Black Market (The Wizard Hall Chronicles Book 2) Page 11

  Two weeks!

  “You sure, elf?” Gibbs reached out to Bitherby and held him by the arms, lifting him off the ground.

  Annie and Cham exchanged glances.

  “Ye—yes.” The elf glanced at Annie, his lips downturned in fear.

  “The spells at all of the missing person locations. Did the master, this djinn, did he summon the shapeshifters to the market? Were they people when they entered or beast?” Gibbs asked. Annie had never heard his voice so anxious, high pitched, pissed.

  “Master, he made spell. He call them. They come as people, locked them as animals. But he can’t control them. They do what they want. Make mess all over.” Tears welled in Bitherby’s eyes. Since he was still held by Gibbs, he couldn’t wipe the tears away, so they landed on the floor.

  Noticing the elf’s tears, Gibbs placed him back on the floor. The elf ran to Annie.

  “It’s okay, Bitherby. We just didn’t see what happened. All the clues were there. We just didn’t see it.” Annie glared at Gibbs, who dropped down beside the elf.

  “Bitherby. Who was the man who died?” he asked.

  “Master call him Benaiah.” Bitherby offered no additional information about the victim. Instead, he pulled away from Annie. His short legs carried him to the dining room, where his small feet shuffled against the wood floors. He opened the refrigerator door.

  Gibbs followed him and said something in a low grumble that Annie couldn’t hear. With a squeak from the elf, he pattered back to the living room. Gibbs carried a bowl of fruit that was too large for the elf to handle. When Gibbs set the fruit down on the table, Bitherby’s little hands dug into the bowl. Sugary, liquid spilled around the sides and dripped on the table.

  Annie sighed.

  “A steak would be nice,” the elf said dryly. He shoveled a handful of strawberries into his small mouth. When he chewed, his mouth remained open, and bits of fruit fell out. Annie’s stomach lurched.

  After taking a large swallow, the elf returned to the fruit. Dirt from his hands mixed with the fruit juice, creating a sludgy mess that swirled in the bowl. Annie retched and held a hand over her mouth. Unable to watch any longer, she closed her eyes and sunk back into the chair. It didn’t erase the sloshing sound Bitherby made as he munched on his snack.

  Opening her eyes again didn’t help the queasiness in her stomach. Bitherby was a pig. He wiped his hands on his shirt, staining the already dirty clothing, then shuffled himself back onto the sofa. Gibbs stood beside the elf, who offered a shrug and sheepish grin.

  “Okay, elf. What happened to Benaiah? Was it a bad deal? Did he want more money?” Gibbs asked.

  “No! No! He never come back to market. Master sent him away, told him to come back with the ring. He never come back. Find him outside the market, dead.”

  “Fits the magical trace,” Gibbs said.

  “At least now we know someone wanted him dead before he could get back to market. So I’m definitely going after the original owner of the ring. Though the Wizard Guard can assume the shapeshifters are the missing witches and wizards and go after the djinn and Gladden.” Annie yawned, then grimaced from the pressure on her shoulder.

  “Annie, this is yours. Are you up for running the scenario?” Gibbs asked.

  She sat and pulled her thoughts away from the elf, who had somehow managed to destroy the living room in under thirty minutes.

  “Yeah. It’s easy enough. Gladden wants to run the market, so he conjures a genie to make it happen. There’s that pesky little backfire he wasn’t aware of, and he decides to get rid of the genie. But the genie doesn’t like that idea and contacts this Benaiah, who either had the ring or knew where it was. With the ring, the djinn thinks creating a shapeshifting army is his key to keeping control of the market. But he never got the ring, Benaiah was murdered before he could get it to him. So, Bitherby, when did the djinn contact Benaiah for the ring?”

  The elf, back on the sofa, swung his legs wildly. “Few days ago, ma’am.”

  “Benaiah had the ring, then. I get the feeling that the brooch he wore was a group symbol. The Middle East Wizard Guard is very interested in that brooch.”

  “He stole the ring from the group he belongs to? Why?” Cham asked.

  “Bad seed, disgruntled employee, money,” Gibbs grunted.

