew exactly how I’d spend them.