Page 21 of Villains Never Die

He turned and walked away—walked, not ran—with his back to me. He no longer thought I was a threat.

Chapter Nine

I sat at my desk, typing one-handed as my bandaged wrist lay aching on the desktop. I knew plenty of healers. Fixing the bones was not an issue, but it still hurt. I’d spent two days trying to think of a way to retaliate, to make him pay for what he did, but all my ideas were clouded with the scent of citrus and the inches between us that night that were so few they weren’t worth counting. I needed to rest more; these were clearly the deranged thoughts of a sleep-deprived mind.

“Find out what Rook is doing and how I can hurt him again,” I spoke into the empty room, knowing the spirits could hear me.

Be patient.

I scoffed and returned to the stack of papers on my desk I’d read several times without absorbing any of it. The three pages were an itemized list of artifacts from a collector who had recently died and whose estate wanted them cleared out.

I’d tracked down this lot of artifacts for a few death objects in particular, based on an update on The Looking Glass. The collector’s death was stirring news among seedier magicians. Unfortunately for them, most of them didn’t have as muchmoney as me. The objects were probably bollocks, but I was grabbing for scraps related to Death at this point. The rest of the junk could go to auction.

I made an obnoxiously generous offer, closed my laptop, and moved on to a separate stack of papers in front of me. On top was the table of contents for a list of new Council legislation that was supposed to go into effect in response to the recent murders, and other laws that would be voted on after the election.

MP2005 - Magician Protection

MP2005-2 - Magician Protection Part 2

CSA2005 - Council Security Act

And then a list of others that pertained to small ordinances and spell regulations. Nothing exciting, though I needed to look into Emmett Graves and find out if he would be a bigger or smaller problem for me than Blackwell was. There had been no other victims, no communication from the killer that I was aware of, and I struggled to figure out my next move.

I assumed Rook and I were no longer working on it together.

I rotated my healed wrist and could still feel swelling under the bandage. Why couldn’t I just kill the bastard? He would certainly try to take my life again, and I only had so many of them to spare. There had to be another way to get back at him for the broken bones and damage at Avalon, not to mention the money I lost when I had to close the whole place down for two days.

I added ‘Deal with the giant thorn in my side’ to my mental to-do list. I never got the satisfaction of checking things off, since the list never got smaller. Also on the list for today: catalog and price a lot of cursed jewelry that had arrived last night. I had a few collectors with a narrow focus on dark artifacts. I just needed to know how much to charge them. I planned to cash in a favor one of the lower magicians at the Council owed me. Someone needed to get me details on Emmett Graves’s platform and plans once he was elected, which seemed almost certainsince he was the only one running. Then there was a meeting with Gray to go over normal business.

Neverending work.

I packed up my laptop and left the legal papers sitting on my desk to file somewhere in the morning. The lift ride to the penthouse felt as sluggish as the inside of my head, but I needed another hour for Project Mori before I could allow myself to sleep. I flipped on all the lights and disrobed, then made a cup of tea before I settled in my bed, my legs stretched out and my computer open. I navigated to a forum I scoured for information sometimes.Midnight Chatwas a deeply warded corner of the internet for magicians who practiced dark magic and borderline illegal—if not entirely banned—spells. Mostly junkies hooked on the darkness and looking for a fix, something new and titillating to feed their monster.

I scrolled through forum topics.

Curse burned the hell out of me

How do I make the high last longer?

How long will this sedation spell knock a girl out for?

I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to know what someone might be using that last one for. There were some kinds of fucked up even I wouldn’t touch.

Protection from Death - She’s Following Me

I swallowed thickly and hovered my cursor over it. My heart slammed against my ribs and I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t having an exhaustion-induced hallucination. This was the first time I had seen her mentioned like this. I clicked on it.

BloodMage27

I almost died the other night. I did something stupid. A woman in black robes has been following me ever since. I thinkshe’s death, and I think I pissed her off. She’s coming for me. What do I do?

alchemical-liar

Quit smoking whatever the humans are passing around so your magic evens back out and the psychosis stops.

VampFucker2001

Death? Really? You’re probably fucked, dude.