Fiendish Magic

  Fiendish Magic

  L. A. Sable

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Also by L. A. Sable

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Jinx

  I laid on the throttle and smiled at an answering purr from the engine. My baby was a patch job — all spit and spare parts, mostly junk or stolen. But she could ride like the wind and I needed that on a night like tonight.

  I ran my fingers over the smooth lines of my bike's body. She wasn't as pretty as a factory machine whipped off an assembly line like a Xerox copy, but I built her myself from the ground up. A little open road and my bike could fly. Nothing else even came close.

  Riding this bike was one of the few times during the day that I still feel free. Most of the time I was physically trapped by four walls and the confines of modern society. Sometimes, I just wanted to take to the road and not look back.

  It didn’t help that I’d spent the last year in hiding and pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

  My connection, West Mustela, was standing on the sidelines. He hooked me up with races for a cut of the buy-in fee. So I got into events that I otherwise wouldn’t and he made money whether I won or lost. It was a win-win.

  West was dirty, his fingernails always had motor oil trapped underneath, and he usually smelled like cigarette smoke. But he also had features that were rough and rugged like they’d been carved out of stone and a body that had clearly been put to work. His dark hair was always a little mussed, setting off the pale blue of his eyes. It was impossible to tell if I found him so hot because he was genuinely attractive, or because it had been way too long since I’d been laid.

  He never seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere and was all drug-hazed smiles and insouciant shrugs when I called him on it. I’d missed more than one race because he was dicking around instead of doing what I was paying him to do. Even so, I viewed him with a mixture of repulsion and longing. West, as sad as it might have been, was one of my few links to the life I left behind.

  The two guys on my right were South-side gearheads driving shiny, chrome monsters that they probably got straight off of a dealer's lot. I could take them easy. The last rider had a cherry-red rice rocket, a Ninja maybe. It was hard to tell in the dark.

  I fixed my gaze on the length of road ahead of me. The "track" was clear-cut, up to the old churchyard on Lincoln Avenue and back. A line had been spray-painted onto the street at our feet. First person across it took home the cash. Two hundred bucks times four riders wasn't a bad haul for a few minutes of work.

  A girl in a miniskirt walked in front of us, waving a yellow bandanna like a flag. She made a big show of getting to the center of the road and I found my muscles clenching in anticipation. I revved the engine, and the bike thrummed between my thighs. Sensation quivered through me, making me gasp. This was how bad things had gotten, I was like a desperate housewife sitting on the washing machine during a spin cycle.

  Finally, the girl sauntered to the center of the road and shouted a countdown. I let off the clutch when she got to two and leaned in when she shouted one.

  Then her arm came down, and we were off in a squeal of tires and a burst of engine smoke.

  The Ninja took an early advantage. I expected as much. He was all muscle and power with no finesse. Motorcycles were like children — they needed a feminine touch. I gained on him slowly.

  We approached the churchyard at breakneck speed. Tires screeched against the pavement as we made the hairpin turn in front of the churchyard. The Ninja maintained the lead as we straightened and headed back towards the finish line.

  As I pressed forward, our bikes inched closer. The gap closed between us until we were side by side.

  Less than a dozen yards from the finish, I took the lead.

  What did I say? My baby always won. I spared a glance for the Ninja, taking less than a second. The red paint job was dull under the dim streetlights.

  Then it was as if I hit a wall in the empty air.

  Without warning, I lost control, and the bike veered off the street toward the sidewalk. I lost some speed hopping the curb in front of a row of condemned brownstones, but I laid it down hard. I hit the ground, and the bike slid a few more feet, scraping its new paint job all to hell. It finally skidded to a stop next to a wrought-iron fence, wheels still slowly turning.

  "Damn it." My body groaned in protest as I pushed to my feet. No broken bones, but I'd still feel this in the morning.

  The race was over. I watched the Ninja round back from the finish line as the crowd moved in.

  The winner was being congratulated by his friends while the Southies wheeled their bikes around, a close second and third. None of them seemed at all concerned that something was awry. A human wouldn't have felt anything — it was a special treat just for me.

  I wasn't even worried about the two hundred bucks I’d just lost. And I couldn’t care less that any minute an asshole with a rice rocket would saunter over to remind me that girls shouldn't be racing, anyway. I pulled off the helmet with a gasp and let it roll to the ground. My breathing came rapid and uneven as I painfully forced my chest to expand and contract.

  A stench had overwhelmed my senses, strong and acrid, so hot that it seared the hair from my nostrils.

  The smell of burning sulfur and ancient spice.

  The scent of magic.

  As quickly as it had overwhelmed me, the odor was gone and replaced with the crisp scent of dead leaves and city smog. I shivered and cast my gaze in a full circle. West jogged towards me but he was still a few hundred yards away. Even at a distance, I could see the sudden pallor of his skin and the whites of his rounded eyes. He'd felt it too.

