The Mage in Black (3 page)

His hands squeezed the steering wheel like he wished it was my neck instead. “I’m saying there is a bigger picture here. Nick was an assassin. The human was an innocent bystander. I know morality is a fluid concept for you, Sabina, but I abide by a code that says you protect the innocent.”

I leaned forward, ready to tell Adam where he could shove his morality.

“Guys!” Giguhl shouted.

Adam and I spun around together and yelled. “What?”

“I’ve been shot in the ass!”

T
wo nights later, the Escalade emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel. Seeing New York’s skyscrapers looming ahead, I let out a relieved breath. We’d made it to New York without another appearance from the Dominae’s death squads. Being on mage turf didn’t make another attack impossible, but it made it a hell of a lot less likely.

“How much longer?” Giguhl asked from the back-seat.

Adam shifted and looked in the rearview. “Few minutes. Fifteen tops.”

It was the longest conversation any of us had had since Iowa. Adam was still pissed at me for not killing Nick when I’d had the chance and getting the human killed. I was pissed he’d taken such a holier-than-thou attitude. We’d killed three vampires, but one lousy human he had an issue with? As for Giguhl, he’d easily expelled the bullet and healed quickly, but he’d still spent most of the trip sulking over his ass wound.

Giguhl leaned up between our seats, watching through the windshield. His claws tapped incessantly on the armrest. I turned to glare at him. “Do you mind?”

He stopped tapping. “Well, excuse me. Just because you’re nervous doesn’t mean you have to be bitchy, you know.”

I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans. “What’s there to be nervous about?”

Adam shot me a glance but kept his mouth shut.

“Come on,” Giguhl continued. “After your grandmother turned out to be a lying, vindictive bitch, it’s totally normal to be worried about meeting new family members. I mean, what if your sister hates you?”

“Oh, that’s a big help, thanks.”

He shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”

Truth was, I hadn’t given much thought to how well I’d get along with my sister. I mean, sure, I was curious about her. It’s not every day a girl finds out she has a twin she never knew about. I had to imagine it was even more rare when vampires had raised one twin while the other was raised by mages—two races who’d been enemies for centuries.

But I’d been so focused on getting the hell out of L.A. and finding a way to make my grandmother pay for her betrayal that I figured allying myself with her enemies would be a good place to start. And after the fiasco at the Kum-N-Go, I was more determined than ever to throw myself into learning everything about magic so I’d have the upper hand when Granny and I had our showdown.

Adam maneuvered through traffic for a few minutes before he spoke. When he did, he addressed Giguhl. “Maisie won’t hate her.”

I perked up but refused to be the one to break our stalemate. Luckily, Giguhl spoke for me. “How do you know?”

“Maisie doesn’t hate easily. As long as I’ve known her, she’s never said a bad thing about anyone.”

“And how long is that?” Giguhl said.

“A long time.” He smiled fondly. “We were practically raised together.”

The fondness in his tone gave me pause. He’d spoken of her before, but I never really asked much about their relationship. This was the first I’d heard they’d grown up together. I wanted to ask if the affection was of the brotherly sort or something more but decided I’d rather rip out my own fingernails than give voice to my curiosity on that matter.

“What’s Maisie like?” Giguhl asked. Probably more to fill the silence than out of real curiosity.

Adam seemed to relax a bit, warming up to the topic. “She looks like Sabina, of course, only there are subtle differences.”

“Like what?” Giguhl asked.

“Her hair’s shorter. And where Sabina’s hair is red with black streaks, hers is more black with red streaks, if that makes sense.”

“Not really, but go on,” Giguhl prodded. I shot the demon a grateful look. He winked back.

“Well, she loves to paint and has a knack for hedge magic.”

“Hedge magic? Is that like landscape design or something?”