  Annie sighed. All they had was supposition but no proof, and they were no closer to knowing who killed Benaiah. She closed her eyes, ready for her bed and for sleep.

  “Assume none of the three of you are safe,” Cham said. “Especially you, Annie. They know you’re injured.”

  Annie cringed when Gibbs handed her a wooden spoon. She placed it in her mouth and bit down, finding the existing grooves she had created the last time she dislocated her shoulder. Gibbs released her arm from the sling. She grabbed Cham’s hand and squeezed.

  “You okay?” Gibbs asked.

  She nodded quickly and bit harder until her jaw ached.

  Gibbs held her elbow steady and rotated the shoulder. She flinched, and he stopped and waited as she took a deep breath.

  “Okay?” She closed her eyes and nodded. He supported her elbow, lifted up her arm, and rolled the joint into the socket.

  “Ahhh!” The pain took her breath away. Bitherby jumped and fell backwards.

  “Ignore the elf,” Cham said as he wiped away the tears she couldn’t stop from flowing down her cheeks. Gibbs massaged the muscles surrounding the joint. It was swollen, and the discomfort spread to the middle of her back. He placed her arm back in the sling, releasing the pressure on her shoulder.

  “You okay?” Gibbs asked again.

  “Yeah.”

  The elf hopped from the sofa, stepped in the fruit juice that dripped to the floor, and padded his way to the kitchen.

  “What the hell am I going to do with him?”

  “I’ll take care of this,” Gibbs offered and followed him. Annie heard Gibbs mumbling and grunting from the kitchen. When he returned, the elf was kicking his legs as Gibbs held him by the collar.

  “Let go of me!” Bitherby shouted. Gibbs dropped him on the sofa. He waved a hand across the floor, clearing the mess.

  “Drink this.” Gibbs held the last of the pain potion, which was mixed with an added sleeping draught to help Annie sleep through the night.

  Reluctantly, she held the glass in her hand, not eager to drink the bitter potion. “Before I’m knocked out for the night, I just wanted to know. Bitherby. Who planted the cattle prod?”

  Gibbs lost patience with her. “Not important. Drink it now!”

  “He kill me!” Bitherby squeaked.

  “Bitherby. You’re safe. I promise. Now, please tell me: Who hid the cattle prod?” She was impatient with the elf, and the pain was excruciating. The glass shook in her hand until she spilled some of the liquid on her dirty pants.

  “Annie!”

  “Gladden. Mr. Gladden. He put the pokey thing in the ground because Master made him get rid of the police.” Bitherby screeched. The sound of his voice vibrated across the room.

  Gibbs glared at her, so she chugged the last of the potion. It caught on her tongue. She clamped down on her lips, forcing the liquid down her throat. Bitherby laughed lightly and tapped his foot wildly.

  Instantly, warmth spread down her shoulders and through her fingertips. Her head felt heavy with fog.

  “Demons aren’t so bright. The cattle prod’s just a diversion, Annie. Probably to confuse the nonmagicals,” Cham said.

  “Yeah. It’s nuts.” Her heavy eyes closed on their own, and voices fell away into a distant background noise. She was trapped by wooziness; it felt as though she were listening to a conversation under the water.

  “I’m gonna take her upstairs.” Cham lifted her from the chair. She hung loosely in his arms and listened as a low, gruff voice spoke to a high-pitched scared voice—or maybe it was a dream.

  Chapter 9

  Sleep eluded Annie. Not because of Gibbs’s potion—he was a potion master and made them w
ell. She should have been off to a blissful sleep.

  She wasn’t. It was the rancid smell deep in her curls and on her clothes and now in her bed. Annie couldn’t escape the odor.

  More than that, she was uncomfortable; her left arm lay limply at her side, pulling on her shoulder. Rather than using Cham for support, she rolled to her back and placed a pillow over her stomach to stabilize her arm. As she shook the numbness from her hand and fingers, blood rushed back to her extremities and prickled her skin.

  Shadows moved across the room as the moon lowered in the sky. Realizing she wouldn’t get back to sleep, she gingerly sat up and waited for the bedroom to stop spiraling around her.

