Black-Market Magic: Book 8 in the Twilight Court Series Read online

  When I was little, my mom told me stories of people who could travel the Aether, a practice called tracing, but the ability was lost to history. The spells had become scarce and unreliable, the destinations vague, the potential risks high. To take your physical body, make it pure consciousness, and send it shooting through the Aether to another location was a mind boggling concept to me. Yet there, beneath me, was proof it could be done. This man could trace, had in fact taken me along for the ride... and I just killed him. Great.

  The body was a bloody mess. I'd nearly decapitated Ku in my blind attack. I didn’t know it at the time but it’s one of the few ways you can kill a god. Don’t laugh, there are monsters out there who can put their head back on and keep going without missing a beat. Or just sprout two more. Can you say Hydra? Beheading doesn't always work. I repeat; beheading doesn't always work. Remember to take the heart too. Oh and burning is usually quite effective as well but with gods, the head is the most important part to take. But I digress.

  After I stopped screaming, (I was actually thankful I’d been able to delay the screaming portion of the evening for that long) I tried to wipe away the blood in a very Lady Macbeth fashion. Out damn spot, out. It was useless. I found the bathroom, not even caring that there could be someone else in the house, and went into the shower fully clothed. I can’t even remember what the bathroom looked like. All I recall is the way the water ran bright red and how I stared at it, mesmerized as it swirled down the drain. It was the first time I'd ever killed, as in anything. Well, except bugs but I think we can all agree that they don't count.

  I stood under the spray and my body began to shake so I kept adding more hot water. It never occurred to me to take my clothes off. I just sluiced the water off them when I was done and patted myself dry with towels. I remember leaving the towels on the floor like I was an obnoxious hotel guest. What did it matter? I think any attempt at manners had been lost when I'd left a corpse in the living room.

  I came out of the bathroom to complete silence. I don’t know what I'd been expecting. Shouting. Screams. Policemen waiting to gun me down. There was no one. I was totally alone… in the home of a god. It all sank in. The man praying to Ku. The Hawaiian in the trees. The Aetheric Plane. I had killed Ku. One of the main gods of the Hawaiian pantheon was lying on a white tile floor with his head barely attached because of me. What the hell kind of karma had I just racked up? Would it matter that it was clearly self defense? I decided it did. Then I decided to snoop around.

  I mean I didn’t even know where I was. Like I said, I knew about tracing but had been warned at a very early age to never attempt it. So I had no idea if I was still in Hawaii or even on the same plane of existence. I had just traced! I could’ve been anywhere. Tartarus. Niflheim. Minnesota. Oh please, don't let me be in Minnesota. Well, then again, there is that big mall there.

  I crept through the god’s house and hoped he was a bachelor. The last thing I needed was the Mrs. walking in. What's the proper thing to say in that position? “Hello Mrs. Ku, lovely home you have, sorry about the corpse of your husband. Oh and for making your husband into that corpse.” That was one conversation I didn't want to have.

  The place was deserted though. I walked past room after room filled only with modern Hawaiian furniture (go figure). The golden gleam of Koa wood merged with Hawaiian textiles everywhere. High ceilings were crossed with wood beams. Creamy white walls were a stark contrast to dark, hand carved tikis placed artfully around the place. The Hawaiian statues looked like they were museum quality and they were all of the same god. Guess who… yep, him.

  A set of sliding glass doors opened to a wide expanse of yard. That in itself screams money when you live in Hawaii, which I was relieved to find myself still inhabiting. Coconut trees crowded the edges of the well manicured lawn like gossiping socialites at a cocktail party, snubbing the shorter kukui nut trees around them. A retaining wall penned them all in, preventing any suicidal snubbed kukuis from leaping over the cliff beyond. The house overlooked Waimea valley. I couldn’t see it but I knew the Heiau was below and to the right.

  You'd think a god would have an ocean view.

  Relieved that I wasn’t stranded somewhere impossible to return from, I headed back inside. My brain had started to function again and it was reeling from the reality of my situation. I began to search in earnest, not with thoughts of thievery but simply out of plain curiosity. It wasn’t long before I found the one room that seemed special. The big KAPU (Hawaiian for sacred – don’t touch) written across the door might have given me a bit of a clue.

