The Mage in Black (21 page)

His smiled tightened at my jab. “Unfortunately, in my position, it would be… inconvenient to get my hands dirty, so to speak. No, I need someone I can trust to take care of certain delicate situations.”

“My answer is still no.”

He pursed his lips, as if trying to think of another angle. I saw the moment he realized it was time to retreat. “Okay. I’ll drop it. For now. But one of these days, when your defenses are down, I’ll convince you.”

I laughed. “See? You don’t know me at all if you think I ever let my defenses down.”

“Still playing the tough girl, huh?” he teased.

I sobered. “Don’t fool yourself, Slade. I’m not playing at anything. You might have gone soft over the years, but I’ve only gotten stronger, faster, and smarter.”

Slade smirked back, as if he wanted to challenge my assertions. I crossed my arms. Time to end this conversation. “The demon you can have because he wants to fight. But I’m not for sale.”

He looked at me with a knowing smile. “Not yet.”

While I waited for Giguhl to finish another celebratory round with the nymphs, I grabbed a beer at the bar. Luckily, I’d been smart enough to take my cut before he spent it all again.

While I drank, I thought about money. Even though I’d protested Slade’s offer more than once, part of me wondered if returning to the dark side might be a viable option. Sure, the magic training was coming along. But the fact I had no long-term plans bothered me. Giguhl was making a nice bankroll from fighting, but I couldn’t live off his winnings forever. Eventually, I’d need a job of some sort. From what I’d seen, a lot of the mages in the city held mundane jobs and blended into society for the most part. My skill set didn’t exactly lend itself to legitimate work. The very idea of working in an office gave me the shakes.

So that left me with illegitimate options. I could always hire myself out as a contract killer, but I lacked the connections here to get started. Well, I had one, but at this point working for Slade was option Z. Maybe Rhea was right and I needed to work on my patience. Surely some other source of income would turn up.

I drained my pint of beer just as Earl came over with a fresh glass. He placed it on the bar in front of me.

“You read my mind,” I said, impressed with the bartender’s attentiveness.

He smiled. “Nah. The werewolf sent it over with his regards.” I looked at him curiously, and he nodded toward a table at the back of the room.

Michael Romulus sat at the head of the table, surrounded by eight males. Judging from the way they watched him watch me, they were all members of his pack. Since he’d sent me a beer, I assumed I wasn’t in danger of another challenge, but I knew better than to relax completely.

I met Michael’s gaze for a tense moment. I hadn’t seen him since our fight, and I wasn’t sure how things stood. He didn’t show any outward signs of lingering injury, but I guessed the bruise to his ego still stung. After all, even though Slade declared the fight a draw, we both knew I could have ended him. In my experience, most males don’t enjoy the knowledge they’d been bested by a female.

He rose from the table, waving his companions to stay seated when they went to follow. I took a long draw of beer as he made his way over. I looked for signs of aggression, but he didn’t bulk himself up or stare me down like an opponent. His shoulders were relaxed, and his eyes strayed just south of mine.

He stopped a respectful three feet back. “Sabina.”

“Michael,” I nodded. “Thanks for the beer.”

“May I?” he motioned to the empty stool next to me. His respect of my space helped me relax a tad, but my guard was still up until I knew the reason for this little chat.

“Sure,” I said with a casual shrug.

He motioned to Earl for a drink before looking at me. “I hear that demon of yours is quite a sensation in the ring.”

Ah, I thought, he wanted to ease in with small talk. I mentally shrugged and played along. “He’s something, all right. Do you ever go to the fights? I didn’t see you in there.”

He nodded to Earl in thanks for the drink and took a sip before answering. “No, watching two demons beat the shit out of each other isn’t what I consider entertainment. The world’s violent enough without making it a spectator sport.”

My eyebrows rose. Considering the last time I saw Michael he was trying to kick my ass, I found this stance ironic. But I guess he considered that necessary violence, as opposed to the recreational kind. “So if you didn’t come here to provide me with color commentary on my demon’s fighting skills, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

He’d been rolling the frosty mug between his palms, staring at it as if it held some sort of answers. Finally, he lifted his head and looked me right in the eyes. “You’re right. I need to warn you about something.”

I cocked my head. “Oh?”

“Someone’s got it in for you.”

My initial reaction was to laugh. After all, this wasn’t news. But something told me Michael Romulus wasn’t the kind of male to spread rumors. “Why do you say that?”

“Look, normally I’d shrug it off as not being my business. But since it’s impacted my pack, I can’t let this pass. The night you poached on our territory, my guys didn’t just randomly stumble into you.”

I shrugged, since I’d figured as much. “I figured they’d heard the gunshot when the human shot me.”

Michael frowned. “A human shot you?”

I waved a hand, not wanting to get into it. “You were saying?”

He shifted in his chair. “Someone called me and told me you were poaching.”

He had my full attention now. “Who?” I leaned toward him.

“I don’t know. They just said there was a vampire threat in our territory. Since I had a few young scouts in the area, I called and told them to check it out.”

I scrambled to think of an explanation. I hadn’t told anyone where I was headed, because I just sort of ended up there when I’d left Maisie’s place to clear my head. What’s more, I hadn’t seen anyone in the park that night before I ran into the human with the gun. “Someone must have followed me,” I said half to myself.

“Any ideas who?” His tone told me this wasn’t an idle question. The person who told Michael I was in the park had put his pack in danger. No wonder he challenged me to the fight. He probably felt responsible for his guys getting hurt.

“I’ll admit there’s a list of people who want me dead. But most of those would take a more direct approach than making an anonymous tip.”

