Navarrete wended her way across the dance floor. Ash reluctantly trailed after, doing his best to avoid being struck by strangers’ flying limbs. The floor erupted in colorful fireworks beneath each of his steps; diaphanous spheres of light—lesser daemons known as will-o’-the-wisps—darted here and there, glitching in time with the music. One passed straight through him, tickling the inside of his ribcage, an itch he couldn’t scratch.
Navarrete—Ash close behind her—made her way past a group of people in a corner booth all sitting motionless, wearing silver masks; a woman displaying to another an animal hide with sigils etched all over the inside; someone changing hyper-sexualized glamors like hats while a man looked on deliberatively, as if getting ready to order from a menu; straight to a room in the back, one of the few that appeared unguarded—until Ash got close enough to glimpse the floor in front of it.
In a row across the entryway, upright on their hind legs and evenly spaced like small soldiers, stood five knot-furred, cloudy-eyed rats.
Familiars—Ash could tell on sight. Tranquilized beasts, programmed to do their master’s bidding.
Navarrete slipped a couple of bills from her wallet. Rolled them tightly, stooped, and tucked them in the center rat’s mouth.
The rat’s fellows made way, and it led Navarrete and Ash into the room, the air of which was a dense haze of essence of ambergris. Ash again filtered it by covering his nose and mouth with his left hand. Saw Navarrete glance his way, smirk, and shake her head.
It took Ash a moment to distinguish the contents of the room through the fog. Low-slung cushioned seating ran the length of the wall on all sides, surrounding a long table the contents of which included several rolled-up wads of cash, a bowl of mealworms—some of them half-eaten—and a two-thirds-drained cocktail. Every horizontal surface was occupied by more empty-eyed rats, sitting motionless on their haunches as though they’d been taxidermied that way, posing here and there in little clusters, watching. Still other rats were in motion, coming and going in perfect beelines, as if mechanized—programmed for a purpose.
On the far side of the table, dead center and casually splay-limbed, reclined a large-framed woman wearing extravagant jewelry and an oversized Adidas track suit.
“Well, if it isn’t Caren Navarrete,” she proclaimed in a voice like a French horn, baring a mouthful of blinding-white teeth.
“Des.” Navarrete reached across the table, clasped the woman’s hand. “How’s tricks?”
“Okay, okay,” said Des. “How about yourself?”
“You know how it is. Everything’s shit, fuckin’ always.”
Des’s eye fell on Ash, skimmed him over head to toe. Her voluptuous lips curled in a feline grin. “And who have we here?”
“This is my friend, uh…” Navarrete shot Ash a guilty look, which after a moment he decided to interpret as she didn’t think it was a good idea to give this Des woman his family name—probably because they didn’t take kindly to First-Housers around here—but she couldn’t remember his given one.
“Ash,” he supplied.
“…My friend Ash,” Navarrete followed up without missing a beat.
“Ash. My pleasure,” the woman purred, and extended a smooth-skinned hand with long square fake nails in green-and-white zigzag. “Name’s Desdemona. She/her.” She arched one long, thick eyebrow. “Are you old enough to be in here?”
Ash gave her hand a brief, perfunctory shake. It felt freshly lotioned, a texture he didn’t like. “Apparently.”
Desdemona threw her head back, roared with laughter. “I like this little one,” she said to Caren, jabbing her forefinger at Ash. Then, to Ash, “What are your pronouns?”
No one had ever asked Ash this question in his life, except in some online spaces he’d frequented. In person, strangers always just assumed girl or boy. “He/him.”
Desdemona squinted at him. “Ash, he/him, he/him. Okay then. Old enough to be here, okay then. That means you’re legal. God, I hope that means you’re legal.” She winked one false-eyelash-shuttered orb and once more guffawed.
Ash shot Navarrete a helpless glance.
“So, Caren!” Des made a shrill noise with her lips and teeth. A rat familiar scrambled up her arm onto her shoulder, perched with its dead eyes fixed on Ash while Desdemona stroked its matted fur with her fingernails. “My foul-mouthed, hard-fucking, chain-smoking princess! What can I do you for?”
Navarrete pulled up a chair on the exposed side of the table, gestured for Ash to do the same. “Looking for info on Lex.”
“Ooo, you and the Archmagus’s army,” Des crooned. “Literally!” She gestured to a nearby cadre of rats, which stuttered to life and went scurrying around the table, assembling a pitcher and glasses and cups, plates of appetizers, pipes and varieties of magic leaves for tea and smoking, presenting Navarrete and Ash with a smorgasbord of refreshments.
All of which Ash ignored.
“Been getting other inquiries?” Navarrete lit a pipe, tucked into a cheddar biscuit.