  For lack of a better word, I’ll call the room a study. It was full of books and gadgets I’d never seen before. There were weapons everywhere, not just hanging decoratively on the walls but scattered on the floor, as if they'd been tossed there after a long day at the office, if you catch my drift.

  As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, a wave of magic washed over me, prickling up my arms. When I turned in its direction, all I saw was a massive book. It sat enthroned on a lectern, watching me with the curiosity of a bored tyrant. Covered in dark brown leather instead of luxurious silk, this book wasn't a bejeweled Emperor but a barbarian King. Completely unadorned by gilt or lettering, he needed no crown to proclaim his dominance. Power was decoration enough and this literary monarch wore it like a battle-honed sword, sheathed but still obviously dangerous. I approached it cautiously and it chose to be benevolent, granting me access to spells I never knew existed and information on a race of people who had come from Atlantis. No, not the resort, the actual lost continent.

  With new knowledge came renewed fear. It would be wiser to appease my curiosity somewhere else. Somewhere safer than the home of a god I'd just decapitated. So I ran through the house, grabbing up a large bag (a piece of Ferragamo luggage to be exact, Ku had excellent taste) and hurried back to the study. The book went into the bag and then a couple of the more interesting gadgets on top. I told myself I was not a thief, I took them in the interest of knowledge and besides, Ku did try to kill me. To the winner go the spoils right?

  By the front door I found a set of keys sitting in a koa bowl. I grabbed them up and continued my panicked flight right out the door, hoping the spoils included a getaway vehicle. I paused to get my bearings for a moment in a huge, circular, covered drive and located the garage set back to the left. A sleek, black Jaguar with an Eddie Would Go bumper sticker peered out at me indolently.

  Eddie being Eddie Aikau, surfer and local hero who was last seen paddling away from the stranded Hokule'a canoe in an effort to fetch help. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that little bit of homage to local culture but I was. I mean damn, I’d just found out the gods were real; picturing them purchasing motivating bumper stickers was just a little too much for me. Then I noticed the vanity plate. KuKuK'chu stood out against the rainbow background of the Hawaii license plate. Hmph, Ku was a Beatles fan and, evidently, he was also the walrus.

  I spared one second to giggle, nearly on the verge of hysterics, and then jumped in behind the wheel. In no time, I was zipping down a private drive and breaking with a squeal when I came to an imposing iron gate. I looked around frantically and finally found the remote clipped to the passenger side visor. With shaking hands, I hit the button and hit the road.

  I haven’t dated a local boy since.

  Chapter Two

  So that was how this whole thing began. That's how I scored this thankless fate that I can't even tell my best friends about for fear of them getting me committed. Or even worse, freaking them out so badly that they'd never be able to live a normal life. Kinda like me.

  “I wouldn't wish that on anyone,” I sighed and trudged into the welcoming artificial cool of one of the millions, no make that billions, of ABC stores in Waikiki.

  I grabbed myself a coke, thoughts still on the book I'd acquired that horrible day. Not only did I learn how to trace from the Good Book (hey, it’s done me a lot of good) but I also learned about the origins of the go
ds, the power gods got from sacrifices, and what constituted a sacrifice. It turned out that not only did they receive strength from direct offerings but also indirectly, from any death resulting from battles fought in the name of gods. Most wars have some kind of tie to the divine, even if it’s just plain rage (yes, there’s a god of rage). Also, any god in on the deal could share in the power surge.

  So basically it paid off for deities to encourage their followers to fight instead of keeping them safe at home. Why settle for an occasional human sacrifice when you could get it on a mass scale constantly? Most of the gods didn't even have followers anymore, so this was their only energy source. With the downfall of the older religions, war became more necessary and the gods had to come up with bigger and better plans to create bloodshed. The book didn’t tell me that part. The flier I found tucked into the book did:

  We will survive!

  Come learn how to create panic and discord among the humans!

