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  “Because…” Viktoria looked around to add drama, then leaned forward.

  The woman mirrored her. Good, a rapt audience.

  “I don’t want to be a mage. I can’t. I…I hurt people with what I can do. After the wild mage manifested, I came to Kraków to see if I could find out more about them. Now I think she’s alive, I have hope! Wild mages can influence the Veil itself, and maybe… Maybe they can cut off my magic.” It was a huge risk to take. She’d heard the ridicule and rage toward mages who didn’t embrace their powers twenty years ago, and she didn’t know how much of that old thinking had remained. She looked between the two of them. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  They exchanged glances, then the human woman reached out and offered her hand.

  After a moment of hesitation, Viktoria took it. Her heartrate rabbited; if the woman was a seer—or worse, an empath—she would be able to call her out on a lie.

  Although, was it a lie? If the wild mage turned up right here, right now and told her she could rid her of this damn family curse, would she really say no?

  Whatever part of her magic—or psyche—that had hadn’t been dulled by potions and alcohol rose up to challenge the thought, but deep down, she knew she would. She would, if only to cut off the memories that clung to her short foray into the world of magic. She would, if only to secure her place inside the organization she called home.

  The woman scanned her eyes and must have found something in there that sold her on the story. She squeezed her hand, then let it go. “I know someone. You might not like him, and he costs a lot of money to hire, but if you are willing—?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Good, then he might help. He is a Ukrainian man who moved to Kraków years ago. I do not know of the details, but he is wanted by the Ukrainian Charter for selling his services to humans and exposing magecraft.”

  Viktoria cocked a brow and glanced at the Otherkin for confirmation.

  She nodded.

  The human woman reached into the bag that hung off her chair and fished out a pen and her phone. She unlocked the device and scrolled until she found what she was looking for, then held out her hand for Viktoria’s again. This time she took it to write down a number. “Call him until he picks up. He drinks much, like most seers, and it is early for him. You could maybe better wait until tonight?”

  “I don’t think I have time. If the wild mage leaves the city or even the country to get away from the Inquisitio, then I will never find her again.”

  “You might be right.” The woman clicked her pen off. “Then call now, maybe, and…” She hesitated, then clicked the pen on again. “If he doesn’t answer, this is the last known address I have.” She scribbled it down, then put her pen and phone away. “His name is Gigi, and he is not a nice man when he drinks much. Remember, all right, and take your husband with you. Keep you safe.”

  “My—?” Viktoria turned her head to look at Tempest as if he’d grown an extra head instead of horn stumps. “Oh. Right.” She smiled and nodded. “Yes, I will, thank you.”

  “That is all right. You be safe and I hope you find what you are looking for.” She held her gaze, then extended her hand for a third time.

  Viktoria took it.

  “My name is Anna.” No family name, which made sense. At least the need for secrecy hadn’t changed in twenty years.

  “Vicky.” It was as close to her real name as she dared. “Thank you for your help. I really hope I find what I am looking for as well.” She let go of the hand and stood. “Hide that book better. Those words are poison.” With that, she marched off and out. She’d settle the bill at the front bar, and Tempest would catch up.

  She’d given herself a headache with her faux-lies, but at least she had a lead to secure her future in the Inquisitio.

  * * *

  The sun had broken through by the time they emerged, but the golden glow was deceptive. It was still cold enough to huddle up in her coat.

  Tempest drew his collar up as soon as the wind hit him and threw up his hair. He secured his fedora as well. “Talk to me, then do whatever you’re going to do.”

  He worded it as a command, but she knew it was a request. “Things went wrong in London. Very wrong—PR nightmare type wrong. They’re on it and hopefully, it’ll blow over soon.” She rolled her eyes, but only to cover her uncertainty with bravado. The odds were very high Anderson would face a tribunal over this—if they got him and his team out of their London prison cell—and that she’d have to be the one to drag him in front of it.

  “Tell me more later. What did those women say?” He glanced around them as they made their way back toward the main street.

