Authors: SM Reine
“I’ll be around,” she said, her voice dead.
“Good.”
Fred Turner left, and Elise took a slow sip of her coffee.
Her hand was trembling.
II
T
he body thudded
to the floor. A hand whipped the hood off of the man’s head, and he blinked at the sudden light. His bare skin pebbled with cold.
A woman probed his torso for injury, pushing down the shorts that barely shielded his modesty, and then rolled him over to expose his arms. They were bound behind his back. His shoulder blades were red and irritated.
Portia Redmond sniffed as she returned to her seat at the table.
“It’s wearing an intake bracelet. You said your stock is clean.”
Mr. Black leaned forward. He was dressed to minimize the physical signs of age, such as a slight paunch to his belly and a sloped back. His hair was wolf-white with accents of gray, and his eyes were blue, very blue, with no hint of warmth.
“Is that an intake bracelet?” he asked, his voice a cool baritone.
Portia’s spine straightened. “I think I would recognize the vehicle of my son’s death.”
A man shifted behind Mr. Black as though to remind Portia of his presence. He was slightly younger than Mr. Black, although he was wiry instead of stocky, and his rust-colored hair was barely touched with white.
There was a gun at his shoulder. He had removed the strap keeping it in the holster.
Portia forced herself to relax.
“Your son was an addict?” Mr. Black asked. “How old was he?”
“Old enough that I couldn’t have another heir.”
“What a shame. Miss Redmond—Portia—I don’t lie to my customers, particularly those as loyal as you.” He smoothed his wrinkled fingers over hers. “You asked for spirited, so I brought the most spirited. That kind of fire doesn’t come without cost. Controlling him can be… difficult.”
“Lethe is a stimulant.”
“For demons, yes. You’ll find it has quite a different effect on his type. I’ll supply enough to keep him under your gorgeous thumb for a year.”
“How much?” she asked.
“Do you think I would nickel-and-dime an old friend? After we’ve known each other for so many long years?”
She pulled her hand back. “Yes.”
“How predictable of me.”
“What do you want?”
“I want use of your shipping fleet.” Mr. Black waved his hand again, and Alain handed Portia a sheaf of papers. She unfolded them and began to read. Her expression darkened with every line. “I’m bringing in a few archaeological pieces from my personal collection, so I’ll require unlimited use of your trucks.”
“Unlimited use?” Portia slapped the contract on the table. “What about my needs? What about my suppliers?”
Mr. Black smoothed out the contract and flipped to the third page. “I have accounted for that: I will compensate you for the estimated loss of business. See here?”
She refused to look. “I don’t know why you’re bothering to ask. I know I have no choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.” He took a pen from his breast pocket and offered it to her. “Your son had a choice, too.”
Her lips trembled.
“Let me inspect them closely. Both the contract and…
that
.” Portia indicated the man shivering on her floor with a careless wave of her hand.
“He’s yours. You can command him.”
“The terms of our deal have changed. I won’t take custody until I fully agree.”
“This is why I love you, Portia. Just
adore
you. You don’t tolerate nonsense in your business, and I have to say, I appreciate that.” He snapped his fingers. “Nukha’il, stand up and turn around so she can see all of you.”
The man picked himself up. Shimmering red-brown hair fell to his back in soft waves. His body was delicate, yet strong, and the top of his head was nearly level with the doorway. Nukha’il spun slowly. He was sheer perfection, despite the fact there might have been no muscles under his olive skin. The lines of his back were unearthly.
He looked a lot like Portia’s son.
Her fist tightened, crumpling the contract.
“I’ll take him,” she said, her voice hoarse. Nukha’il raised his chin, giving her the kind of look that said he wouldn’t go down easily.
The moment she signed the last curl on her surname, the papers were gone and the pen was whisked from her hand. Alain tucked the contract into his coat once more. Mr. Black smiled like the Cheshire Cat, his too-white teeth glowing in the lamplight. “It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, my dear.”
“Yes. Of course. You’ll have to tell me your real name one day, Mr. Black.”
