7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
He didn’t follow me, and that was the second time I ran from him.
I sat in my office, staring blankly at my desk.
No paperwork. No laptop. I had spent two hours trying to do actual work—inventories and lists of buyers and requests for favors—all the mundane things that I did every day.
I liked my routine, my never-ending list of the same tasks over and over again.
I did not like interruptions.
I did not want my life shaken up.
Rook did it anyway.
You’re going to get back at him, aren’t you?
Is it going to be bloody? You hate that.
I bet he’s going to kill him this time.
No, he won’t. He liked that kiss too.
“Are you bored? Looking for some drama?” I sneered into the empty room.
The spirits had a point, though. Payback was the only answer to the monumental way he fucked with my head.
“Fine,” I said to them. “Tell me who his best fighter is.”
We don’t know.
“Then find out,” I said, shooing them with my hand, even though there were no living bodies to shoo. If they were going to yammer on all the time, they could at least make themselves useful.
A moment later, Gray walked in, a leather coat hanging to his waist. He looked me up and down once and read me without having to ask.
“You’re stressed.”
“There’s a killer on the loose and I might be a target, and…” I shook my head. “Find out who Rook’s best fighter is. I’m too recognizable if I go to his club. I need a name and a schedule of when he’s due to be in that cage. Find out who he’s fighting and if he has a rival.”
“Of course,” he said. “Which do you want me to take care of first—the killer or the fighter?”
I hesitated. I should prioritize not being murdered, but I wouldn’t be able to think clearly about that until I took care of my other problem.
“I’ve got the first one handled. Go to Rook’s club. Please,” I added. “The fights there start at eleven.”
We both glanced at the antique clock on a shelf at the same time. It was only 9:45, which meant he could go tonight, the sooner the better.
I would wait and see whether he or the spirits came back with information first.
***
It turned out I needed both of them—Gray and the phantoms that followed me everywhere I went.
I slept a record eight hours in two days. On the third day, my phone rang the moment my eyes opened, and I answered Gray.
“Austin here.”
“His champion fighter is a guy named Lee Paris. They call him ‘The Death Dealer’ because he accidentally killed two of his opponents in the last year.”
“Is that allowed?” I asked.
“From what I hear, anything goes—magic, fists, weapons. He’s lost five fights ever. His rival is Jacob Dodds and Paris won the last three fights against him, but barely. They’re fighting again Saturday night. Last fight of the night.”
I shook the sleepy fog from my head and rubbed my eyes. Saturday. Today was Tuesday. That gave me four days to plan.
The Death Dealer has a weakness.
The whispers came from several spirits at once. I tapped my finger against the back of my phone.
“I’m not going into the office today,” I said. “Keep an eye on Paris and the club. I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up without saying goodbye, but Gray was used to that.
“Care to share?” I asked the dead. “What weakness?”
His magic isn’t very good, and he’s broken his right hand too many times—it holds him back. He always fights with weapons.
“That’s not a weakness. That’s a skill.” I huffed and stood to rummage through my closet for something to wear. I was deciding between a black suit and a pinstriped one when they answered.
Not if the weapons fight him.
I went totally still, their words sinking into my skin. Slowly, I placed the black suit back into the closet. I carried the gray pinstriped one to the bathroom and hung it on the towel bar while I showered and shaved.
Not if the weapons fight him.
I rolled around its possible meanings and how each might fit into my plan.
“What kind of weapons?” I asked as I dried my face. No answer. The dead were so bloody unreliable. I dressed and moved back to the bedroom, where I texted Gray the same question. He’d been to the club, so he’d know.
What kind of weapons do they use?
Gray: Knives, baseball bats, brass knuckles…pretty much anything that doesn’t have a bullet in it.
And Paris fucked up his right hand enough that he couldn’t fight reliably without them. There was a one hundred percent chance he’d have to touch one of them during Saturday’s fight, but which one?
Paris’s preferred weapons?
Gray: From what I’ve seen, all of them, but he’s best with a knife. Big ones. He’s showy.
I could bribe someone to sneak a cursed knife into the fighting ring. It would bring him down easily, but I couldn’t ensure it would be the one he picked up. Whatever I did, it couldn’t be traced back to me, and it couldn’t be detectable before the fight.
I rubbed my fingertips over my eyes, gears shifting in my head until it hurt, and then all at once, the flurry in my brain stopped.
Because I knew exactly who I needed to visit.
***
Frederick Hale was the kind of man no one noticed. He was of average height with mousy brown hair and unremarkable brown eyes. When he opened his door for me at one in the morning on Thursday, he wore khaki pants and a dull sweater.
He was common in every way.
That was his first skill. That was the act.
“Good evening, Austin,” he said, even though evening was a poor word for the late hour at which I had set up this meeting. “Please come in.”
He held the door for me as I stepped through into a living room that might have belonged to an antique collector, if Frederick were a normal man. An old clock, aged knickknacks, and carved end tables accented beige furniture.
The door closed, then he raised his hand with a quick pulse of magic and locked it behind us.
“Follow me.”
No further greetings or niceties—straight to business. Just the way I liked it.
He led me down a long hallway to a locked room at the end, except this one was warded with such complicated spells that even I wouldn’t have been able to open it.
The door opened with a faint, acrid smell that made my nose wrinkle as we stepped inside.
Shelves lined the walls, displaying bottles and jars in neat rows.
His careful handwriting labeled each of them.
Hemlock. Arsenic. Nightshade.
Some labels named herbs and ingredients I had never heard of.
“What can I help you with?” Frederick asked. In my head, I made a ‘pick your poison’ joke, but I didn’t let it show on my face. His was all seriousness as he waited for my answer.
“I need something that can be absorbed through the skin and will kill instantly.”
“Ah, a quick death is expensive.”
“I have a lot of money.” I kept a safe distance near the door, far from his rows of poisons, but he moved fluidly through the room, eyes roaming over bottles.
He stopped near one, his fingers hovering over it, then shook his head.
Further down the line, he picked up two bottles and carried them to a worktable in the center of the room.
“You’ll want to step outside for this part,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if I was in danger or he was maintaining the confidentiality of his recipe, but I turned without a word and lingered in the hallway.
I had pondered this problem for two days and realized it might not be so difficult after all.
I just needed to ensure there was only one knife available to The Death Dealer on Saturday.
Ten minutes later, Frederick stepped into the hall, and a stronger scent followed him—something bitter that made me cover my nose with my sleeve until the door shut behind him. He handed me a glass vial the size of a cigarette lighter, sealed tight with a cork.
“Don’t spill that,” he warned. “Whatever you plan to do with it, wear gloves—thick ones—and let it dry completely before using it. It will do what you asked.”
I tucked it into my pocket with care and paid the exorbitant price he charged me for it.
“Thank you. Always a pleasure doing business with you,” I said.
“Anytime.”
Back on the street, I texted Gray.
I need you to bribe some underling to make sure that there is only one knife on the table on Saturday, and only for Paris’s fight.
He didn’t text me back. Like a normal person, Gray slept at night, but he’d get back to me in the morning. Paris would fight last on Saturday, and it was going to be a very grand finale.