The Secret Coin (Accessory to Magic Book 3) Page 11

  “If you’ve been false with me witch, I highly recommend coming clean now.” Fargus loomed closer to the door. “Then you may still have a chance of surviving this.”

  “Okay, see, this is exactly what I’ve been dealing with for the last few weeks.” Jessica slammed her hand down on the desk, and the creepily tall magical started. “You just put yourself in the category of magicals trying to weasel their way onto the premises uninvited and unwelcome. Should I give you a call about this later?”

  The guy’s shadow grew even longer, his blue eyes strobing with that pale light now as he reached for the doorknob.

  “Hey! You can’t just duck in here and start going through my junk closet.”

  His clawed extended toward the doorknob.

  ‘Can I take over now?’

  No!

  Jessica tossed a blaze of red sparks at Fargus’ back. They hit him with a hollow thud, and her warning attack did little more than ripple across the threads of his suit jacket to no effect whatsoever.

  “Damnit, are you listening to me?” She stormed toward him, tying to keep her cool. If he found Leandras, they were both screwed.

  Fargus’ hand closed around the doorknob, and he jerked open the door with a deafening hiss. Something else toppled over in the closet, then a blazing golden light flared on the other side of the door, followed by another hiss that rivaled the intruder’s. Maybe even a little louder.

  The creepy dude stumbled backward, shielding his eyes from the golden light.

  Confucius scuttled out of the office toward Fargus, hissing madly and zigzagging back and forth. He looked five times his normal size, and the skeletal asshole shrieked and staggered away in surprise.

  Jessica seized the opportunity and leapt toward the open office door. It slammed shut again beneath her palm, and the golden glow enshrouding the damn immortal lizard winked out. Confucius was his normal size again, but his mouth still hung open as he stared at the stranger who’d lost all sense of decorum.

  “Why would you keep that in here?” Fargus snarled. “This isn’t a game!”

  “And I wasn’t kidding,” Jessica snapped. “Get the fuck out of my bank.”

  A flash of black light momentarily obscured the magical’s brilliant blue eyes, and he glanced urgently back and forth between the lizard still hissing at him and the witch glaring at him in front of the office. “You…you have a lot to answer for.”

  “Yeah, well, when literally anyone walks through that door who actually deserves the answers they want, I’ll spill everything. That’s not you.” She nodded toward the front door.

  Fargus didn’t move until Confucius scuttled toward him, letting out that low series of grating clicks Jessica had come to know so well. And maybe even appreciate, at this point.

  With a comical backward leap, the weirdly thin magical scampered toward the front door like a four-limbed spider, casting wary glances over his shoulder at the Halibus Racerback scrabbling after him. “The Hakali Hand Corporation wants what’s ours, witch. Your answer could make things extremely difficult—”

  His hand slapped against the frosted glass of the door, rattling the pane in its frame.

  “Maybe you should focus on your own difficulties right now, huh? The lizard’s not going anywhere.”

  With a final hateful hiss aimed at Confucius, Fargus jerked open the door and practically doubled over just so he could back out of the bank without smacking his head. The bell jingled and bounced against the frosted glass, the angry magical’s once creepily long silhouette shrank again into an illusioned form, and his new shadow gave the false impression of an old guy with a limp.

  Some illusion.

  Jessica looked down at Confucius with a raised eyebrow. “Fear of lizards, huh? What’s that called?”

  ‘Herpetophobia,’ the bank offered. ‘Didn’t expect that fun little turn of events.’

  “Yeah. Fun.” Folding her arms, she scanned the front of the bank through the frosted glass and the clear windowpanes on either side and shouted, “What’s the Hakali Hand Corporation?”

  Leandras gave no reply.

  Jessica closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You can either come out on your own or come out wrapped in someone else’s magic.”

  The office door slowly creaked open, and the fae’s slow footsteps whispered across the wooden floor. He cleared his throat. “In the simplest terms, I believe we may call the Hakali Hand Corporation one such organization wanting my head. And various other items in my possession.”

