kitchen, I’ve got Grief off safety, and Sterling should be ready with a kickass spel . But instead he starts muttering the same old complaints.”
“Fucking Doobie, stealing my gigs, no doubt fucking everything up.”
“Hello?” I say. “Potential target behind the fridge. Or in the closet. And you don’t even have your wand ready!” He looks down at his empty hands. His fingers are long and pale. Great for weaving spells or playing the piano. I can’t imagine why his chosen instrument is the trumpet. “You can’t just carry wands around like cocked guns,” he says, frowning at me like I should have intimate knowledge of warlock lore. As if they don’t have it all guarded closer than nuclear material.
“Why not?” I ask.
“It’s dangerous , Chill.” That’s what he calls me, I think just to piss me off. He shakes his head to emphasize his point. His hair falls straight to his shoulders. It’s so black I’d suspect a bad dye job if he wasn’t a Power. He’s saved from utter geekdom by two factors. The hair sweeps directly back from his forehead, so there’s no part to reveal the freakish white of his skull. And he walks and talks with a rhythm that comes from somewhere deep underground, like he’s locked into the music of the earth itself.
We move on to the dining room, which may contain a table, but we can’t be sure because all we see are moldy boxes packed with old newspapers. I think we’re back on track until he says, “If this assignment goes on for more than a couple of days I’m gonna have to split. I gotta get back to my band.”
“Are you nuts?” I’m so mad I’m hissing. “We’re about to confront a disease-carrying mage and all you can think about is your stupid band? Would you like me to tell you what matters least to me right now? I mean even less than clipping my toenails? Your band. The fact that some dude named Doobie is getting his ass germs all over your chair. And that he’s probably playing better than you do.”
“Where do you get off talking tunes?” he spits. “You don’t know shit about jazz. Hell, you’re not even black.” Anybody else might’ve laughed until they blew snot.
But Matt and my Helsingers have only been dead for four months. I still feel like I’m walking around with no skin, just bleeding through my clothes like they should be bandages. So if you scratch me, I don’t bleed harder. I scream:
“You’re not black either, you bigoted twat! You’re whiter than me, and I’m a pasty-ass redhead! All you do is sit around and whine about how you’d be better-looking if you were black, you’d get more dates if you were black, you’d be a better musician if you were black. Because you know that’s the one thing even the most powerful warlock on earth can’t change. So it’s the one excuse you can make that nobody can throw back in your face as your own failure. How about you shower more than twice a week?
Shave some thorns off that ego of yours, and get some damn trumpet lessons? Work at it day and night the way you have your magic. Oh, wait, it actually matters to you whether you fail at music so you’re not going to put the sweat into it just in case it all comes to nothing. Right?”
“Enough!” Sterling’s voice spikes in my ears, so full of venom and jagged edges that I cover them with my hands. Well, I try. Grief is still in my grip. Should I take aim?
As I consider my options, he slaps the palms of his hands against the carved bone bracelets on the opposite wrists. He slides them off his fingers, and they seem to reach toward each other, as if they know they belong together. They link with a sound like searing steak.
I have time to think, Oh shit, that’s his wand , before he raises the gnarled weapon and traces an intricate pattern in the air. As the wand buzzes and he chants, I charge.
Warlocks don’t do much hand-to-hand fighting, and Sterling’s ego won’t admit that anyone like me would dare to attack in the face of his might. In a sense he’s right. No way would I shoot a fellow spy. But I sure as hell would head-butt him.
Our skulls crack with the force of a couple of rams. For a couple of seconds everything goes gray.
Cassandra stopped me with a gasp. “You head-butted Sterling Nicodemus? You. Head-butted? The most powerful warlock in the world?”
“Wel , that was before Paolo Grittoli died, so technical y he was number two at the time. In retrospect, it was a stupid move, though. Too much risk for too little gain. But as I stood back and my eyes cleared, I gotta say I grinned when the blood gushed from the gash I’d opened up on his forehead. Within seconds it had blinded him. One point for me, right? But my lead disappeared when he hauled off and punched me. Not literal y. Dude doesn’t have to. Just waves that wand of his and al the oomph he’s stored up goes zapping through his special little conduit. Looks like a damn blue claw coming at you.”
“What did you do?”
“I flew through a wal . It was a flimsy wal , which is why I’m stil alive today. Luckily that put out the flames, so my clothes were only smoking when I got up and ran. He came after
