The Mage in Black (17 page)

I didn’t trust Slade. We’d established that. But I had to admit to myself his offer was tempting. After all, my savings would run out eventually, and I currently had no source of income. Padding my nest egg with some side work intrigued me. But working for Slade didn’t. Besides that, I found myself cringing at the idea of making a living as an Enforcer again. One of the appeals of coming to New York was getting a fresh start. If I agreed to Slade’s offer, I’d be right back where I started thirty years ago.

“Look, Slade, I understand there might be certain benefits to the partnership you’re offering. But I’m gonna pass.”

His eyes narrowed. “Gonna pass on working for me, or on being friends in general?”

I stopped and thought about it. Making an enemy of Slade wouldn’t do me any favors. I had to play this the right way. “Working for you. I’m fine right now. That might change at some point, but for now I don’t need the work. As for being friends, well, I’m willing to work on not wanting to kick your ass every time I see you.”

Slade laughed. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”

I shrugged and took a sip of my drink. A small smile hovered on my lips. Though I wasn’t ready for Slade to be my BFF—far from it—it was kind of nice hanging out with a vampire again. Especially one who wasn’t loyal to the Dominae.

“So I guess it would be too much to ask for the benefits you mentioned earlier, huh?” His expression was serious, but the devilish light in his eye hinted he was trying to provoke me.

“You would be correct. But I’m sure one of your nymphs wouldn’t mind helping you out.”

Slade set his elbows on the table. His posture was relaxed, as if he was enjoying our banter as much as I was starting to. “I prefer my bedmates a little less fragile. But then, you already knew that.”

A flash of Slade slamming into me against a wall pushed its way into my mind. I blinked away the image. Definitely not a healthy train of thought.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “In my experience, nymphs are stronger than they look.” I was referring, of course, to Vinca. Another unhealthy train of thought, but a damned sight better than thinking about fucking Slade again.

At that moment, a door to the back rooms opened and Giguhl stumbled out looking dazed, with a blue satin demi-bra hanging around his neck. The stupid grin on his face indicated the nymphs he’d disappeared with weren’t too fragile, either.

“On that note,” I said, “I better get my demon home. He’s had a big night.”

Slade nodded. “Sabina?”

I stopped. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you don’t want to kick my ass anymore.”

I allowed the smile to show this time. “Just make sure it stays that way.”

He saluted me with his scotch. “Yes, ma’am.”

O
ur first stop after leaving Vein was to grab some cash for the cab ride home. I finally found one on Forty-second Street near the flashing lights of Times Square. But when I entered my pass code into the ATM, the thing started beeping manically.

“What’s wrong?” Giguhl asked, his voice muffled by the carrier and the cacophony of Times Square at night. He’d been so spent from his quality time with Tansy and Cinnamon that he didn’t even argue about switching back to cat from for the trip home.

I slammed a palm on the machine. “It ate my card!”

“Uh-oh.”

I’d have chosen a more colorful response. As it was, I shocked several passersby with a string of invectives against the Dominae. They’d obviously found my secret accounts. Freakin’ great. Now I couldn’t get to any of my money.

“What are you going to do?”

I turned my back on the traitorous machine. “I have no clue.” A passing tourist shot me an odd look for speaking to my handbag, so I ducked my head and kept walking.

My boots struck an angry percussion on the sidewalk. A chilly wind whipped down the street, bringing with it the sour scent of sewer. On the street, cabs honked like angry geese. And on the sidewalk, people bustled past like determined arrows headed for a target.

Freaking New York, I thought. Los Angeles had smog and traffic, too. But it also had a temperate climate, beaches, and adequate parking.

Giguhl shifted in the bag. “Sabina?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Where are we going?”

“I have no idea.” Pressure built in my head, my lungs. I wondered if this was what the proverbial fish out of water felt like.