  I knew magic. The smell and taste of it were as familiar as my own reflection in a mirror. I would never mistake it.

  Perhaps I’d caught wind of a slow-moving night creature, too dull to conceal the evidence of its passage. There was a chance that it was a coincidence. I wanted to believe in chance and good luck, but I knew better.

  I picked up my bike and attempted to dust myself off. Streaks of dirt covered my jeans and my shirt was torn at the shoulder. Otherwise, I was physically okay.

  The guy who drove the Ninja wandered up with a girl under each arm. Jealously streaked through me, and not just because I’d lost the race. It didn't help my sour mood when he lifted his visor to reveal a perfect smile and bronze skin. Losing to the cute guys was always that much worse than eating dust from the ugly ones. He had himself sandwiched between the two girls and I had to force myself not to think about how much I wanted a bite.

  I dug in the pocket of my jeans for a thin roll of bills, peeled off the first two and handed over the rest. The Ninja waved his girls away and took the money with a nod of thanks. Even here, there were rules. You never made another rider ask for what you owed.

  He counted the bills with a practiced hand. Satisfied, he tucked them away in his back pocket. "Up for a rematch?"

  "Nah—"

  West appeared beside me. "Double or nothing."

  I elbowed him aside. Even though our fear still hung in the air like the scent of sour piss, West never could turn down the chance for a profit. But it was my money he was wagering, and I had more important things on my mind than racing.

>   Which wasn’t something anybody would normally catch me saying.

  "I gotta jet,” I said with a careless shrug, as if my entire world wasn’t in the process of falling apart.

  "Come back anytime." The Ninja winked before sauntering off, the two girls coiling themselves around him like snakes.

  I limped my bike under the halo of light from a nearby streetlamp and gave it a once-over. Relief relaxed the tense set of my shoulders as I took a calming breath. Most of the damage was superficial, nothing I couldn't fix with a set of tools and some spare time. I'd be out here winning my money back from the Ninja before he even had the chance to figure out how to spend it.

  "Some race, huh Jay?” West murmured from behind me.

  Jay — the name I’d chosen for myself as soon as I’d decided to try and escape my past — still sounded odd to my ears and not quite real. But I’d never tell West my real name, that kind of information was deadly.

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "You almost had him.”

  "Can't pay my rent with almost."

  West sniffed the air, like he was a dog scenting a trail. “You felt it too, right? That’s why you crashed.”

  I shivered, but not from the cold. Whatever we’d sensed, it was either very big or very powerful and neither of those were good things.

  "Whatever it was, it's gone." I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or me.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Yeah.” I suppressed a shiver. We both knew what it was, a mystery. It was something powerful enough to taint the city air with its stink and send my senses reeling. And fast enough that it could be here and gone in the space of a single moment.

  West watched the Ninja roar away, a girl hugged up on the back of the bike. "Bad luck."

  "That's the only kind I have," I said with a sigh.

  "Nothing to worry about."

  I was worried. Questions swirled through my mind, searching for answers that never came. I’d managed to stay here for six months, which was longer than I’d hoped for, things were actually working out pretty well. I didn’t want to jump the gun and tear my life here apart when it wasn’t necessary. And if I was about to skip town, then I’d need money. "I'm going to work.”

  "Already." He gestured wide. "The night's still young."

  "I'm cutting out before my luck turns even worse."

  West stuck his hands in the pockets of his coveralls and rocked back and forth on his heels. He worked at a rundown car garage in Ashburn and I never saw him out of his dirty uniform, smelling like gasoline and grease, with someone else's name stitched on the breast pocket.

  And I would still devour him if given the chance.

  The crowd had already dispersed with everyone off to their separate parts of the city. Races didn't go down on any sort of schedule. They got it together quickly, and it was over even quicker.

  West stood in between me and the road.

  "You're in my way." I pulled on the helmet, fitting it low on my head.

  He slid back. I threw my leg over the bike and settled comfortably into the seat. My fingers roamed over the instruments before settling on the handle grips. Riding was like breathing and the bike felt like an extension of my own body. I sighed at the feel of it.

  I turned my key in the ignition. With a low rumble, the bike thundered to life. A sudden blaze of brightness illuminated the small patch of darkness ahead of me. A trail into oblivion.

  Over the roar of the engine, I almost didn't hear West speak. His voice carried to me on the wind, several moments after he’d spoken. A hushed whisper shared only by us.

  "I can find out what it was."

  I cut off the engine. Silence descended, thick and heavy like a weight pressed against my skin. His eyes flashed in the darkness. "You said it didn't matter."

  "Information always matters." I heard the scratch of a match before his face was illuminated in the orange glow of a cigarette. Something tells me it wasn’t tobacco he was smoking. “Something big is here, it'd be good to know what it is. And why it came."