  “Of course it is.” She turned around to find Leandras casually rolling down his shirtsleeves to cover his biceps again. Like he could bury that close call beneath a thin layer of white dress shirt that looked way too clean and crisp to be real. “And they sent Fargus Kresh here because…”

  “Because I know him personally.” Finally, he looked up to meet her gaze. “I can assure you, Jessica, I had nothing to do with drawing his attention.”

  “No.” She pointed at Confucius. “That was all you, wasn’t it?”

  The lizard cocked his head to look up at her with one glistening eye, then hissed and scrambled back across the lobby before disappearing down the back hallway.

  “But that didn’t answer my question.”

  “Well.” Leandras walked toward the desk, picked up his mug of black coffee, and settled into the armchair again. “I can only assume certain acquaintances of mine have found my apartment empty and now believe I’ve absconded with their last chance of drawing me back into the fold.”

  “You have…absconded.” With a snort, Jessica returned to the desk, glancing over her shoulder once for another quick scan of the building’s storefront. “And your apartment’s not exactly empty.”

  “Ah. No time to perform your little disappearing trick, I presume.”

  She slumped back down in the rolling desk chair and grabbed her own mug. “With a knife wound dangerously close to my kidney and everything else slowly and then not-so-slowly killing me on my way back to delivering you your own stolen magic? Yeah. I was a little short on time.”

  No need to explain that her little disappearing trick belonged to the bank.

  ‘Oh, come on. You can brag a little. I don’t mind.’

  I’ll brag later when he finishes telling me what we need to know.

  For a long moment, she and Leandras stared at each other. Then he tilted his head and offered a tight smile. “Where were we?”

  “You were coughing up information.” She sipped her now-tepid coffee. “Something about how some magical whose name I won’t even try to butcher took power, and the age of something began.”

  “Ah.” The fae sat back in the armchair and glanced at the front door. “Should we perhaps table this conversation for a time we know we won’t be interrupted?”

  “That literally doesn’t exist. Keep talking.”

  His lips thinned in a grimace of distaste, but he dipped his head. “The age of—”

  Something in the desk drawer rattled, and a flickering golden light spilled through the slats of the center drawer. The fae’s attention was instantly drawn to the glow.

  That goddamn coin again!

  Chapter Twelve

  Jessica wasn’t even aware of her coffee mug flying from her hand until it shattered all over the floor. Lukewarm coffee sloshed up against her calves as she leapt out of the chair and slammed her fist down on the desk. “That’s enough!”

  A pulse of strobing black light flared around her fist, and thick, snaking black tendrils of her magic lashed away from her hand. They shot up and down again all at once, piercing through the solid wood of the desk with a crack. The golden light winked out, the coin quit its infuriating bopping around inside the drawer, and then her magic sputtered out.

  ‘Holy shit.’ The bank sniggered. ‘Do that again.’

  “Jessica.”

  “What?” Her voice came out as a growl, hers but not entirely hers either. An underlying vibration had crept into her voice—the rumble of
a dark force she hadn’t heard come from her own mouth in over a year and a half.

  Leandras didn’t move, his gaze still firmly fixed on the melted lock of the desk’s center drawer. A tiny indent creased his bottom lip when he bit lightly down on it. “I would love to know what you’re keeping in that—”

  “It’s none of your business.” She thumped her fist against the desk again, just for good measure, and swallowed. “Your business is telling me what I want to know. Like you swore a binding to do. Now.”

  The tingling force of her half-existent magic blazed up her arms and across her shoulders. It would’ve been pleasant if she’d had the full force of it inside her again. Now it just felt like someone had draped a giant sheet of sandpaper over her shoulders.

  When she sat again, she leaned toward Leandras and snapped her fingers. “Hey!”