  “I lied through my teeth about why we needed a seer to help us find the wild mage, and they gave us a name. He’s supposed to be quite a character, so I hope those beers aren’t interfering with your judgement?” She glanced up at him.

  He shook his head. “Minotaur, remember? You’re going to have to feed me a barrel before alcohol has an impact. Who is this man?”

  “They didn’t give a lot of details, just his name and contact information. And that he is probably drunk or sleeping it off.”

  “Hm. Not the most trustworthy of sorts.”

  “He’s a mage, what did you expect?” The words slipped out before she’d thought them through and they left a darkness behind in her gut. Was that how she saw mages? How she saw herself? She glanced down and worked her lips. Maybe. Everyone else seemed to think so.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll work with him. It’ll be fine.”

  “Yes.” She shrugged off his hand because she didn’t want him to get used to the idea that he could touch her whenever he felt like it. “I’ll call, see if he’s awake. If he is, we can get his rates and we’ll swing by a bank before we head over.”

  “And if he’s not awake?”

  “Then we’ll go wake him up and he can come with us to get his fee.”

  * * *

  The sixth call was the charm, and it was picked up just before the call would have been dropped. Viktoria hadn’t prepared for the call to be answered, so when she heard a click followed by rustling and a groggy male voice in Polish, she was too surprised to speak.

  More polish from the other end of the line.

  “S-Sorry, am I speaking with Mr. Gigi?”

  There was a pause. “Too early for German.” He sounded exactly like she had expected a man to sound when he’d drank himself into oblivion a few hours earlier and had been awoken hours ahead of his scheduled next-day date with the bottle.

  “I don’t speak Polish, but I know how much a zloty is worth.”

  Tempest smirked and shook his head. He stood in front of the bench she’d sat down on, his arms crossed in front of his chest, as imposing as a bodyguard should be.

  Gigi fell silent. Something cracked, then she could hear him drink in large gulps.

  She guessed that the can he’d just opened wasn’t filled with Coke.

  “All right, I listen. Tell me what you want to pay me for.” He sounded much less groggy already.

  “I want your time and expertise, and I’ll pay you accordingly. I’m sure you’ve experienced the recent energy surges?”

  He hummed. “Oh yes, I did. That was nice. Good drug.” He chuckled. “Best drug.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, opinions are divided on that. I want to track down the person responsible for that. You can see into the past?”

  “I can, for a fee. And I need to be at the location that you want to see. It is not…how they say? Television. VCR?”

  She arched a brow. “You’re showing your age.”

  “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Where do I have to go?”

  “The explosion site in the city, where the supposed gas leak was.”

  He hummed, then she heard him drink again. “Too crowded, too many police and probably Inquisitio. I can’t do it. Bye.”

  “Wait!” She rushed the word out i
n an effort to prevent him from hanging up. “Name your price.”

  “You won’t like my price.” He smacked his lips.

  “Try me.” She held her breath as nervous jitters—or was that her returning magic?—traversed her skin.

  “400,000 zloty.” His voice trembled as he spoke.

  She laughed, not out of strategy but out of sheer shock at his ludicrous number. “That’s close to 100,000 euros! No. I’ll pay you 100,000 zloty. That is very fair. I’ll guarantee that the Inquisitio will not be an issue, and I’ll buy you a beer afterward.”

  He fell silent, probably to calculate how many beers 100.000 zloty would buy him. Since they just paid twenty-five zloty for their meal and beers, she guessed he’d come to the conclusion of ‘a lot’ right about…

  “Okay. That is good price. I will do it. Meet me in three hours with taxi. My address is nine Stanis—”

  It matched the address she’d been given. “I have your address, Mr. Gigi. We’ll be there in two.” She hung up before he could object.

  “So, we’ll be sustaining an alcohol addiction?” A hint of a smirk played around Tempest’s lips.

  “We will, indeed.” She stood and wiped her behind free of any grime that may have been left on her dress pants. “Desperate times they are. Desperate times.”