Adam chuckled at the demon’s lame joke. “Not exactly. Hedge mages use herbs and plants to make potions. She used to bug the faeries visiting from the Seelie Court to teach her about plants.” A fond smile spread on his face, as if he was picturing a memory. “This one time she broke into the greenhouse so she could make a potion to change her hair. She said she wanted it to be all black so she’d be all mage. Only the potion ended up turning her hair green temporarily.”

He turned left onto a street teeming with billboards, flashing lights, and people milling about like ants on a hill. “Welcome to Times Square,” he said. I spared the scenery a glance, but I was more interested in what he’d just said about Maisie.

“Why did she want to get rid of the red?” I asked, despite my promise to keep my mouth shut. Red hair is the hallmark of being a vampire. It’s a trait we inherited from Cain, the male who fathered the first of our race. “Did the mage kids make fun of her for being mixed-blood?”

Adam paused and shot me a glance. “No, nothing like that,” he began slowly, as if readjusting to speaking to me again. “It wasn’t like she was an outcast or anything. I think she just considered herself fully mage and wanted to get rid of the symbol that marked her as being only half.”

I could relate to that feeling, although for me it was the opposite. Being raised among vampires, who had no qualms about treating me like an outcast, I’d prayed and prayed to the Great Mother that I’d wake up one morning with solid red hair. Knowing Maisie had struggled with similar issues made me relax a bit. Maybe I’d finally have someone who understood what it was like to never really belong.

“Well, if she’s anything like Sabina, I’m sure she’s delightful,” Giguhl said, his voice full of irony.

“Bite me, demon.”

Adam turned onto a circle and followed it around to an exit for Central Park West.

A few minutes later, he slowed near a large apartment building and put on his blinker. In the dark, it loomed like something out of a horror film. With its Germanic spires and gables, it was the kind of building you might expect to see covered in gargoyles. Before I could fully process the strange architecture, Adam turned into a port cochere on the side of the building.

Inside the covered driveway, a wrought-iron gate with a Hekate’s Wheel design in the center barred the entrance to an interior courtyard. Adam punched some codes into the keypad and waved at the cameras perched on top of the gates. In a few moments, the wrought-iron behemoths yawned open.

“Pretty wimpy security for the home of the Hekate Council,” I commented. A system like that? I’d be in before he could say ‘abracadabra.’ ”

Adam frowned at me. “Do you consider thermal scanners wimpy, too? Because there’s one checking you out right now and identifying you as a vampire. If I hadn’t cleared you, there’d already be a group of guards surrounding us.”

I laughed. “Fat lot of good that’ll do you. I could have a bomb hidden in the car. Boom, the whole building goes bye-bye.”

“The metal plate we rolled over at the entrance scans the undercarriage for bombs,” Adam explained. “You wouldn’t have gotten inside with it.”

I leaned toward him. “I could climb up the side of the building and shoot my target through a window.”

He leaned over the center console, his eyes sparking with challenge. He smiled slowly, deliberately, bringing my attention to his lips. “Bulletproof glass.”

I chuckled and leaned back, impressed and not a little turned on by the exchange. “Touché.”

Adam’s trademark grin returned for the first time in days. I enjoyed seeing it, but I needed to change the subject before I jumped him. Something about a man with tactical prowess always gets me. But something else tickled the back of my mind. Adam’s knowledge of weapons and security seemed advanced for someone who could just zap an enemy with a spell.

“What exactly is it you do for the council?”

He accelerated through the portico and into an open courtyard. On all four sides, the building’s walls rose ten stories into the inky night sky. “I’m part of a group called the Pythian Guard. We were formed back in ancient Greece to protect the mages who acted as oracles. But since the oracles don’t really serve the public anymore, our role has evolved over the years. These days, we’re more like the council’s private guards. We also do special projects as needed.”

“Special projects? You mean like retrieving the long-lost sister of the council’s leader?”

He cracked a smile. “Among other things.”

I smiled at his evasion. “Are we going to meet your family here?”