  "You want to put yourself in front of a wrecking ball?” My tone was mocking but we could both hear the fear that shook my voice.

  "It isn't here for us." His gaze was direct as it met mine. "What's the harm?"

  Secrets were a cancer, growing with mindless intent until they consumed you. I could maybe trust West with my life, but never with the truth.

  I had to know before I gave up everything again. I liked it here, and I had to know if it was time to run again. “Okay.”

  His grin flashed. “I’ll let you know when I find something.”

  West turned away and faded too quickly into the darkness. Revitalized by the earth and sky, he used a more old-fashioned method of transportation.

  As I watched, the sleek body of a weasel disappeared into the bushes.

  I’d never really trusted shifters and West was no exception. There was a hierarchy in the supernatural world and they’re near the bottom. Mostly because they tended to be the more folksy types, working with their hands and living communally with other shifters. Other types of supernaturals trended more toward elitism. And I didn’t trust anything that could change its face whenever it wanted.

  The only animal form that I’d ever seen West take was the weasel, which made sense because it was something that wouldn’t stand out or draw too much attention.

  He’d never told me that he only had one animal form, but I assumed it was the case, which put him even lower on the totem pole. The more powerful shifters could change into several forms without breaking a sweat. So West was among the weakest of his kind, assuming I was right. I’d never come right out and asked, and he’d never volunteered the information.

  I started the engine again and the bike sprang to life with a deep rumble. My eyes searched the shadow, senses attuned for the barest hint of something familiar. I lifted my feet up on the rests as the bike moved smoothly forward and I headed towards the riverfront.

  What happened at the race was a warning. Now, I stood on the edge of a precipice. I was going to catch myself or fall.

  Even I knew that the smart thing to do would be to skip town immediately, fuck waiting for answers or making more cash. My past hadn’t caught up with me yet. But eventually it would, and I needed to stay at least one step ahead and preferably more.

  The burden of my secrets weighed on my shoulders like a heavy shroud. There wasn’t a soul in the world that I could turn to for help without taking a huge risk.

  But curiosity ate at me like a physical pain.

  And you know what they say about curiosity? It killed the witch.

  I despised the smell of chicken wings, which is a problem because I had to serve plate after plate of the stuff several days a week. The odor of hot sauce clung to my clothes and skin like rank perfume after I went home from a shift, to where dancing poultry haunted my dreams at night.

  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  I ignored the sly little voice that slid through my head. The voice that was always there when things got rough to remind me what I was really capable of. It was the same voice that encouraged me to murder my coworkers and burn down the building.

  “Order up!”

  I was torn from my thoughts by Big Larry shouting at me. I’d been standing at the grill window lost in my thoughts for at least five minutes while a plate of those aforementioned wings slowly congealed in front of me.

  “Sorry,” I murmured.

  I held back a sneeze as the pungent stench of lard and buffalo glaze wafted into my nostrils. Maybe I had an actual allergy to this crap.

  “Get moving, girl!” Larry barked at me and I was moving as fast as my cheap, non-slip sneakers could carry me.

  Pissing off Big Larry was no way to begin the night. If he started slowing down on making my orders, my tables would get angry and then I’d walk out with no money for the evening. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d basically worked for free around here. />
  Ask me again why I was doing this?

  I slid the plastic baskets out of the window, one in each hand and a third tucked into the crook of my arm. Wings rolled dangerously close to the edges of the paper lining but I righted them with the ease of long practice. Just because I hated doing something didn’t mean I couldn’t be good at it. Maybe waitressing was my calling.

  Mayhem is your calling.

  Biting the inside of my cheek, I headed towards table six. The bit of pain was enough to keep me grounded. Table six was a group of rowdy regulars who always asked for me. Probably because I deliberately kept the waist of my shorts rolled high to reveal the bottom curve of my ass and I cut the collar off my shirt so they got more skin than fabric when I leaned down to put the food in front of them. It also didn’t hurt that I giggled at their stupid jokes and pressed almost close enough to touch when asking if there was anything else they needed.

  Sexual taboos weren’t a thing in the supernatural world and I needed the money.

  They ordered a round of beers so I veered back towards the bar to get them out of the little fridge under the counter.

  “You can’t serve those.”

  I took my time counting out three Bud Lights before standing and slamming the case closed with the side of my hip.

  Jenny, another waitress on with me, was a royal pain in my ass. She was a college student home for spring break and was convinced that made her better than the rest of us. A piece of gum snapped between her lips which were coated in gloss the color of cotton candy.

  She blocked my way out from behind the counter. My fingers wrapped tight around the necks of the bottles and I resisted the urge to smack her across the face with them. “If customers order booze, am I supposed to send them to the grocery store down the street?”