  The fae blinked furiously and slowly turned his head to look at her. Sure, sucking the rest of his magic back into himself had gotten rid of that deathly pallor and the fully silver sheen of eyes that looked like liquid mercury. But now those same eyes were glassed over with something that made her stomach drop.

  Was that lust?

  ‘Not for you, and you know it.’

  Shut up.

  “We’re not talking about this desk or whatever I decide to put in it. Got it?”

  Leandras’ hazy eyes widened slightly, and he cocked his head with a slow smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Honestly, she liked him better when he was half-dead.

  “Get talking about the Gateway. The age of what in that other world?”

  The fae closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath, as if he had to center himself just to come back to the only conversation that mattered right now. “The Age of Aspirok. At least, that is what they called it at the time.”

  “Okay, good. We finally managed to spit that one out.” Jessica ran a hand through her hair.

  You ever heard of this, bank?

  ‘Nope. Pretty sure I wasn’t nearly as involved back then as I am now, apparently.’

  “So?” She glanced around the lobby, but no one else made an attempt to approach the bank and interrupt their little tête-à-tête. Again. “This is going to take the rest of your time here if we don’t get down to the actual talking.”

  “If you prefer, I can show you.”

  The fae looked way too pleased with himself. The kind of pleased that inherently came before some kind of cosmic joke. Or another loophole he’d stumbled upon in their binding.

  “Nope.” She waved him off. “If you’re offering some kinda fae mind link, I’m not interested.”

  ‘I believe the proper phrase is Vulcan mind meld, isn’t it?’ The bank hummed in consideration, making Jessica blink quickly. ‘Wait, that show does still exist, right?’

  “Not at all, Jessica.” Leandras crossed one leg over the other. “I would consider that a dangerous and highly risky endeavor, however tempting.”

  “I said I wasn’t interested. Not that I couldn’t handle it.”

  The fae actually chuckled at that. “Dangerous for me. A vestrohím’s mind is not something I have any personal desire to approach in that way. Personal preference, if you will.”

  As much as she wanted to be insulted by that confession, Jessica couldn’t help but crack a small smile. At least Leandras knew to draw the line somewhere.

  ‘Good thing too. Or he’d find me, and then we’d be having a totally different chat.’

  Could he really?

  ‘Probably.’

  “Fine.” She spread her arms. “Show me, then.”

  Leandras dipped his head. “Of course, it would be a smoother transition if I had a certain item—”

  “Jesus, you’re relentless.” Shaking her head, Jessica pointed at the fae. “Start talking. Or showing. Or whatever. Because we both know I can’t guarantee uninterrupted hours for the next four days, and I have a feeling there’s a lot to cover.”

  “As you wish.” He waved her toward him. “Without certain tools, this must be done through physical contact.”

  Oh, sure. The guy wanted her to get all up-close and personal. Comfy. As long as she didn’t have to go through the same ordeal of having her mortal injuries healed by a lizard and all her memories returned to her the second the fae touched her, fine.

  ‘Pretty sure that’s already over and done with.’

  He can’t touch my memories, right?

  ‘Locked those up nice and tight, witch. Go on. Go have your little fae snuggle so we can figure out what we need to do next.’ The bank sniggered. ‘I’m actually kind of excited.’

  Rolling her eyes, Jessica pushed herself around the desk, the office chair’s wheels rumbling across the floor until she stopped two feet away from the fae in the armchair.

  “Closer, Jessica.”

  “This is close enough.”

  Leandras smirked and stretched his arm across the armrest toward her. His long, slender fingers opened in invitation. With a sigh, she placed her hand in his.

  Those fingers clamped around hers like a vice—cold and warm at the same time—and he jerked her closer. The chair on wheels didn’t have a chance against the fae’s pull, and Jessica didn’t have any time to brace herself before the side of her chair knocked against his and Leandras snatched up her other hand.

  “Hey! What are you—”

  Purple and silver light flared around them both, strobing violently until all she saw was purple and silver. The pressure of Leandras’ hands around hers tightened before she didn’t feel anything at all.

