Chapter Four
FOUR
MABEL
AKASHIC LEAGUE
Mabel Touchet, this is to inform you that you’ve been assigned a new client who wishes to have his father’s essence removed from an Hour and accompanied to his chosen destination. Please see attached PDF for contact information.
I stared at the text message, then quickly opened the PDF while continuing my phone call with Jean-Philippe. “But what’s going to happen to the rest of the season? We still have two months before the break.”
“Rescheduled, and if you think that isn’t going to be a nightmare, you’d be quite, quite wrong,” the director of my dance company said in a voice that was thick with what I imagined was exhaustion.
“The insurance people just left, and their experts said that the entire building is going to have to be brought up to code before we can open it and the studios again. That means electrical, water, and sewer. We’ll be lucky if we can open doors on the autumn season. ”
“Holy shitsnacks,” I said, worry making my gut feel like it was filled with lumpy oatmeal. “How will the company afford all that?”
“Fortunately, that is not one of our worries now that we’ve worked out a final agreement on the lease of the theater with the government.
In exchange for a share in our profits, they are responsible for the upkeep of the building itself.
You know that it was an eighteenth-century villa before it was converted into a theater, yes? ”
I spent the next ten minutes talking to Jean-Philippe about what was happening to the company for the following six months (including a minute fraction of our salaries offered as compensation for the unexpected temporary unemployment), and took down information about where we were to go for the daily class that was standard in the life of a ballet dancer.
By the time I hung up, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice about the reaping job if I wanted to continue to eat and pay rent on my apartment.
“There are times when I really regret being born a reap—oh, hello. Is this”—I checked the name on the PDF—“Amadeus Senreff? The Akashic League says you’ve booked my services for the removal of your father from one of the Hours.”
“That is correct.” The potential client had a German accent, and a rough edge to his voice that for some reason made me uneasy.
“I was told you were responsible for the recent release of the founder of Abaddon. My father’s essence has been contained in the same Hour, and should give you no trouble in retrieving it for me. ”
A sense of dread dug steely fingers into me.
Did everyone know about my part in freeing Desi?
Worse, I had to either lie to this stranger or risk admitting to the truth to someone who could be working for Dr. Kostich.
I didn’t really have a choice, not with the effort that Sally had made to keep me out of the Akasha.
“I don’t know who told you that reapers have the ability to remove spirits from the Thirteenth Hour, but I assure you we do not,” I answered, trying to keep to the truth.
If I could avoid lying outright, I might escape persecution .
.. or worse. “In case you are unaware, that Hour is a prison, and from what I’ve been told, it is impossible for beings held there to escape. ”
“And yet that is exactly what you did,” he snapped back. “You and that former Sovereign. You will do the same for my father.”
“I will do no such thing,” I said, mentally girding my loins.
As an employee of the Akashic League, I had little autonomy over the jobs they assigned me, but even they wouldn’t chastise me for turning down an impossible job.
“To even step foot in the Thirteenth Hour is a crime, and the Akashic League does not condone such actions. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Goodbye.”
His words rode on a hiss that sent shivers down my back. “You may think I’m a fool, but I warn you that to cross me is to doom yourself—”
I clicked off the phone, immediately calling Maureen, my supervisor, informing her that the job I’d been sent was not possible.
“The Thirteenth Hour?” she said after I explained the situation. “Oh, hell no. Don’t worry, Mabel, I’ll note it as rejected, and will pass along the information about the request to the Court of Divine Blood for them to investigate.”
“Why the Court?” I was unable to keep from asking. “What do they have to do with it?”
“They run it. Didn’t you know? Right, I’ve forwarded your statement to the current Sovereign. Sorry about your mundane job crashing and burning. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a likely gig for you that doesn’t involve impossible situations.”
After a few minutes of pleasantries, I headed off to the replacement dance studio to attend the morning class that all dancers used as a way to warm up, work on maintaining flexibility and stamina, and keep mind and body engaged with learning.
By the time ninety minutes had passed, I hauled myself out of the studio and was on the way to the tram when I opened my phone and saw four missed calls, all from the same person.