The scent hit me just as I crossed in front of an alley. Smoky, spicy, and sweet. I stopped in my tracks and inhaled deeply. I looked to my left and saw a neon sign down the alley advertising The Happy Hookah Lounge. The scent of smoke and blood summoned me into the darkness like a bent finger.

Smoking blood was a popular activity in certain circles of the vamp community. My own grandmother liked to lace her tobacco with a little opium for an additional high. The scent had followed me for most of my life, clinging to my clothes and hair when I came home from vamp bars.

After walking around the swirling vortex of motion that was New York, the reminder of home was bittersweet. As tempting as it was to indulge in a little emotional wound prodding, I continued on past the alley. Pretending I belonged among vampires didn’t cut it anymore. I’d never belonged among them, and trying to do so now might end up putting me in the path of more of the Dominae’s assassins.

Besides, I’d had enough of a walk down memory lane tonight to last me for a while. Talking to Slade was… interesting. I still didn’t trust him. But I was willing to admit that my old grudge didn’t hold as much water now. Slade might have screwed me over and pulled a disappearing act on the Dominae, but I betrayed them. It didn’t matter that they betrayed me first. Now I understood how my blind loyalty to the Dominae had guided my decisions. And now, after all these years, Slade and I were on the same side again. Funny how life works sometimes. So funny I would have cried if I’d been the crying type.

A cab zoomed past, reminding me I should probably head back to Maisie’s place.

“Hey, G?”

“What?”

I grimaced. The goddess save me from surly feline demons. “How much money you have left from the fight?”

Silence.

“Giguhl?”

I swear I heard a sigh come from the carrier. I lifted the bag up to look into one of the mesh side panels. A pair of guilty cat eyes stared back. “Well?”

He scooted back from the panel. “Five bucks.”

“What?” I shouted. “You won a grand!”

“Those nymphs bewitched me! They made me do naughty things, Sabina. Naughty, expensive things.”

I cursed. “Well, how are we supposed to get home now?” Ever since I’d arrived in the city, I’d relied on cabs to get around. Consequently, I hadn’t really paid attention to little details like street names. But I knew enough to guess five bucks wouldn’t get us very far.

“How about the subway?” Giguhl said in a small voice. I glared into the carrier. He cringed back. “I’m just sayin’.”

With a disgusted sigh, I swung the bag down roughly. A thump and a “Hey” followed the move, but I ignored it. Instead, I looked around for another solution. Sure enough, not twenty feet from where I stood, a descending staircase led into the bowels of Manhattan. What was worse, I spotted Stryx sitting on a lamppost nearby. He screeched my name and blinked his red eyes as if in challenge.

“Awesome.” I took off toward the sign like an inmate headed toward death row. It’s not that the subway scared me. Being a vampire with secret mage skills and an assassin to boot tended to make one immune to trivial worries like muggings or sex offenders. But for some reason, the idea of sitting in an enclosed tube, barreling through underground tunnels, freaked my shit.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and figured out how to pay for a card that would allow me access to the tunnels. Once through the turnstile, though, I entered a labyrinth. At any moment I expected a freakin’ minotaur to jump out at me. Instead, I just got jostled by impatient mortals who understood the mysterious caverns.

A map covered in multicolored lines hung on the wall. It looked like there was a subway stop right near Prytania Place, so I was in luck. Two trains went that way, so I mentally flipped a coin and chose the C train.

I followed the signs to the track for the C and found myself standing on an empty platform. After the constant barrage of humans and the scent of their blood teasing me, I appreciated the break.

“Looks like we’re early for the train,” I said to Giguhl.

“Are you sure this is right? Shouldn’t there be more people?”

I plopped down on a bench. “The map said the C will take us almost to Maisie’s front door.”

“Since no one’s around, will you let me out of my prison?”

I looked around and shrugged. “Okay, but just for a minute.”

I unzipped the bag. I’d barely finished when Giguhl’s little bald head appeared. “Freedom!” He took a deep breath. “Eww, it smells like ass down here.”