“Maybe they didn’t want you dead.”

“What do you mean?”

He placed his elbows on the bar. “What if they were trying to start problems? Rile up some racial animosity?”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking it over. “It’s possible. But that brings us to the question, why are you telling me this? After all, if that was their goal, it worked.”

“Look, I’ll admit when those guys came back beat up, I blamed myself. Then I blamed you, which is why I issued the challenge. But you had the chance to kill me and didn’t take it. That tells me you’re not making some kind of power play for my territory.”

I shook my head. “Of course not. I had no idea about poaching rules when I went there. I just wanted some fast food.”

His lips quirked. “Once I figured that out, I started thinking about that phone call. Someone played me. Us. And I want to know who.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Have there been any other attempts on your life lately?”

“You could say that.” I told him about the assassins at the gas station and the demon attack on the subway platform.

Michael blew out a breath. “Have you considered the idea they might all be related?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t make sense. The assassin attack was courtesy of the Dominae. The demon was obviously a mage. The phone call? Who knows? But how could they possibly be related if I’ve got both mages and vampires after me? The two races are on the brink of war, so who has the power to unite them against me? And why would they bother?”

“Think about it, Sabina. The phone call tells me someone wanted the weres against you in addition to the vampires and possibly the mages. What if someone’s trying to make sure you have no allies?”

“But to what end? I’m just an unemployed mixed-blood.”

He tilted his head. “You’re also the sister of the leader of the mage race and the granddaughter of the Alpha Dominae. Some people might consider you quite a threat.”

I thought about that a minute. “Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s say someone considers me a threat and either wants me dead or without any allies. Who has the power to manipulate all the races?”

Michael took a long pull from his beer. He set it down slowly and looked me right in the eye. “I have a feeling when you can answer that question, you’ll know who’s out to get you. In the meantime, you better watch your back.”

T
he next night, Maisie found me in the library. After another grueling workout with Rhea—who’d spent the entire session wearing a helmet—I’d gone there in search of books on Chthonic magic. I’m not much for book learning, but I was determined to do whatever it took to understand my new powers and how I could use them to my benefit.

“Am I interrupting?” Maisie asked from the threshold, her posture hesitant.

I looked up from the book I’d been reading. I’d been excited when I found a book titled
Blood, Sex, and Death: Chthonic Magic and the Modern Mage
. However, the dense writing and patronizing, academic tone didn’t match the intriguing title at all. I put it down and shot Maisie a relieved smile. “Nope.”

She took a seat in the armchair next to me. Her movements were slow, as if her limbs weighed her down. Dark circles shadowed the areas under her blue eyes. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. All these meetings suck the life right out of me.”

I set the book on the table between us and gave her my full attention. “I take it things aren’t going well with the council?”

She grimaced. “Not just the council. Queen Maeve’s emissary insists on daily briefings.”

I frowned. “Why?”

She sighed and slid down a bit in her chair. “The queen isn’t sold on the idea of war. The council is getting closer to a vote every day, and, with the exception of a couple of holdouts, it’s looking like war is inevitable. But we need the queen’s support if we’re going to pull off a victory.”

“But I thought faeries and mages were allies. I’d have thought her support was a foregone conclusion.”

“We are allies. And in the past we could always count on the faeries to fight with us. But times have changed. Centuries ago, the human population was smaller and more spread out. But now they’re everywhere and have the ability to communicate with each other quickly. If a battle breaks out and humans get injured or witness something, the entire world could know about it within minutes. Imagine what would happen if the humans’ governments turned their weapons on us.”

I hadn’t thought about that angle. Not a surprise, since I never gave humans a second thought in general. But now that I thought about it, I understood the danger. Humans outnumbered all the dark races. If they found out we existed, infighting would be the least of our worries. During times of peace, all the dark races managed to stay under the humans’ radar through various means. Since vamps were nocturnal, it was fairly simple to go unnoticed through subterfuge and careful leadership by the Dominae. Any vamps that got out of line were taken out of the picture. Mages and faeries had magic and human-friendly lifestyles on their sides. But war would mean the gloves were off, and the potential for total anarchy was huge.

“And you agree with her?” I asked.

Maisie nodded. “Like most of the council, I don’t believe the Dominae should be allowed to get away with killing our own without repercussion. But I am worried about the bigger picture. The council is, too. That’s what’s held up the vote. We want to be sure we can contain the collateral damage if we go to war. And it’s my job to convince the queen we’ll be able to do that.”

“How?”

“We have a few ideas. These days, it’s possible to wage a war without two armies meeting on a battlefield. There’s guerilla tactics and financial strategies that can cripple an opponent.”

I nodded. “Go after the Dominae’s business interests, destroy their resources.”

She smiled. “Exactly. But the problem is we also have to ensure we’re prepared for anything from the Dominae. They could use the same strategies against us. Or they could do it the old-fashioned way and attack us with everything they’ve got. That’s the rub here. There’s no way we can promise Queen Maeve that the Dominae won’t expose us all.”

“But why would they do that?”

She shrugged. “Who knows what they have planned? After all, they kidnapped dozens of mages to drain their blood. They obviously had a plan for it.”

I sat back and digested all this. My gut clenched, thinking about all the angles and variables. I could only imagine the stress Maisie and the rest of the council were under right now. “With Adam working on her at court and you working on the envoy here, surely the queen will relent soon.”

The skin around Maisie’s eyes tightened. “Yeah, I’m just worried. I’ll support whatever the council decides to do, but I’m not excited about the prospect of war.”