  When the world stopped spinning, she took a step on the wood floor, which felt cold under her bare feet.

  I really need a rug.

  Annie shuffled to the bathroom and switched on the light, which was blinding in the otherwise darkened room.

  The shower heated up quickly once she turned it on. Steam rose and covered the walls, the mirror, and the sink in her small bathroom. She swiped her palm across the mirror and stared at her frizzy hair that had grown in volume with the humidity from the shower. Streams of tears marked her dirty face.

  I wonder if Rebekah Stoner ever comes home looking like this.

  With a tired sigh, she plunged her foot into the shower. The water began to erase the stench of the market and warm her tired muscles. She shook in the scalding water, remembering the feel of the vampire’s ice-cold hand against her skin.

  Annie began to wash with her good hand, but it was difficult to reach her right side. I didn’t think this through.

  Too tired to laugh and too tired to control the tears that rolled down her cheek, Annie lowered her head to the tile wall and cried.

  Dirt slid off her skin, catching in the current of water and the textured grooves in the bottom of the tub. It swirled and spun until it was sucked into the sewer pipes.

  At least the first layer of market grime is gone.

  She shivered.

  The bathroom door swung on its original 1930s hinges and squeaked open. The shower curtain peeled back.

  “Need help?” Cham touched her good shoulder.

  “Sorry to wake you.” She wiped away tears and dirt as he slipped out of his clothes, joining Annie in the hot water.

  Cham soaped up her massive head of curls. Under the heavy spray of water, the soap glided off of her, and bubbles formed at her feet. Cham rubbed her back and neck, which were tender around her swollen shoulder.

  “Feel better?” He kissed her neck and ear before squeezing what felt like gallons of water from her thick, curly mane.

  Annie stifled a yawn. “A little.” She snuggled against his bare chest. The water beat against them.

  “I’m turning into a prune. You done?”

  Annie nodded peacefully. He helped her from the tub.

  Wrapped in a fluffy, warm towel, she sat on the toilet. The world began to spin again. Beyond the bathroom door, Zola, her Aloja fairy, floated around the bed changing the sheets. For millennia, Aloja fairies had been charged with protecting pregnant women and small children, making Zola’s species perfect as a nanny for rambunctious magical children. When Zola came to live with the Pearce family, she was magically bound to the family and would be long after a nanny was needed, unless that magical link was destroyed. In all of Annie’s haziness, she hadn’t wondered why Zola hadn’t felt her pain. That link should have alerted her.

  Now wrapped in an extra-large button-down shirt belonging to Cham, Annie let Cham lead her to her bed.

  Bed.

  As her head touched the pillow, she realized how tired she was.

  My hair smells like strawberries.

  Glass slapped against skin as Cham summoned a pain potion. Annie grimaced but took a swig from the vial. She shivered at the taste; the foul medicine slid down her throat, but the bitterness remained on her tongue.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded. The strong potion worked quickly; the world fell away, and Annie floated into the nothingness.

  *

  The constant barrage of restless kicks from Annie left Cham unable to sleep. Leaving her in bed, he snuck downstairs and headed to the kitchen cabinet where Annie kept items she wanted secured.

  The cabinet was locked with a magical blood lock, accessible with a drop of blood to only a small group. Cham, being one of the only people Annie trusted with the magic, pushed his index finger against a pin in the lower left corner, puncturing the skin and sending a drop of blood into the lock. His blood released the spring, and the door popped opened, revealing a most prized possession: her Book of Shadows. The tome detailed the magical experiences of the good wizards and witches who had owned it. Jason Pearce had received this book from his father, who had inherited it from his mother. It now belonged to Annie. Most of the time, the book had sat alone—until now. The Ring of Solomon, protected inside the plastic evidence bag, now lay on top of the book.

  Leaving the ring inside the cabinet, Cham heaved the book out and onto the kitchen table. The well-worn, ancient tome, covered in green leather, was four inches thick and filled with passages about everything from vampires and demons to cursed objects and good magical creatures. Some pages had been used so frequently that the edges were ripped and bent; others were not so well used and looked as though the passage had been written yesterday. Since Cham’s family had never had a member in the Wizard Guard, he found the Pearce’s Book of Shadows fascinating. Holding his palm above the book, he cast a spell and the pages flipped quickly.