“Sally?” I asked, stopping at the entrance of a closed bookshop. My heart was beating so loudly, I thought I was about to have a panic attack. “What’s wrong? Is it Dr. Kostich? Oh goddess, he found out we lied and he’s after me, isn’t he?”
“Sugar, you have such a suspicious mind,” she answered with a hint of laughter. “I told you before we were summoned to Kostich that he posed no threat. You really should learn to trust people.”
“Uh-huh.” I thought of Papi and the hold he had over me, and decided that arguing would do no good. “If something hasn’t gone irreparably wrong, why did you call me four times in an hour and a half?”
“I just wanted to warn you to not bring your moonstone. It would draw attention that, truly, you do not want. You know how some of the older gods are—they dwell, and that never ends in a non-death manner. You’ll simply have to trust each other, and work together to escape alive.”
“Sally ...” I leaned against the door and rubbed my forehead, feeling tendrils of a headache snaking across my brain. “What are you talking about? What gods? Who do I have to trust? And for the love of all that’s good in the world, escape alive from where?”
“I have every confidence that you’ll be just fine. No, more than fine—you’ll be perfectly splendid! All that limberness can’t be for nothing, after all! And now I must hang up, because my phone never works well in the Beyond. Godspeed, Mabel! I’m sure you’ll triumph in the end.”
“Wait, Sally—aw, hell.” I glared at my phone, about to tuck it away when a text pinged.
MIDNIGHT BAZAAR brOKER
Come. I have a job for you.
ME
I’m sorry, but I can’t right now. Can you tell me about it over the phone, instead?
MIDNIGHT BAZAAR brOKER
COME NOW. Take portal. I expect you within half an hour.
ME
I can’t, Papi! I’ve told you before that I can’t portal to Amsterdam at the drop of a hat. For one, I have a life with things I have to do here in Beck. And for another, it’s expensive, and since you refuse to reimburse me, I have to limit my portal taking.
MIDNIGHT BAZAAR brOKER
If you do not come now, I will tell the Akashic League what you did two years ago.
“Oh, you did not!” I swore profanely to myself, sick to death of not only his threats but the knowledge that I was solely to blame for the situation. My fingers were poised to text back to do his worst, but sanity forced me to swallow my anger.
ME
Despite your text sounding like you are in middle school about to tattle on me to a teacher, I will see if I can’t rearrange my afternoon so I can go to Amsterdam.
He didn’t reply, which forced me to vent my spleen mentally as I headed for the small portal shop that resided in a dark alley behind the parliament building.
Thirty-seven minutes later I entered the Midnight Bazaar.
It was located in a gorgeous seventeenth-century building in a quiet square in Amsterdam, the lower floor of which was occupied by a firm of Otherworld accountants.
The top two floors were administrative offices where the acquisition or sale of high-value and rare goods and services was bartered.
Papi’s office was on the second floor, in a corner suite that had a pleasing view of a canal and bridge.
Papi was dark haired with muddy hazel eyes, and a scar on his cheek that he claimed was from one of the many duels he’d fought over the centuries.
As I entered his office, I noticed a new poster adorning his wall, and paused to give it a long look.
“You’re on a new telenovela? I don’t remember you being in one set at a zoo. ”
“Yes,” he said, glancing with obvious pleasure at the TV show’s publicity material he’d framed alongside the others from his acting career. “It’ll come out next month.”
“How do you find time to film all those shows when you’re the broker for Western Europe?” I asked, genuinely interested. “I can barely keep my life together between dancing and doing reaper jobs.”
“You are a woman,” he said with a dismissive shrug, his fingers tapping wildly on a laptop’s keyboard. “You do not cope as well with challenges as men do. It doesn’t surprise me that you can’t handle a mundane job in addition to the tasks the Akashic League places upon you.”
“Oh, we are not doing that,” I said. I’d just sat, but stood up now, and clutched the strap to my cross-body bag. “You know I do not tolerate misogyny and sexist bullshit.”
He didn’t even glance my way. “Sit down and stop overreacting. Look at me—I’m not making a big fuss about having responsibilities. Just now, I’m dealing with an extremely insane leader of the Jabmead Sisterhood, but you don’t see me whining about it, do you?”
“The who Sisterhood?” I asked, curious despite the situation.