  He offered his arm. “Indeed.”

  After a second of hesitation, she ignored it and walked out ahead of him. “Two hours. That’s five p.m. We’ll have to go to the house, sneak him in, let him do whatever it is he does, then see if we can track their progress somehow. We’re losing time.”

  “We are.” He caught up. His hands were tucked away in his coat pocket. Her brush-off was seemingly forgotten. “If we have time, I’d like to go to the hotel and check my ticket queries. I don’t think they’d be stupid enough to travel by plane since we tracked Alena Senna’s flight, and they probably won’t purchase tickets under their names, but you never know. The Society can get cocky sometimes.”

  Truer words had never been spoken, as far as Viktoria was concerned. “We’ll go to the bank and to the hotel. The House Heads need to be updated anyway, and I am sure everyone wants their say on how terrible I’ve trained my man.” She glowered at the thought. “I can’t believe Anderson got taken by surprise by a mage. They are trained for this; they are equipped for this!”

  Tempest took a deep breath and let it out. “Sometimes we get cocky as well.”

  That deflated her some. “Too right you are. Far too right.”

  * * *

  Gigi was a wiry man with a beer belly, a twitchy left eye, and hair that hadn’t come into contact with water—let alone shampoo—in weeks. It rested on his shoulders like oily vines. His eyes were blurry and bloodshot, and despite their planned arrival, he wore only jeans, not even socks and shoes. A shirt to hide his scrawny chest would have also been nice. Taking all of that into account, she wasn’t surprised to see his unkempt few-days-old beard and moustache.

  “Are you the lady who called?”

  She nodded. “Call me Vicky. Or ma’am.”

  He laughed and had to grab the doorpost to keep from stumbling backward. “Oh, I will call you Mistress!” He made a whipping motion with his hand and accompanied it with the appropriate sound.

  Viktoria resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose where a headache built. “Call me whatever you like. Put on your clothes, we’re leaving.”

  “You have my money, yes?” He tried to hold her gaze but struggled to do so; a mixture of alcohol and exhaustion, she assumed.

  “You’ll get it when we’re done, but as a token of my goodwill, here.” She pulled twenty bills worth fifty zloty each out of her pocket and handed them over. “A down payment for your time.”

  He grabbed the bills and counted them, then counted them again. One, he held up against the light.

  His inspection gave her ample time to look around—not so much to enjoy the scenery, but to make sure they weren’t about to get mugged. The side street was too narrow for the taxi to drive into and the driver had locked all the doors the second she and Tempest had climbed out of it. She’d reminded him to wait for them, and so far he had, engine running. This part of Kraków wasn’t a place for tourists.

  “And the rest?” Gigi looked up with the hunger of a man starved for beer.

  “Once we’re done. Get dressed.” After a second, she added: “Tempest will make sure you’re set to go.”

  Tempest arched an eyebrow in question and silent protest, but he followed Gigi down the hallway once he’d sorted out where his feet were supposed to go among the rubble gathered on the floor.

  Viktoria turned around, then checked the wall beside the door for signs of vomit or piss before she dared to lean against the brick. The whole alleyway smelled of it, but there was no sign of either in her direct vicinity.

  A good fifteen minutes later, Gigi emerged, with Tempest’s huge hand on his frail-looking shoulder to guide him onward at a much quicker pace than he might have chosen for himself.

  “We’re good.” Tempests voice revealed he wouldn’t hear of anything to the contrary, neither from Gigi, nor from her. His usual brooding expression had been taken over by an even deeper scowl.

  Viktoria looked Gigi over. He was wearing shoes and socks—not matching socks, but socks. Tempest had also gotten a sweater on him, a Christmas themed one, with reindeers. She hummed. “That’ll do.”

  “Damn right it will.” He marched Gigi to the taxi and all but shoved him inside. “Little piss ant.” He wiped his hand on his sweater, then held the door to the passenger side open for her. He—although seeming to hesitate for a moment—sat down beside Gigi in the back.