  April 20 at 8 pm, Valhalla

  Special speakers: Odin and Huitzilopochtli

  Potluck to follow. Gods whose names begin with:

  A-G bring appetizers or salads

  H-L bring main dishes

  M-Q bring desserts

  R-Z bring drinks

  After I stopped laughing hysterically, I decided to begin my career as a god-killer, or human liberator as I prefer to be called.

  I paid the cashier for my drink and left the artificial air behind in exchange for the natural ocean breeze drifting sluggishly across Waikiki Beach. It wasn’t a fair trade in my opinion but the salt air did help clear out those old memories. I plopped down on an only slightly crumbling stone wall and stared out at the Pacific as it battered the golden sand under its frothy fists.

  Generally, I hated the beach but breaking out of Valhalla can be exhausting and I needed a breather before I headed home over the Ko’olau mountains. The sound of the ocean can be comforting and the waves are pretty to look at, even amusing when you catch a tourist trying to learn how to windsurf. However, at that moment all it did was remind me of how blue Thor’s eyes were: deep sapphire with a touch of green, like Caribbean quartz.

  I loved light eyes. My own were dark brown and boring as far as I was concerned. They’d been green when I was born but had changed at nine months. My mom told me that she’d bet a friend they wouldn’t change and she'd lost. Let that be a lesson to all of you ladies; don’t tempt fate when it concerns your child. I shook my head and took another swig of coke. Must be the heat melting my brain. At least I wasn't bitching about Buffy anymore.

  I rubbed at the ache in my neck as I pondered a new dilemma along with the old one of how to keep sand from getting all over me when I’m at the beach. Was it just me or had Thor let me go? I mean he didn’t even try to chase me. Yes, I’d laid him low but it shouldn’t have taken him that long to recover. He was a big, strong, creaking-leather clad god. He should have been up almost instantly. I shook my head. Thinking about Thor was only making the ache in my neck intensify so I gave up and turned my full attention to the sand.

  I hate sand. It’s probably one of my biggest problems with beaches. Don’t laugh, I’m also not overly fond of sun or surf either. Sand, sun, and surf, the SSS, it ranked right up there with the KKK for me as far as evil acronyms went. For those of you who have never seen a beach, much less a Hawaiian one, let me explain.

  Sand sticks to you like an alien fungus that believes you’re its only hope of survival. Wet or dry it will attach itself to any part of your anatomy it can reach and those cool ocean breezes everyone loves so much? They are in cahoots with the vicious, alien-fungus sand and will happily fling a fine mist of the powdery annoyance all over you while simultaneously lulling you to sleep with its salt-laced caresses. Result? You wake up hours later to find not only has your sunblock died defending you but you’re now coated with a thin layer of sand, saltwater, and suntan lotion that has dried to a sticky crust. After you painfully scrape away the crust, you’ll find the red glow of your newly crisped skin beneath. The beach is evil, I tell you, evil.

  So how could I love my home so much and not adore the pristine glory of the white sand beaches which make Hawaii such a tourist attraction? Well, first of all, I enjoy the beach just fine… through the window of an air-conditioned room with a Li Hing Mui Margarita in hand. Secondly, there is more to these islands than beaches. There’s the incredible weather where even the rain is warm and I never ever have to worry about digging my car out of the snow. There’s the rich melting pot of cultures and of course, there’s the food. Nothing compares to the flavors of Hawaii.

  I was just about to get up and sample some of those flavors from a nearby Shave Ice truck when a dark shadow passed over me, sending a shiver down my spine. No, the shiver wasn’t because of the sudden relief from the sun. It was magic, strong and confident magic, almost cocky actually. I knew that magic, had in fact kicked it in its balls quite recently. I turned my head slowly, muttering a protection spell under my breath while reaching for my stash of powdered mullein.

  “That’s not necessary, witch,” Thor’s previously resonant voice was severely toned down for his foray among the humans.

  “I’m nothing if not cautious,” I smiled at Thor like he was an old friend as I jumped to my feet.

  My legs itched to run but it wouldn’t do any good. The crowds around me were thick with vacationing families and honeymooners. If at all possible, I wouldn’t involve innocent bystanders and I was hoping he wouldn’t either.

  “I’m not here to harm you,” he grimaced.