He placed a kiss on her knuckles. The suit fit him even better when he was standing. Under other circumstances, she might have sought him out to become her third husband. He was wealthy and certainly attractive. But he was also a cold bastard, and he did dangerous business. She didn’t want to be witness to the day it caught up with him.
“How do I contact you?” she asked.
“I’ll be in town visiting some… shall we say, old friends. I’ll be in touch. Don’t worry about that.”
Portia blinked rapidly, trying to process the information. “You understand if I don’t walk you to the door.”
“Of course.”
She waited until they were gone before letting the shudders overtake her, but once they began, she couldn’t stop.
Portia wouldn’t look at Nukha’il. His presence nauseated her. She moved short locks of hair into place and dabbed at the sweat in the cleft of her breasts to give her hands something to do. Deep breaths in, slow breaths out.
“What should I do?” Nukha’il asked, making it sound as if he was offering to clean a toilet.
“Don’t talk to me,” she snapped. Raising her voice, she called, “They’re gone.”
The door behind her opened, and the Night Hag entered.
Portia had been assured that the overlord of the city was a demon, but she appeared to be a frail, ancient, and entirely human female. Her sagging face was a severe, bony mask that resembled the ancient mummies. Every breath rattled in her chest.
She was shadowed by a man so painfully beautiful that he could have been mistaken for one of Mr. Black’s stock. His almond-shaped eyes were black, as though the pupils had overtaken the irises. He had been introduced to Portia as “Thom.”
“Mr. Black,” the Night Hag muttered. “Bringing his ‘collection.’ I should have known! And now you’ve given him your fleet?”
“We can track his movements,” Portia said, fighting to keep her voice steady. The Night Hag and her companion
looked
normal, but they terrified her in a deep, primal way. “And you instructed me to cooperate with him.”
“We’ll kill Mr. Black,” the overlord said to herself, stroking claw-like nails down the side of her face. “Yes. We’ll have to strike fast.” She snapped her fingers. “Tell David Nicholas.”
Thom gave a small bow. “Very well.” His voice was deep and without accent. He turned to leave, but the Night Hag caught his arm.
“We’ll need the kopis, too. Get to her before Mr. Black does.”
“What about this…
thing
?” Portia interjected. “You asked for it, and I bought it, but I don’t want it in my house.”
“Nukha’il,” the Night Hag whispered. “Yes. I have plans for you, my new angel.”
T
wo years of
client files. All the knives stored in her desk. A safe filled with important documents. Her laptop, her desk phone. Her favorite coffee pot.
Gone. All gone.
The police left after taking pictures, samples, and statements. It felt like her office had been violated a second time, and all that remained after the investigators were done was shattered furniture, smoke stains, and a lingering sense of grief.
She sank to her knees on a clear patch of floor by the window and let the silence engulf her. There was so much to be done. She needed to meet with the landlord, a cleaning company, her insurance agent—not to mention all her clients, whose private files had been stolen.
Elise rested her head in her hands. She had a headache. She never had headaches. It must have been caffeine withdrawal.
“They took my favorite coffee pot,” she whispered. That part stung the worst.
She didn’t bother locking the door on her way out.
Outside, the day was too hot and too bright. The lack of clouds felt like a personal insult. She jammed sunglasses onto her face, slammed the car door, and went home to start the recovery process. She blew through two stop signs on the way. Elise couldn’t seem to focus on the road.
Her roommate greeted her at the door with a feather duster.
“Anthony’s looking for you!” Betty announced, plucking a headphone out of one ear. She was a human hurricane of caffeinated enthusiasm, and all that energy was currently directed at cleaning their kitchen in tiny shorts that said “juicy” on the butt.
“Great,” Elise said, dropping her satchel on the couch. “Thanks.”
“He’s probably on his side of the duplex. You can catch him before work if you hurry.” Betty frowned. “You okay? You look tired.”
It seemed like too much effort to rehash everything she had gone over with the police in exacting detail. “I’ll tell you later.”
She went into her bedroom and locked the door.