“I’ll say. My fur-babies are already hot on the trail. Aren’t you, Sugarpuss?” Desdemona made a kissy face at the tranquilized rodent on her shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll have something good and juicy for you kids in a day or two.”
Navarrete leaned forward intently. “Who else has been asking? Anyone besides the bloodhounds?”
Desdemona fixed her with a feline grin. “Princess. You know I take client confidentiality seriously.”
Navarrete pulled a familiar fat white envelope out of her coat. Laid it on the table.
Ash stared at it. “Isn’t that your…?”
“More seriously than six-fifty cash?” said Navarrete.
Desdemona raised her eyebrows. Picked up the envelope, peeled it gingerly open with a fingernail, pawed through its contents.
“It’s all yours, up front, if you tell me who else has been asking,” Navarrete went on. “And agree to keep whatever you find out about Lex between you, me, and Ash here.”
Desdemona smirked, handed the envelope off to one of her rats, which scurried under the table with it, vanished from view. “Okay, okay then. I mean, hell, you two are a damn sight sexier than the competition.” Her eye drifted to Ash, and she winked before turning her gaze back to Navarrete. “For starters, like you guessed, quite a few bloodhounds comin’ through here lately. No surprises there. Of course Big Man Sauvage is gonna be gunning hard for Lex, seeing as Lex just took down twelve of Arcanus’s finest.”
“Eleven,” said Navarrete, a bit sharply.
Des surveyed her curiously. “Oh?”
Navarrete scowled at the table, not seeming to hear.
“The twelfth victim was factionless,” Ash explained to Desdemona.
“Oh.” Des frowned. “Is that the truth?”
“That’s what we’ve heard,” Ash followed up quickly.
“Okay, okay then. Well.” Des glanced at Navarrete again, furrowed her brow. “Bloodhounds aside—I’ve had agents of every major player in town in here. Which, hell, only stands to reason they’d wanna take Lex down.”
“‘Major player’?” Ash noticed Navarrete still staring at the table like a powered-down robot. “Meaning…?”
“The other gang bosses, honey.”
“What’s the reason they all want to take Lex down?”
Desdemona chuckled as if to say, It’s obvious. “He’s a threat.”
“Wait—so Lex is a ‘he’?”
“By all accounts, yes.”
“And how is he a threat to these other gang bosses?”
“For starters, the boy’s a damn prodigy. Self-made man. Young. Hardly older than Princess Caren here, if at all. Burst onto the scene just a few months ago, and already he’s got most of Northeast Philly under his thumb. Been rounding up junkies in Kensington for chrissakes, turning ’em into goddamn super-soldiers. Defectors flocking to him in droves. Wyrms, Leeches, Meillassoux’s boys…Lex is siphoning their people off in fucking numbers. Rumor is he offers unconditional protection to any mage who wants it, regardless of skills or qualifications, or lack thereof. And once he’s got his hooks in ’em, well, hell. What they lack in ability, they make up in sheer dumb determination. Way I hear it told, they’d light themselves on Greek fire for him, every last one. Once a mage goes over to Lex’s team, they don’t look back.”
“Any word on what Lex’s specialization is?”
Des settled back in her booth, gave a silky shake of her head. “All I keep hearing is he’s got a lot of goddamn people. And anybody who wants to go up against him has to get through his people first.” She raised an eyebrow. “Word is no one ever has.”
Navarrete seemed to wake up from a nap. “Any word on who any of these ‘people’ of his are?”
Des raised her eyebrows. “That’s one thing my little fur-babies are hard at work trying to find out. Aren’t you, pretty-pretty?” She beamed at the familiar on her shoulder, planted a peck on its indifferent nose.
“So that’s everyone who’s been asking?” said Navarrete. “Arcanus agents, the big-time magic gangs—Wyrms, Leeches, Meillassoux’s boys?”
“Actually, there was one other girl. Spooky little thing, big eyes. Never seen her before and she didn’t give a name. No idea what her affiliation might be. She’ll be back, though. Let your girl Des do her work, okay, okay?” Desdemona caught Ash’s eye and winked. “I’ll be sure to find out somethin’ spicy for ya.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
“Pretty sure Des wants to throw you down,” said Navarrete, as she and Ash moved through the vestibule, past the purple-haired bouncer, back out into the private room at Umami Boy. “I can hook it up if you want.”
“…Throw me down?”
“You know. Fuck.”
Ash felt the heat start at his neck and wipe straight up to his hairline. “Uhhhh…”
“Des not your type, Daddy’s Boy?”
“How old is she, thirty?”
Navarrete chuckled.
“I don’t…” said Ash. “I’m not…”
“You ’bout to tell me you’re a virgin?”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
Navarrete shrugged. “Just not much of a plot twist.”
“I’m asexual. I think.” Ash remembered Valentine almost touching his arm.
