Page 16 of Stubborn as a Shadow

“I thought the market started in the morning,” I said to the guy wheeling my luggage inside.

“It does, but a few of the vendors asked if they could set up a smaller one this evening.”

Interesting.

A short time later, after dumping my bag in my room and shedding my winter gear, I was in my shifted form, jumping from shadow to shadow through the glitzy hotel lobby. With a job and a task to do, I didn’t worry about losing myself to my shadows. In fact, I felt more invigorated than I had in a long time. Maybe I had just needed a break from Willow Lake for a while.

My first stop was the reception desk. I needed to find out which room Rudy Tada was using for the weekend.

But when I got to the desk, the crowd of people booking in had grown. All the computers were busy, so I couldn’t use one to search for my target. I waited for a few minutes on the off chance that a guest would drop my target’s name. They didn’t.

I debated hanging out at the desk all afternoon, but that felt like a colossal waste of time. Besides, there was a lot more to investigate. Coming back after midnight to hack into the computers when the employees were bored and inattentive would be easier.

I slipped away from the desk and explored the ground floor of the hotel.

The dimly lit pub with its enormous TV screens over the bar, its dark wood, and its cozy tables was the perfect spot to spy in my shadow form later. I might have some success at the restaurant too. The room was brighter, but it had a lot of wood and larger tables. I could slither through there without anyone noticing. Then there was the hotel manager’s office. It had little personality, much like the mousy-looking woman seated behind the desk. But if I couldn’t get into the computers at the reception desk quickly, this was a good alternative. It might just take more time if she turned off her computer each night.

While I’d been exploring the area, the hotel employees had finished assembling the mini market, and the vendors had unboxed their wares. A magical fog obscured the space aroundthe tables, not enough to interfere with transactions and viewing the wares, but it’d make it difficult for most people to spy from afar. Luckily, I wasn’t most people. My best spying was done up close.

So, rather than going to check out the conference rooms, I slipped into the market. Teague would never forgive me if I didn’t at least look. He’d dedicated his life to removing dangerous artifacts from circulation. And over the years, he’d enlisted us in his cause. I debated changing into my human form so I could ask questions but decided against it. I suspected I’d learn more as a shadow.

The lobby was massive, so there were lots of tables. People were milling around the tables at a leisurely pace, so I followed their shadows. Magic of all kinds vibrated through the air. Too many artifacts emitted questionable magic for me to scoop them all up, so I decided to visit each table, catalogue the items, then return later to collect the most heinous ones. I swept by the ritual tools—athames, chalices, wands, scrying mirrors, and such. They were usually neutral in nature—neither good nor bad—just vehicles for other magic work to be done.

I skimmed over the herbs, oils, and powders too. There was nothing special about those—anyone with the desire to do so could buy them easily on the internet. They were merely building blocks. Where I slowed was at the first table laden with time-worn, leather-bound spell books and ornately tooled grimoires. Several of those were worth examining. Most of the books appeared ancient. People always thought old grimoires had stronger and more powerful spells. I doubted that was true. Just like now, not everyone in the past was brilliant. But that didn’t mean the spells were harmless.

But still, it became a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Should I risk being caught stealing a spell book, which would need a powerful supe to unlock its dangerous potential, or anitem that was already created and hidden amongst innocuous-looking artifacts that would cause immediate harm?

This was why teams of people were usually deployed to jobs like this. If Gage and my other teammates were here, we could get both. I briefly considered calling Carter back, but he wasn’t trained for this. And the porter from earlier might recognize him as a chauffeur and call security if he tried to come in.

But Venus had told me about this market, so I hoped the SC had other operatives inside. I didn’t recognize anyone, but there were a lot of people in the SC I didn’t know.

I’d finish my review of what was here first, then decide what to do.

I moved across the shadows to the next table and shuddered. What the fuck? Black magic oozed from the area like desperate, dirty tendrils of tainted power. It reached out, curling around passersby, luring them in. Jewelry, amulets, and pendants covered the table, and I bet every single one carried a hex or a trapped spirit. None of the other attendees even lifted an eyebrow at the dark wares.

It was strange, but seeing all this crap on display strengthened my connection to my humanity, mostly because I wanted to shift and pummel these jackasses for being so selfish. Over the years, I’d come to the conclusion that greed and selfishness were the root of all the problems in the world—human and supe worlds alike—because too often it came at someone else’s expense.

Unfortunately, there was only so much a single operative could do. So, while the vendor was occupied, I searched through their paperwork and found a name and an address. I memorized the info to pass it along to the SC. They could deal with this person in the days or weeks to come. If they raided the vendor’s home base, the SC would likely seize even more items.

The next few tables were a mishmash of objects: relics, bones, various organs in jars, and a selection of enchanted contracts and scrolls. Black magic practitioners were a fucked-up bunch to want bits of other people’s bodies, but oddly enough, only a few of these items felt tainted to me, so I moved on.

The magically enhanced clothes and alcohol were next. I didn’t pause at those—although I did scoop up a few business cards from the distillers on my way by. The Willow Lake Pub should carry magically imbued booze. Old Thom regularly bemoaned the loss of his Witch’s Milk, and Hayden mentioned he missed magically enhanced whiskey, but I’d recently overheard Jake say he didn’t know where his grandfather had ordered them from. Maybe this would help. And I had no doubt that Gage would check the vendor before Jake ordered anything, just to make sure they weren’t shitty human beings.

Then I came to the crystals and stones. Those came in two varieties: raw stones and ones that had been manipulated with magic. The market had both. I slowed down to study the raw ones. The prices were surprisingly reasonable. I couldn’t use them for spells—that wasn’t how my magic worked—but I appreciated stones that were intrinsically powerful on their own. Now I regretted not shifting back to my human form so I could purchase a few. I’d have to come back.

I was admiring a particularly attractive amethyst when a female voice said, “His name is Rudy Tada.”

I froze. Well, wasn’t that interesting? Venus had suggested the guy might be in danger, and it looked as if she might be right if people were talking about him.

“He’s going to come looking for a particular crystal,” a woman said to the vendor whose table I’d stopped at. The speaker was a young wolf with an athletic build and a short-cropped hairstyle. She nodded at her even younger companion, who was a mage. “Give it to him.”

“Judy, are you sure?”

The wolf—Judy—narrowed her eyes at him. The mage passed the vendor a crystal about the size of his thumb. It was clear, like quartz, but with inclusions of some kind. The crystal vendor turned it over in their hand and lifted a bushy, tangled eyebrow. “A Time-Traveling Crystal?”

Shit. Really?

I’d heard Teague talk about magical objects for at least a century or more, so I knew more about dangerous artifacts than the average supe. And the Time-Traveling Crystal was right up there. If there was a wall of “The Most Dangerous Artifacts in The World” like humans had with criminals, its picture would be up there.