Anthony. He was exactly the person she didn’t want to see. He would freak out and expect her to do the same, and then he would try to comfort her, and the thought of having to deal with that much emotion was exhausting.
The endless to-do list kept rolling through her mind:
Landlord. Cleaning company. Insurance agent. All her clients. The police.
Maybe the security company would have footage, maybe she should…
Elise threw herself on the bed without getting undressed and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
She didn’t even know where to begin. Backups? She could restore most of the data to the laptop in her bedroom. That would be the easiest place to start. But thinking of it reminded her that the police expected copies of her files as part of the “evidence collection” process, and that got the torrent going again.
Landlord. Cleaning company. Insurance agent. Calling the clients.
“Fuck it,” she told her ceiling.
Elise threw on jogging gear, tied her hair into a loose ponytail, and did a few twists in the living room to test her mobility. She felt like hell, emotionally speaking, but her body was in good condition after fighting demon spiders for a week.
“Leaving again?” Betty asked. She was listening to electronica so loudly that Elise could hear the bass through the headphones. “Don’t you want to see Anthony first?”
“No.”
She sighed. “So what should I tell him?”
Elise stretched a leg in front of her. “Nothing. I don’t owe him any explanations.”
Betty sighed again, as though that answer put her in physical pain. She was still sighing when Elise rocketed out the door. Sometimes Betty’s antics were cute, but this was not one of those times.
Her feet pounded a rhythm on the pavement that kept time with the incessant thoughts.
Landlord. Cleaning company. Insurance agent. The police, the security company, offsite backups…
She put on her own headphones and blasted Black Death’s latest album from the MP3 player on her arm. It couldn’t go loud enough to muffle her thoughts.
Life was so much easier when Elise hadn’t owned anything. There was a time when she hadn’t cared about coffee pots or the nice desk she bought as a treat for surviving her first year as an accountant. All she cared about was sticking close to James—and sometimes, she didn’t care much about that, either.
James was the only person she could imagine talking to. He always knew the right things to say. Conveniently, she kept her monthly backups on flash drives in the safe at his dance studio, so that was where she was heading anyway.
He owned a studio called Motion and Dance, which had two classes in progress and a full parking lot when she arrived. Business had been good lately. Demand for his classes spiked when he was contracted to choreograph a casino show, and with another Christmas show in the works, it was only going to keep improving.
But he wasn’t downstairs when Elise peeked into the dance hall. One of his employees, Candace, was guiding a group through hip-hop moves. The instructor waved at Elise. She didn’t wave back. She jogged upstairs to the apartment over the studio and entered without knocking.
Elise took off her headphones.
“James?”
His apartment was a disaster. The couch was shoved against the wall. The kitchen chairs were stacked on the table. He had pulled everything out of the closets and turned the floor into a cluttered mess. Even the window-mounted air conditioner had been unplugged.
Spring cleaning? He was usually anal about tidiness. It was quiet other than the music downstairs, so he wasn’t home to ask.
Disappointed, she went into the bedroom that used to be hers. Flat pack boxes were leaned against the wall, and everything else was separated into two piles. The belongings she left behind when she moved out had been dumped in a corner. “What are you doing, James?” she muttered, nudging the pile with her foot. She recognized her tattered sweatpants and a bottle of shampoo.
The only thing untouched was the safe against the wall, which had been bolted in place. Elise entered the combination, twisted the key in the lock, and passed her hand over the magical sensor. The door swung open.
She kept a pair of falchions and a back sheath in the safe, as well as a chain of charms she used for exorcisms. The envelope of flash drives nestled next to an old Book of Shadows was laughably mundane amongst everything else.
Elise selected the one labeled with the most recent date and moved to close the door again.
But she hesitated. Her fingers trailed down the long gold chain of her charms, and they whispered to her in a dozen voices, hissing with magic and ancient words. Her finger stopped on a single stone between the ankh and pentacle. It was white and soapy-smooth, like polished bone.
Another voice whispered to her, a voice from her dreams:
Elise
…