Page 83 of Throwing Shade
I licked a smear of chocolate off my lip. If widespread Ohrist help was off the table, then it was a relief that we couldn’t be inhabited, provided those of us with magic were smart during the Danger Zone.
Sapiens at the bottom, then golems and gargoyles, then dybbuks. Much as I hated to admit it, Banim Shovavim were less powerful than vampires, so I listed us next. We were few and far between, and given the centuries of Ohrists hating and hunting us, we remained in an extremely vulnerable position.
That brought me to the vamps whose powers grew stronger over time.
Speaking of bloodsuckers, what did Zev want? He had money and power. Was there a piece of unblemished art he desired that I could bribe him with to leave me alone? I shook my head. As if I could afford anything he collected. Maybe Jude would have some insights, if she was willing to share personal information about him. My magic was going to be a huge shock, plus she’d be dealing with the trauma of her abduction. She might not be willing to add to Zev’s wrath by sharing secrets, if she knew any, but it was the only straw I had to grasp at.
The only reason I placed Ohrists at the top of the food chain above vampires was that there were more of them. I snorted. Ohrists certainly acted like they were above everyone else, equating their light and life magic with some bullshit nobility.
In terms of a magic community, they had the highest numbers and an incredible range of powers, even if most of them were limited to one type of talent.
I slid my gaze sideways to my companion. What exactly had he undergone to sniff out dybbuks?
The maps app announced our destination on the right and Laurent and I exchanged glances. We were out on a backwoods road in the middle of nowhere with the dybbuk’s HQ down some dirt driveway that curved off into the trees.
Laurent instructed me to park on the side of the road and leave my hazard lights on. That way it would seem as if we’d had car trouble and gone for help.
“Stick close,” I said, getting out of the car. “I’ve never actually tried cloaking another person.”
“You don’t have to now, either.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the seat, his back muscles flexing. “I’m going to shift.”
“That’s not the plan.” I put my keys in the pocket of my hoodie, having left my purse in the car.
“If we want to escape quickly and unharmed, we use all the tools in our toolbox.” He toed out of his shoes. “You get your friend and I’ll find you when I’ve taken care of Mei Lin. This is my best shot at stopping her from flooding the city with more drugs. Or worse.” Pulling off his socks, he threw them in the car. “The longer a dybbuk possession lasts, the more unstable the host becomes, and Mei Lin is at the one-year mark. That’s close to a record.”
I really wanted to see him shift, but it seemed like too personal an ask for our casual acquaintance. “Lock the door before you go furry.”
Even with the black mesh hiding me, I walked along the grass so my footsteps wouldn’t give me away on the gravel in case there were guards posted in the forest. My magic prevented my breathing and heartbeat from being detected, but if I spoke or stepped on a twig, those sounds were heard loud and clear.
Rain drizzled down on this gray and depressing day. Birds barely sang and the heavy dew soaked into my runners. Sadly, my cloaking didn’t have useful umbrella properties and I got damper and damper.
There was no sight or sound of Laurent.
The trees ended in a scraggly clump, revealing the abandoned substation. Situated next to a weed-choked, rusted-out rail line, the squat building had blown-out windows and front stairs that had disintegrated into rubble. There was no sign of working electricity, never mind the place being lit with full-spectrum bulbs. Was this the correct location?
On the side was a partially rotted-through door, but the grass was trampled and the mud in front of the door was smoothed down, so I eased it open, rubbing my hands in anticipation of this high-stealth mission. I had mom hearing and shadow magic: call me Feldman. Miriam Feldman.
So much for my high hopes. My face fell because the substation was a gutted mess. Pitted walls were covered in graffiti running the gamut from cartoon characters to the grim reaper to names tagged in bold graphic letters, but the iron girders bracing the ceiling seemed intact, so I walked through the wide open space. I threw an arm over my face at the stench of urine wafting out from the corners, making my way past piles of rubble, some of them soot-streaked from vandals attempting to start fires.
Avoiding bits of broken pipe and holes in the floor, I passed a broken wall and arrived at a metal door guarded by a short man smoking a cigarette. I pressed behind a concrete post and sent Delilah slithering on the ground back the way we’d come.
She picked up a chunk of fallen concrete and threw it in the opposite direction from the guard, then jumped high to catch hold of one of the iron roof girders.
The guard raced down the hall to investigate. Once he’d passed her, she dropped silently to the ground.
I powered her down, calling up the black mesh again, and slipped inside the metal door, immediately screwing my eyes shut. The light blinded me—they weren’t kidding about the full-spectrum bulbs. It was like stepping out into the bright noon of a summer’s day from a dark room. Shielding my face with one hand, I half-closed my lids until I’d acclimated to the brightness and headed down the narrow staircase.
The basement, as brightly lit as the stairwell, was a rabbit warren of hallways, but it was oddly quiet. One room had packages of cocaine left unattended, while in another, stacks of bills and a money counter sat on a table, ripe for the stealing, but there were no people.
The deeper into this maze that I got, the stronger the feeling of eerie nothingness grew. Convinced I was being set up for the jump scare of all time, I started flinching in anticipation. Several times I hit dead ends and had to turn around, but after a long slow sweep, I entered a corridor that I had yet to clear. Honestly, by this point, I was wrung-out, and ready to call the mission a bust.
A man sat propped against the wall next to a closed door at the end of the hallway, his head lolled to one side and his eyes closed. Sleeping on the job. I tsked. Good minions were so hard to find.
Regardless of where everyone else had gone, he’d been left here to guard that door, meaning that something important was behind it.
A sickly-sweet charred meat smell grew stronger the closer I got to the guard, dread deepening with each step, until I reached for the man with a shaking hand.
He fell over, and I screamed, losing my cloaking in shock.
