Chapter Nine
I sat at my desk, typing one-handed as my bandaged wrist lay aching on the desktop.
I knew plenty of healers. Fixing the bones was not an issue, but it still hurt.
I’d spent two days trying to think of a way to retaliate, to make him pay for what he did, but all my ideas were clouded with the scent of citrus and the inches between us that night that were so few they weren’t worth counting.
I needed to rest more; these were clearly the deranged thoughts of a sleep-deprived mind.
“Find out what Rook is doing and how I can hurt him again,” I spoke into the empty room, knowing the spirits could hear me.
Be patient.
I scoffed and returned to the stack of papers on my desk I’d read several times without absorbing any of it. The three pages were an itemized list of artifacts from a collector who had recently died and whose estate wanted them cleared out.
I’d tracked down this lot of artifacts for a few death objects in particular, based on an update on The Looking Glass.
The collector’s death was stirring news among seedier magicians.
Unfortunately for them, most of them didn’t have as much money as me.
The objects were probably bollocks, but I was grabbing for scraps related to Death at this point.
The rest of the junk could go to auction.
I made an obnoxiously generous offer, closed my laptop, and moved on to a separate stack of papers in front of me.
On top was the table of contents for a list of new Council legislation that was supposed to go into effect in response to the recent murders, and other laws that would be voted on after the election.
MP2005 - Magician Protection
MP2005-2 - Magician Protection Part 2
CSA2005 - Council Security Act
And then a list of others that pertained to small ordinances and spell regulations.
Nothing exciting, though I needed to look into Emmett Graves and find out if he would be a bigger or smaller problem for me than Blackwell was.
There had been no other victims, no communication from the killer that I was aware of, and I struggled to figure out my next move.
I assumed Rook and I were no longer working on it together.
I rotated my healed wrist and could still feel swelling under the bandage.
Why couldn’t I just kill the bastard? He would certainly try to take my life again, and I only had so many of them to spare.
There had to be another way to get back at him for the broken bones and damage at Avalon, not to mention the money I lost when I had to close the whole place down for two days.
I added ‘Deal with the giant thorn in my side’ to my mental to-do list. I never got the satisfaction of checking things off, since the list never got smaller.
Also on the list for today: catalog and price a lot of cursed jewelry that had arrived last night.
I had a few collectors with a narrow focus on dark artifacts.
I just needed to know how much to charge them.
I planned to cash in a favor one of the lower magicians at the Council owed me.
Someone needed to get me details on Emmett Graves’s platform and plans once he was elected, which seemed almost certain since he was the only one running.
Then there was a meeting with Gray to go over normal business.
Neverending work.
I packed up my laptop and left the legal papers sitting on my desk to file somewhere in the morning.
The lift ride to the penthouse felt as sluggish as the inside of my head, but I needed another hour for Project Mori before I could allow myself to sleep.
I flipped on all the lights and disrobed, then made a cup of tea before I settled in my bed, my legs stretched out and my computer open.
I navigated to a forum I scoured for information sometimes.
Midnight Chat was a deeply warded corner of the internet for magicians who practiced dark magic and borderline illegal—if not entirely banned—spells.
Mostly junkies hooked on the darkness and looking for a fix, something new and titillating to feed their monster.
I scrolled through forum topics.
Curse burned the hell out of me
How do I make the high last longer?
How long will this sedation spell knock a girl out for?
I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to know what someone might be using that last one for. There were some kinds of fucked up even I wouldn’t touch.
Protection from Death - She’s Following Me
I swallowed thickly and hovered my cursor over it. My heart slammed against my ribs and I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t having an exhaustion-induced hallucination. This was the first time I had seen her mentioned like this. I clicked on it.
BloodMage27
I almost died the other night. I did something stupid. A woman in black robes has been following me ever since. I think she’s death, and I think I pissed her off. She’s coming for me. What do I do?
alchemical-liar
Quit smoking whatever the humans are passing around so your magic evens back out and the psychosis stops.
VampFucker2001
Death? Really? You’re probably fucked, dude.
OGMagicMindfuck
There’s no such thing as Death. Quit being a pussy.
OriginOfMagic
There are no spells against her, but she might make a deal. She trades in lives though, so decide who you’re going to screw over to get her off your scent.
nofacenoname
People on this forum need to get a life.