“Yo, dude. That’s all chill.” Again, Navarrete shrugged.
They arrived at the glistening sidewalk out front. Navarrete lit a cigarette.
Ash took up a position upwind. “Why did you pay Desdemona your uncle’s whole bounty to tell us who else has been asking about Lex, and keep all the info exclusive?”
“Listen and learn, rookie.” Navarrete took a drag, stashed her lighter in her coat. “We find other people trying to take down Lex, if we’re lucky, we make powerful allies against him. Especially good chance of that if we corner the market on critical info they need. It’s a bargaining chip.” She exhaled a plume of smoke; it was instantly shredded by drizzle. “Worst-case scenario, we learn stuff about Lex we didn’t know before. You can tell a lot about a person by their enemies. You said you’re doing crime scene shit tomorrow, right? At sunrise?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take a pass on that. Shit’s fuckin’ boring. Really not my forte.”
“Uh.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be idle. I mean, I will, but only till like noon when I roll out of bed. Then I’m gonna go talk to some people.”
“What people?”
“People who can put me in touch with other people. Who can put me in touch with other-other people. Scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine kinda thing. You gotta grease more than a few palms to get in striking distance of a ganglord.” She tapped off her ash, thought for a moment. “What say we start with Meillassoux? I might have an in with him already. Don’t worry though, if I get a meeting with the man himself I’ll make sure to take you along.”
“Why? I mean…I agree I should go. Just, why did you assume it would be important to me?”
“Dude.” Navarrete grinned her fang-toothed grin. “You two will have so much to talk about.”
“We will?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him. Soren Dreyfus-Meillassoux?”
Ash blinked. “Oh…Soren Meillassoux? The guy who…”
“…got kicked out of Fraternitas Mercurii for ‘buggery’?” Navarrete made exaggerated air quotes. “That’d be the one. Ended up working out okay for him, I guess. He’s now heading up his own motherfuckin’ criminal empire.” She surveyed Ash sidelong. “Like I said earlier: Y’all are fucked up.”
Ash hesitated. “I didn’t choose to be born into the order, okay? I obviously don’t agree with all its policies.”
“I don’t see you rebelling or walking away.”
“Fraternitas Mercurii offers a unique path to power. I’m one of the fortunate few to have access to that path. I’d be stupid to throw away that opportunity. Once I reach the deeper mysteries, I’ll be in a position to change things.”
Navarrete laugh-coughed a big cloud of cigarette smoke. “Last night I beat the shit out of my uncle and handed him over to you Arcanus goons for six fiddy. You don’t need to make excuses to me.” She flicked her butt in the gutter, started off down the sidewalk, bidding Ash farewell with a lazy salute. “My take? Do whatever you can get away with and still sleep at night.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Ash did his best not to make noise as he let himself into the house—seeing as waking Dad at this hour was a distinctly unpleasant prospect.
Took off his Chucks and, in his sock feet, padded through the darkened parlor, along the wainscoted corridors to his bedroom.
There, undressed and stared at his body in the mirror.
At the V-shaped void between his upper thighs.
You’re wrong, Navarrete.
My existence is rebellion.
He threw on a t-shirt and shorts, dug Valentine’s card out of his wallet. Slipped into the lab next to his room, bolted and sealed the door behind him—both mundanely and magically.
It was small, Ash’s private lab, but well-optimized for space. Alchemically lit, every wall floor-to-ceiling cabinets and shelves.
Ash opened a cabinet, removed a tray of flasks. Traced his fingertip over a tiny carved symbol on the back panel; waited for a flash of light to lick around said panel before jimmying it loose and setting it aside.
Behind that panel was another panel—this one made of metal.
Ash pressed his left palm against the metal surface; inhaled, exhaled to descend into inhibitory gnosis. Lightly tapped, with the fingers of his right hand, a specific sequential selection of the tattooed arrays on his left arm, each of which blazed scarlet at his touch, as did the channels that linked them—bright energy racing down his forearm toward his hand.
A burst of light from his palm.
The metal panel disintegrated into dust.
Ash thrust both hands into the compartment beyond, carefully lifted out a ponderous skin-bound text.
Lugged the tome to the lab bench, laid it flat with a whumph.
Placed Valentine’s card next to it.
Seeing the symbol on the forbidden book’s cover and the one drawn on the card side-by-side only confirmed what Ash had already known beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“Perfection is possible,” he whispered.
He closed his eyes, fluttered his fingers deftly over the part of his tattoo Valentine had so nearly touched—a motion like caressing the keys of a piano. The aurichalcum channels sizzled to life in response.
“Valentine,” Ash murmured, as a crystal rose, bedewed by byproduct oxidane, blossomed into being in his open palm. “Who the living fuck are you?”
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