I picked him up out of the bag so he could sit on my lap. “Stay.”

His ears twitched, and he cocked his head to look at me. “I’m not a dog, you know.”

I laughed. “Sorry. When you’re the cat it’s hard to remember you’re really a badass demon.”

He sniffed, making his little nose twitch. “Damned straight, sister. I kicked that Defiler’s ass tonight.”

“Yes, you did. Where’d you learn to fight like that? I wouldn’t think a Mischief demon would have wicked street-fighting skills.”

He plopped his butt down on my lap. “It’s precisely because I’m a Mischief that I needed to learn how to fight. Irkalla’s got this stupid caste system, and we’re low on the totem pole. It was either learn to fight or become some Lust demon’s butt boy, you know?”

“In a weird way, yeah, I kind of do.” Granted, I’d never had one of my classmates try to sodomize me, but I understood having to defend myself from bullies. Growing up a mixed-blood among vampires wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. Despite my own status as the granddaughter of the Alpha Dominae, my classmates found plenty of opportunity to remind me I’d never be accepted.

“Sabina?” Giguhl said. “Are you sure this is the right train? Seems like one should have come by now.”

“Hmm, you might be right.” I rose, ready to put Giguhl back in his bag so I could go find the A train platform. Right then, a screech echoed through the tunnel. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. The sound hadn’t come from an inbound train. Instead, it sounded suspiciously similar to Stryx. I stilled, looking around for the owl, but the tunnels were now eerily quiet. Surely I’d been hearing things. What would an owl be doing down in the subway?

Shrugging off the feeling, I reached for the bag. Giguhl didn’t protest and ducked back inside. I left the top open, figuring he’d feel less confined that way.

I’d almost made it to the stairs back up to the entrance when a burst of magical energy hit me from behind. It shoved me forward, tripping on the first step. Out of instinct, I dropped the bag and swiveled, grabbing the gun from my waistband as I went.

The demon leaned against a concrete column next to the tracks. His posture was casual, but his appearance sent cold sweat down my back.

He was about the same size as Giguhl, but that was as far as the similarities went. This guy had black leathery wings, with red thorns at the tips. Ram’s horns jutted from his forehead and curled back over his massive head. A red leather kilt wrapped around his black hips. Scaly black skin covered the intimidating bulk of his torso and arms.

I aimed the gun between his glowing red eyes. “Identify yourself.”

He chuckled, a low, mocking sound. “You won’t live long enough for it to matter.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Humor me.”

“I am Eurynome.” He raised a black claw and a zing of energy sent the gun flying from my grip and into his. Eurynome caught and crushed the metal in one claw. My stomach twisted with fear. Vampires or mages I could handle. But demons were almost impossible to kill. And I knew enough about demon summoning to know I couldn’t banish him without a circle.

“Uh, Giguhl?”

“What?” Giguhl hissed from behind the trash can where he’d taken cover.

“Demon form! Now!”

The trash can he was behind flew across the platform, and a puff of smoke signaled his change from cat into demon.

Eurynome’s red eyes moved from me to Giguhl. I smiled. “Say hello to my little demon friend. Get him, Giguhl!”

Giguhl growled and launched at the other demon. He barely made it three steps before Eurynome launched a bolt of demon magic that sent Giguhl’s body flying into a column. He bounced off the concrete, leaving it cracked, and flopped to the ground. I ran over and knelt next to him. He groaned and opened his eyes. The horizontal pupils dilated and expanded as he shook off the daze. My smugness melted away in favor of fear. If Giguhl couldn’t touch Eurynome, what chance did I have?

As I tried to help Giguhl up, Eurynome threw back his head and laughed. The sound shook the walls around us. “Stupid girl,” Eurynome sneered. “Did you really think a pitiful Mischief demon could defeat the Duke of Death?”

I looked at Giguhl and mouthed, “Duke of Death?”