  He'd taken the time to change his clothes before following me. Maybe he was afraid the leather lace-up pants of his previous ensemble would have made him stand out on a Hawaiian beach. Instead, he wore a pair of khaki pants and a tan silk Aloha shirt. He looked like a local businessman on his lunch break. A local businessman with golden-red hair streaming past his shoulders, bone structure that would make a Roman statue weep, and a body that looked like it spent more time in a gym than a boardroom.

  I kind of missed the leather.

  “No, you’re here to wow me with your literally classic good looks and your modern Hawaiian fashion sense,” I looked him over pointedly, just to let him know that I found his outfit amusing. That’s it. Really.

  “Would you join me at the closest drinking establishment for a cocktail?” His lips didn’t so much as twitch, even though his eyes sparkled a bit.

  “I’m sorry, I think I have sand in my ears,” I shook a finger vigorously in my left ear. I wouldn’t have put it past the alien-fungus. “I thought for a second there that you asked if you could buy me a drink.”

  “I did,” his smile spread over his face like a cat stretches in the sun; slowly and sensuously, as if it had all the time in the world and was fully expecting a good scratch beneath the chin later.

  I stood gaping for a moment before trying to recover. “Uh… why?” Yep, that’s me, Lucy Loquacious.

  I thought seriously about extending the knives from my gloves. The gloves I wore were part of the loot I’d made off with that day at Ku’s. They had 3” long daggers resting inside them, flat against the backs of my hands until a sharp, downward movement would trigger their release. Then they extended over my fingers like lethal claws. I felt like Wolverine when I wore them but more importantly, they were deadly, turning every punch into a four-way stab.

  They were also a little showy for Waikiki Beach.

  So was my kodachi which, for the moment, was camouflaged with a slight blurring of magic that made it blend into my leather pants. Maybe I could go for the dagger I kept down my top. The kodachi and dagger were just of human make but I'd embedded them with magic for increased damage potential. The sword was perfect for taking a god's head. The curvature of the blade gave me the extra oomph I needed to make it a clean cut but I wasn't about to behead Thor in the middle of Waikiki. The dagger would probably be the best choice for the situation. Maybe I could throw it at him and run away screaming.
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  “I’d like to talk to you,” his eyes strayed to my cleavage and I told myself it had nothing to do with the hidden knife and everything to do with my 36 double Ds. Call me vain but I’d rather have him checking me out than knowing where my weapons were hidden. Mae West said it was better to be looked over than overlooked. Well, I needed him to do a little of both, look me over and overlook my knife. It was a survival issue and had nothing to do with him being hot.

  I know, I sound full of it even to myself.

  “Do I need to bow my head and clasp my hands first?” I backed up slightly and took a quick look around, trying to find a possible escape route.

  He laughed, wild and rich, like drumbeats after midnight. It caused a visceral reaction in me, calling to something primitive in my blood and making me sway towards him. People stopped and turned to look at him. Hell, even I stopped scanning the area and just stared at him in shock. The tourists, however, looked at Thor eagerly, as if he were some kind of celebrity they might recognize if they stared long enough. In a way, I guess he was.

  “For you, I’ll make an exception,” he reached out and I tried to back up but the rock wall brought me up short. His hand dropped but his smile stayed put, “Just one drink.”

  “Fine, follow me,” I turned and walked down the sidewalk casually, like it was just another beautiful day in paradise and I wasn’t still a little shaky from that sexy laugh. The sun was shining, children were splashing in the waves, and a Norse god was about to buy me a drink. Yep, everything normal here. I dropped my empty coke bottle into a trash can marked Mahalo (it means thank you not trash) and kept walking.

  He didn’t say a word while we walked, which would normally creep me out, but I was a little too busy freaking out about everything else for it to matter. Was I really going to do this? Sit down and have a drink with an Atlantean? This so wasn't part of my job description. What the hell was going on? The only interaction I had with gods was done at the end of a blade. Plus, in my experience guys didn’t offer to buy you a drink after you kneed them in the groin. Maybe it was that whole divine forgiveness thing? I glanced back at Thor and he grinned devilishly.