  “I don’t think the Pearce family ever came in contact with that ring.”

  Cham jumped, disconnecting his searching spell and sending the pages to flop open at a random passage. Zola stood in the doorway between the back hall and the kitchen, staring at him with grayish-green eyes.

  She’s upset.

  Normally, Zola’s eyes sparkled a bright emerald green, filled with life and love, unless she were upset or angry or simply irritated. It didn’t help that her brow was furrowed deeply and her lips were pursed.

  She’s really upset. “Hi, Zo.” Cham said. He rested his hand over his heart as if that could calm the thumping. He should have heard her coming, but the Aloja fairy had floated across the floor. Not even her flapping wings left a sound.

  Zola’s nasty grimace left a heavy, unsettled feeling in the pit of Cham’s stomach. It was unfamiliar, ugly and dark across her face, and completely against her nature.

  “I didn’t figure as much,” Cham said, finally addressing Zola’s comment. “There’s nothing in here.” As Cham closed the book, his gaze matched hers; neither looked away.

  “She’s still restless.” A rough, icy chill hung in each word, laying the responsibility for Annie’s injury squarely on Cham, as if he had personally pulled her shoulder out of its socket. “Annie’s not safe with that ring here. I want it out of the house.”

  Zola’s protective stance, though understandable, caused Cham to shudder. “No one outside Wizard Hall knows she has it.” But as the words came out, Cham didn’t believe them either. It was a known fact that Annie was investigating the death of Benaiah outside the black market. Even without the ring, she wouldn’t be safe.

  “I’ll talk to her, and we’ll find a new location for the ring. You know I can’t get her to do what she doesn’t want to do.” Cham tried a smile, but Zola refused to warm to him.

  “Try harder. I know the market and those people who run it. They chased her out. They’ll find her.”

  “Zola. I will. I will protect her. Please don’t worry.”

  Zola’s eyes swirled and changed from green to black. She was no longer irritated—she was angry. Cham had seen her mad before, but he’d never seen anything like this in her.

  “I’m not convinced.” Zola turned. Her large fairy wings flapped wildly behind her.

  Keeping Annie safe meant gaining knowledge about the ring. But they also needed to know who else wanted the
ring. Pushing the book aside, Cham opened Annie’s field pack and pulled out The Book of King Solomon to peruse its pages.

  After skimming the passages, he finally found the snippet, one small paragraph pertaining to the ring that once belonged to King Solomon.

  Solomon possessed a ring of great power, one that allowed the king to control the djinn, the demons that roamed the land. With the ring, the king spoke to the demons, controlling them and bending them to his will.

  The Ring of Solomon was an amulet or talisman that possessed good magic and was engraved with the name of God. It was sent to the king directly from heaven.

  The ring was created out of brass and iron during Solomon’s reign between 970 and 931 BC and is recognizable by an engraved six-pointed star and four moldavite crystals that were used to seal documented commands.

  There’s nothing here!

  Cham leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes. The silence lured him to sleep.

  Bump… scratch… bump. Cham’s eyes popped open and darted around the room. He could hear Zola’s words echoing in his head.

  She’s not safe with the ring here.

  Bump… scratch… bump. The sound came from outside. Cham hid the Book of Shadows, closing the locked cabinet, and opened the back door, peering outside in the dark and searching for movement in the shadows.

  Bump… scratch… bump. Opening the screen, he listened again. The sound wafted up from below him. Stomping on the back porch, he knelt down and shone a flashlight between the cracks.

  When he saw the cause of the noise, Cham sighed. “Whatcha doing down there, Bitherby?”

  “Cold, sir.”

  “Keep quiet. I’ll be right back.” After summoning a sleeping bag and an extra blanket, Cham returned and tossed the items through access door beneath the deck. “Don’t wake the neighbors.”

  “Yes, sir.” The elf wrapped himself in the heavy blankets and hid in the corner.

  Cham gave the backyard one last look before heading inside.

  Chapter 10

  I’m walking on sunshine, whoa