His expression became closed. “Just an aunt. My parents died when I was young.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

He shrugged. “No need. It’s old news. Aunt Rhea raised me. She and Ameritat were close friends, so Maisie and I spent a lot of time together.”

“So does that mean we’re the same age?”

Adam smiled. “Nope. Maisie came along when I was six.”

My mouth fell open. Damn. He looked good for sixty. His magic must have been even stronger than I thought. Mages aren’t immortal like vampires. Their magic allows them to live extremely long lives, though. Adam had told me in California that Ameritat, my father’s mother, lived to be one thousand. Still, I’d figured Adam for midthirties at most. I guess I had a lot more to learn about mages—this one in particular—than I thought.

I opened my mouth to ask more, but Giguhl interrupted. “Hold the phone. Isn’t this where they filmed that romantic comedy?”

Adam squinted at the demon through the rearview. “No, the Hekate Council has never allowed cameras inside.”

Giguhl nudged my shoulder. “You know, the one with Mia Farrow? I saw it in L.A. one night.”

I turned to look at the demon. “Wait, are you talking about
Rosemary’s Baby
?”

Giguhl snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I loved that movie.”

Adam and I exchanged a look. “G, I think that was filmed down the street at the Dakota,” Adam said. “This is Prytania Place.”

Giguhl frowned. “Hmm, I could have sworn it’s the same building.”

“Common mistake.” Adam shrugged. “Anyway, we’re here. You ready to meet your sister?”

I looked around the interior of the courtyard. Even inside the car, I could feel the magic buzzing around like static electricity. But under that hum, I could feel something else, something stronger that I recognized instantly. Like the pull of a magnet in my diaphragm, Maisie’s blood called out to me. I took a deep breath. It was time.

“Giguhl, change into cat form,” I said over my shoulder. A puff of smoke signaled the demon’s transformation. Angry feline cursing echoed from the back seat. I glanced back, and my eyes widened. Back in California, my first attempt at magic had ended in Giguhl’s cat form going bald. I’d thought Adam had fixed that mistake, but I hadn’t seen Giguhl in cat form since I summoned him from Irkalla and asked him if he wanted to come with me to New York. Now his pale, naked skin glistened in the car’s dim light. Without fur, his ears resembled a bat’s, and his wrinkled skin and grumpy face made him resemble a shriveled old man.

“Nice,” he said, looking down at his skin. “Remind me to piss on your clothes later.”

I ignored the demon’s whining and turned to Adam. “Take me to your leader.”

In the elevator, Adam used a retinal scanner and voice recognition program to gain access to Maisie’s penthouse apartment.

On the way up, he told me Prytania Place served as headquarters for the mages in the city. In addition to holding apartments for all the council members and other high-ranking mages, it was the seat of their government, with meeting rooms and offices throughout.

“There’s also an estate up north, near Sleepy Hollow. It’s used for all the important magic rites and festivals. I’m sure you’ll see it soon enough.”

I nodded, only half listening. Instead, my eyes watched the rapid display of floor numbers. Too soon and not soon enough, the elevator dumped us into a foyer outside Maisie’s front door. Adam had a key and let himself in without knocking.

Given the old-world, old-money feel of the building, I’d expected the decor to be sedate and snooty. But the apartment we entered was an eclectic mix of colors and textures. From the worn wooden floors to the eggplant paint on the walls to the rainbow of sheer fabrics fluttering around the windows, the place had a definite bohemian feel.

“Maisie?” Adam called.

My stomach dipped in both anticipation and anxiety. It’s not every day a girl is introduced to her twin. But this reunion had the added complexity of two sisters being raised by opposing races. Even Giguhl seemed to sense the weight of this moment, as he remained uncharacteristically silent in my arms.

We continued into the apartment when no one responded to Adam’s greeting. Sandalwood permeated the air. Just as humans smell like dirt and vampires smell of copper, all mages smell like sandalwood. But in addition to the sandalwood, the sharp tang of turpentine and the oily aroma of paint scented the air.