I scrolled back up and read OriginOfMagic’s reply two more times. The woman, the creature, whatever she was that I met, absolutely traded in lives. In fact, I think she gave me what she thought was an excellent deal, if the one she’d taken hadn’t been so much more precious than mine.
By the time the ambulance came, my mother’s blood had already dried on the polished floor.
I stared for ten minutes at those two lines of words that felt so close to a breakthrough before I clicked on OriginOfMagic’s username to send them a private message.
I saw your reply on the post about cheating Death. Do you have a source for that information?
I hit send, closed my laptop, and blinked at my empty bedroom.
It was probably nothing. People posted made-up rubbish all the time.
It had never served me well to get my hopes up about anything, and I wouldn’t for this.
I’d leave that message hanging there and wait for a reply. Maybe one wouldn’t even come.
I took a few deep breaths to loosen the knot in my stomach that wanted so desperately to feel like optimism, then curled under the covers and stared into the darkness until my eyes grew too heavy to keep open.
***
“Do you want the easy stuff or the hard stuff first?” Gray asked, reclining on the couch across from where I sat in an armchair with a cup of tea.
I’d offered him one, but he was sipping an energy drink, his opposite arm spread across the back of the couch.
Gray was the only person who had ever been inside my penthouse, the only person I trusted enough to let into my personal space.
We’d agreed to meet up there that morning, since I’d tossed and turned all night and wasn’t quite ready to trudge down to the office.
Pick the easy one! Pick the hard one!
He’s too busy thinking about what he read last night.
I took a slow breath through my nose and blinked, ignoring their voices. I asked Gray, “Which is there more of—hard or easy?”
“Easy.”
I sighed and gestured for him to go on.
“There’s a Council meeting coming up. Graves will be there giving a speech.
It’s not public, but I’m sure you know someone who can get you in.
You should go.” I nodded along. “Whoever you made an offer to yesterday already reached out and agreed to the price. I coordinated the shipment, but it will take a while since they’re shipping it from Russia. ”
I loved a speedy transaction.
“Finally,” he drained his energy drink and crushed the can in his hand. “There’s a guy who is looking for a luck spell, something unique.”
I paused and considered whether I had something like that. “What does he want it for?”
“Wouldn’t say.”
“Is he someone important?”
“No.”
The no-one-importants were my favorite people to do business with. They were usually desperate, powerless, and easy to squeeze favors out of later. The corner of my mouth lifted and I nodded. “Get him a meeting.”
Gray blew out a breath. “So…the hard stuff then?”
I straightened my shoulders, which were leaden with exhaustion, and sipped my tea. Maybe I should take up coffee. Didn’t that have more caffeine in it?
“Teddy, the guy you assigned to collect that money for you, left town.”
I tried to put a face to the name and barely remembered who he was, but I remembered the money, and I didn’t have it in my possession. He left without bringing it to me, if he procured it at all. My shoulders grew heavier.
“Do a locator spell, bring him in quickly. Don’t kill him. I just want to talk to him. Is that all the ‘hard stuff’?”
“I figured that would irritate you more than the rest of it.” He shrugged and stood up to throw his can in the bin. I found myself strangely lacking irritation as he turned to the fridge and opened it, poking around for leftovers.
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re hungry, go get breakfast. It’s empty.”
“You need to eat more and sleep.” He turned to me, the fridge door still open and gripped in one hand. “You can’t run on empty forever.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Text me if you need anything,” he said, pausing a moment longer and assessing me before he closed the fridge and headed for the door.
When he was gone, I slouched a little and sighed. He was probably right. For all my love of fine food, lately I’d subsisted on toast and soft-boiled eggs or an apple grabbed from the bowl on the counter in a hurry. If I couldn’t get more sleep, I needed more fuel.
I turned to my closet and picked out something to wear—black trousers and a blue button-up.
I would forgo the jacket today. Since Gray was the only person who would ever see me in sweatpants and a t-shirt, I showered, dressed, and combed my hair before I went downstairs.
I bypassed my office and headed to a diner up the street.
I liked fine food, but a greasy American breakfast was good for the palate once in a while too.
Not only was I unfazed by the problem with Teddy as I sat down in a red leather booth, I felt oddly light.
Perhaps it was the anticipation of a reply to my message, or maybe it was how the message distracted me from the other person haunting me—and I didn’t mean the fucking dead that followed me everywhere—but I thought today might actually be a good day.