Black Magic Sanction

'Sir?'

'He's cuffed,' Trent said, voice harsh. 'I want to speak with him before Quen arrives.'

'Sir.' It was respectful this time, fearful. We couldn't just leave Nick, and my fingers tightened as I heard the door close and the soft creak of plastic as Trent sat down.

'What happened?' Trent said, his voice low. 'You weren't supposed to get caught. Rachel was.'

My lips parted, and I think my heart skipped a beat. God bless it. Nick had screwed me over again! The slimy little rat fink! Jenks's wings lowered in pitch, and he landed on my hand. I hated the sympathy in his eyes. No wonder Nick had known I could get through that elf door. Trent had told him.

From the black plastic in my hand came the jingle of cuffs. 'Think you could get these off me?' Nick said, the slimeball.

'Quen is in the vault,' Trent said, his beautiful voice icy. 'The inventory isn't complete, but more than that canvas is missing. I gave you the code so I could catch Rachel with a fake picture, not let you steal a sensitive artifact.'

Trent knew I could jump realities on my own, and hadnt bothered to tell me. My entire body warmed as I started to shake.

'The statue?' Nick said, the cuffs jingling again. 'That's why I stayed behind. Let myself get caught. The witch took it along, with the canvas. I lifted it from her before she ran. You won't believe what she wanted to do with it.'

He's blaming me for his theft?

'Ran off?' Trent said, and I heard Nick grunt in pain. 'Your bug of a pixy dropped a magic-generated pinch on my gatehouse. Thirty-six seconds it took to reboot. Do you know what can happen in thirty-six seconds? Just whose side are you on, Sparagmos?'

'Mine,' he rasped, taking a new breath. 'But I know who's running Cincinnati. Don't get your wick out of whack. She may have taken it, but I swiped it back.'

There was a creak of plastic, and I couldn't breathe. Nick was blaming me for his theft, the lie falling from him like a baby's giggle.

'I figured you'd want it,' Nick was saying, and my eyes warmed as Jenks's pixy dust sifted onto my fingers, trembling as I held the radio. 'So she escaped. So what? You'll get her, and now you still have your statue. I look like a self-sacrificing hero in her eyes—she gets a worthless picture.'

It was worthless. The painting was worthless. Just like Nick. Angry and hurt, I wiped a hand under my eye. It had all been faked, even down to the kiss and his self-sacrificing drivel.

'Where is it?' Trent's voice was intent, and I took a breath, holding it.

'In my pocket,' Nick said smugly, and I heard the thunk of someone hitting the floor, followed by Nick cursing softly and the rasping sound of him trying to get up off tile.

'This is a saltshaker,' Trent said, and the scuffling sound redoubled, making it hard to hear Nick, but one thing was abundantly clear. He was not happy.

'No!' Nick exclaimed. 'She did it again! The bitch! She did it to me again!'

In a turmoil of betrayal and frustration, I looked up at Ivy—smug, satisfied Ivy with her eyes black and her fangs showing in a savage grin.

Jenks flew to her, and the two exchanged a high five, Ivy using a single digit so as not to send him flying backward. Pierce breathed a heavy sigh of relief. 'Got you, you sewer rat,' Jenks said, spilling a clear pixy dust to light Ivy's belt pack. Inside was the statue.

I took a breath, then another, trying to figure it out. 'She didn't take anything but the painting, did she,' Trent said, pissed. 'You took it, and when you couldn't get through the gate, you came up with this cock-and-bull story about picking it from her.'

Nick grunted in pain, and I heard something scrape on the tile.

'How?' I whispered, and Ivy glanced at me, her eyebrows raised and her smile wide. 'When? You never touched it!'

'I lifted it when we were trying to get into the kitchen. Rachel, I don't trust him. Anything he took was going to be more valuable than a picture so new that the canvas could roll up that easily.'

I frowned, thinking I must look really stupid.

'Especially one that still stank of oil,' Jenks added, doubling my shame.

'He lied,' I said, feeling depressed. 'He lied to me. I'm so stupid.' From the little receiver came a high voice, shouting, 'This isn't my fault!'

Trent's voice made me shiver. 'Make yourself comfortable, Sparag-mos. I won't be crossed like this. Morgan, at least, has values.'

He thought I had values? My focus blurred and I thought about the Pandora charm. Had it been an accident? Maybe Trent just wasn't that good at magic.

The sound of a distant door opening was heralded by the sudden office noise and Quen saying, 'It's gone, Sa'han. This was left in its place.'

'My father's hoof pick...,' Trent said, his shock obvious.

'I don't understand,' Quen said. 'You lost that—'

'Morgan has the statue,' Trent said, interrupting him. 'Sparagmos took it, intending to keep it, and somehow Morgan got it. I don't know how the pick fits into it.'

My eyes closed, and I prayed he'd figure it out before he sent Quen to kill me.

'This is going to be a problem,' Quen said softly, and then louder, with some authority, 'What is Rachel going to do with it, Sparagmos?'

'Give it back to you—ow!' Nick barked, then went silent.

There was a moment of silence, and then I shivered when Trent said, 'Give him to Jonathan. He likes this kind of thing.'

'Hey!' Nick said, and I heard him being dragged away. 'I thought I had it! You've got to believe me!'

'Oh, I believe you,' Trent said, distance between them now. 'I also know you were going to sell it if you managed to get out of here alive. I doubt Rachel picked your pocket. It was probably Ivy. She's got a good friend there.'

I glanced at Ivy, who wouldn't look at me, eyes fixed on the dark night. 'I've got two good friends,' I whispered, and Jenks's wings clattered.

I didn't want to hear any more. Nick... Well, what had I expected? At least now I could write him off. I mean, I had, but now there were no lingering doubts that he was only doing what he had to in order to survive. He'd lied about my stealing the statue. But as I looked at the erotic thing in the faint light, I decided that nothing had changed. Nick might have been working both sides to get us in there, but I was the one who walked through the wall. It wasn't all fake. We could still do the sting, and the pornographic statue would be a better attention getter than a doctored picture. Trent seemed desperate to get it back. And I started to smile.

'Sir,' Quen said as the office chatter grew loud again. 'He's bugged.'

'Shut the door!' Trent said, and the sound of steps rang out and then the thump of a door.

'Shit,' Nick exclaimed. 'Rachel, this isn't what it looks like!' he cried, but it was far too late to lie to me again.

There was a tussle, and a loud scraping. From a distance now, I heard Nick take a rasping breath and his soft swearing. 'I think this is exactly what it looks like,' Trent said, his voice very clear. 'Rachel, if you're listening, think about who you're playing with. Return that statue or I will kill you. Not your mother, not your friends. Ybw.'

There was a crunch, and the high-pitched, bone-vibrating sound exploded into existence. From the back, the pixies all squealed, and Jenks stomped on the off button, his hands over his ears and his wings flat against his back.

'Return it is exactly what I intend to do, Mr. Kalamack,' I whispered, dropping the radio in Ivy's bag and hefting the statue instead. It wasn't very big, but it was heavy.

Ivy slowed and took a quick right into a pull-off, and I put a hand to the dash. 'We're at the river,' she said, and I felt a sliver of fear. Why are we stopping?

'Whoa, whoa, whoa,' I said as she put it in park. 'We are not going to abandon my mother's car and run out of here, Ivy.'