  The driver’s nose crinkled and he checked the mirror. The smell of the man hadn’t escaped him either.

  “You can drive now.” Viktoria put ice into her tone, and it was enough to shake the driver out of his thoughts.

  “Where do we go?” He glanced from her to Tempest.

  “Do you know the site of the gas explosion? There.” Viktoria buckled up, then cracked the window to let fresh air in.

  “Why there? There is nothing there, just a destroyed house.”

  “Drive, or you can forget about the fare.”

  “Ah.” The driver put the car in first gear. “To the house, then. Nice tourist site, great for making pictures to show family at home.” He grinned and pulled away. The sarcasm on his words was obvious.

  With her limited Polish, she caught only two words she recognized in the ones he muttered under his breath once they exited the side street: “Idiots” and “bitch.” She opted to ignore both in favor of tilting her head toward the window and inhaling fresh air.

  CHAPTER NINE

  An uneducated woman is far less dangerous than an educated one. Educate a woman only in Bible verse. A woman who reads is far more likely to succumb to the influence of magic. No, reading cannot make her a witch—witches are born devil spawn—but they can sympathize and align themselves with their plight.

  Any man who cannot keep his wife and daughters under control should not marry. Any man in the Inquisitio who cannot control his wife or daughters should not be a member.

  – Rudolf Wagner, ‘A Guide for the Death of Witches’

  VIKTORIA HAD UNDERESTIMATED how hard it would be to get an intoxicated, uncoordinated, gangly man over a wall, and Tempest bore the brunt of that failure.

  For the third time now, Gigi’s shoe scraped across the side of his face as Gigi tried to climb up.

  He grunted, but took the punishment.

  Viktoria, up on the wall, grabbed at Gigi’s sweater, then his belt, and finally managed to pull him up, legs dangling off one side, most of his torso dangling off the other. “Don’t fall.”

  “Trying!” His voice had gone up an octave or two as he stared at the tiles three meters or so below his head. “I do not like heights.”

  He attempted to throw his leg over the wall, but only succeeded in almost losing his grip and sli
ding off it when his feet couldn’t find purchase.

  His momentum was stopped by Tempest, who managed to get his hand under Gigi’s hip so he could hold him up. “Viktoria…”

  “What do you want me to do?” She allowed some of her anger at the drunk’s incompetence to seep into her voice. “Magic him over?”

  “For example.” Another grunt as Gigi’s foot swung wide and hit Tempest square in the face. “Stop wiggling, you little worm!”

  She’d only heard Tempest raise his voice one other time, and his bellow spoke to a deliciously primal part of her brain. She shook off the tendrils of arousal in favor of his words. “I told you: no more magic.”

  “Then forget about this plan or help him up another way. Ten more seconds and I let him fall.”

  Dammit! “Gigi, stop moving.”

  “I’ll fall!” He was starting to panic, and he clung to the bricks under his pelvis with a force that whitened his knuckles. His legs still flung about, looking for a hold. The only one they found was Tempest’s head.

  Tempest huffed like the angry bull he was. “Five, four, three…”

  “Fine!” Viktoria let go of Gigi’s belt and brought her hands up like the puppeteer she was. Magic leapt to her fingertips and for once she didn’t stop it.

  It was so much easier this time. Her magic was eager, but still somewhat tempered by the bartender’s potion. She had control over it, and within seconds, she had control over Gigi. She stopped his flailing legs with a flick of her wrist and forced him to go limp with the other. “There.” Her arms shook, but not with effort. This was easy, and she had a lot of energy to burn. “Got him.”

  Her mind became foggy in seconds. Warmth rushed through her veins and left her tingly all over. There was nothing like the rush—nothing.

  “Are you okay?”

  Tempest was looking at her, so she made sure her expression wasn’t that of a heroin junkie who’d just shot up. She pressed her lips together and nodded. “I’ve got him.” She decided not to mention her own delicious inner turmoil.