  But she saw everything.

  Like the whole thing was being projected on a nonexistent screen in front of her, she saw the doorways between worlds. Hundreds of them scattered across the globe, illuminated from within by the magic of a different world crossing through them. She saw the Gateway, or at least what it had been back then, recognizable by the much stronger glow of that pinpointed magic and the fact that it appeared beside the stretch of the Rocky Mountain Range. Those craggy peaks rising above the tree line looked infinitely taller than she’d ever seen them, even after years of living right along their foothills.

  Because what Leandras showed her now were old mountains, ancient mountains. The kind that hadn’t yet seen the touch of modern civilization or even pre-modern civilization at its very beginning. But there were magicals here, yes. Straight from beyond this very first doorway—the Gateway itself.

  Then the movie—projection, vision, whatever it was—burst through the glowing doorway of the Gateway that hadn’t yet become what it was now. No dungeon door. No glowing green light. Just a portal.

  And Leandras showed her that other world. Xahar’áhsh. The word clanged around in her mind as she soared across the landscape of a world at once completely foreign and heartbreakingly familiar. Jessica could almost taste the thickness of the magic in this place, thought maybe she could taste it before it was all stripped away from her and darkened.

  So much darkness. Pain, fear, screams. Attempts to hold that dark power at bay—the kind she realized in this exact moment she’d only had a fleeting taste of on her own as a vestrohím. Jessica was powerful at her strongest, yes, with all her magic intact. But she was nothing compared to what Leandras showed her now.

  Compared to all-out war.

  Compared to the destruction ravaging this world she felt in her core she’d always somehow known.

  The light of the portals scattered across Earth flickered out and died. One by one they disappeared until only a few remained. Tall, grim-faced magicals in intricately crafted armor and wielding a magic she didn’t understand gathered around the last few portals remaining on Earth.

  The Guardians.

  The word wasn’t so much spoken as it was injected into her very core. These were her predecessors, and even as she considered how ridiculous the thought seemed, it was true.

  The rest of the vision played out in front of her like someone had pressed fast-forward on the whole thin
g. Native tribes and new-world explorers moved in a blurred rush around that single light that was this very same Gateway she protected on the second floor above her head. Cities rose and fell and restructured themselves at the base of the Rockies. The mountains diminished at an incomprehensible speed, and through it all, those grim-faced Guardians manned their post.

  One after another, their faces flashed before her eyes, too quickly to really see and far too many to count.

  The Gateway had been a portal, a mine, a hut, a waystation, a saloon, and now this building she knew existed around her but couldn’t see.

  When the vision faded, she thought it was over. But it merely changed.

  Now she was watching the Gateway itself from above, the door that had been built in this bank before Winthrop & Dirledge Security Banking ever existed. The number of magicals spilling through it to emerge on Earth dwindled into a thin stream, then a trickle. And finally, the fast-forward slowed to show a small number of magicals slipping through. Each of them carried the glowing light of their own contained magic in their hands, bringing it with them across the portal to have in this world where magic once hadn’t existed at all. Their faces were shrouded in shadow—all but one.

  She saw Leandras emerging from the other side of that door. He wasn’t the last, but she saw him as clear as day, wearing clothes from a different time and a different place but still undeniably him. The purple glow of magic contained within his glass-encased gúlmai was unmistakable.

  And when the last few magicals slipped through the door of the Gateway she’d always thought belonged in front of a dungeon instead of on the second floor of a decrepit bank, it closed with a resounding echo of finality. It locked itself, sealed off from the glorious world on the other side, and no one else stepped through.

  Her vision cleared in an instant. With a hissing breath, she jerked her hands out of Leandras’ and kicked away from him. The office chair rolled back until it knocked against the pile of scattered magical trinkets still littering the floor.

  ‘Damn…’ The bank let out a wistful sigh. ‘You know, if I remembered any of this, I could’ve shown you with a lot more pizzaz.’