Black Market (The Wizard Hall Chronicles Book 2) Page 9

  Hidden from the rest of the market were the minor creatures, the elves and trolls that worked behind the scenes. These creatures weren’t fond of humans investigating their space, but mostly they didn’t like humans at all. But Annie and Gibbs made an assumption that one of these creatures might be willing to talk, to trade information for security and safety away from the market. Annie could offer them that; she hoped it would be enough for one of them.

  The busiest merchants, selling the most requested items had booths close to what was known as Market Center, a large square in the direct middle of the market. Aisles farther from the center saw less foot traffic, and fewer animals roamed through the booths, but more illegal or deadly objects and animals were for sale here. It was generally quieter, and their presence was more noticeable.

  The black market was tough, filled with evil wizards, demons, vampires, exchanged goods, and creatures. It was dangerous and dirty, and those that came here for whatever reason did so at their own risk. There was always action; even in the perimeter aisle that circled the market, booths were sparse, with several empty, or broken or missing their canvas coverings. That was a normal day. Today, these booths were deserted; the merchants that sold here had left or were chased away. The only items left were scraps of paper, empty boxes, or a miscellaneous item. Annie and Gibbs continued to the incinerators.

  “Gibbs?” Annie murmured. “What the hell happened?”

  Gibbs glanced through the stalls, his eyes darting across the nearly empty passage. “A lot of ’em are gone.” He seemed as confused as Annie was by the empty aisle and the abandoned stalls.

  “The Ring of Solomon plus a death outside the market might have sparked this,” he said.

  Though animals roamed free in the market, they were of the magical kind—billdads, otter-like creatures with beaver tails, dragons, stoorworms, magical snakes—but in all the time Annie had come here, she had never seen domesticated pets wandering the aisles. A large shaggy dog ate from a garbage can at the end of the aisle while a cat scampered across the top of tents and jumped across the aisle to land on another garbage can, slinking away upon spying Annie and Gibbs. A pack of snakes slithered under a table, and the last of the group swished its tail behind it as the canvas fluttered.

  A short-haired black lab sauntered over, stopped, and sniffed Annie’s shoes. She held out her hand, expecting the dog to take a whiff, but it sat in the dirt and pawed at her as if trying to get her attention. It started to whine.

  She rubbed the dog behind its ear. “Good doggie. I’m sorry. I have no food for you,” she said. As if the dog understood her, it stopped pawing her hand and gave her a snarky look before traipsing back to the empty stall. It barked repeatedly as they walked away.

  “Okay. Was that weird?” Annie asked.

  “Yeah. We’ll ponder that later. Come on,” Gibbs ordered.

  The portal, the snow, the large contingent of domesticated animals overrunning the market.

  How does the ring fit into this?

  The incinerators doors were wide open, and the unassuming sign beside the entrance read: No Admittance, Enter at Your Own Risk.

  Elves and trolls, keenly adept at working in the shadows and hiding from the business that took place in the market, were busy at the incinerators, which were large metal tubes four feet high with an elbow bend into which they tossed in biologicals. When the garbage or the dung hit the fire, it sizzled. Rancid smoke puffed from the tubes and rose into the air, adding to the already thick haze over the market.

  Four rows of ten incinerators filled the large space. Each three-foot-wide hole was manned by two creatures. The work was hot and dirty. The stench and heat of it permeated every pore and seeped into Annie and Gibbs’s clothes and hair as they entered.

  Elves and trolls were short creatures, no taller than four feet five inches, and most wore child-sized clothing. All of them were covered in dirt and soot from the work. Their tiny bodies hoisted heavy bags or shovels full of sludge and tossed them down the chutes.

  In comparison to the elves and trolls, Annie stood at five feet two inches and was for the moment taller than them. Gibbs towered above all of them at five feet eleven. The creatures noticed them immediately. Most scattered, hiding in the many recesses behind tubes and garbage cans or clinging to the half-wall separating two sides. Each of them poked a head out from behind their hiding spot, keeping a close eye on the humans.

  Gibbs separated from Annie a few rows ahead to observe and listen while she grabbed a bag of garbage and walked to a group of elves working together to shovel a large pile of dung into one of the tubes.

  After Annie dumped the sack of garbage into the incinerator, it banged into the metal chute, tumbling with several thuds before landing in the fire. Whatever was in the bag sizzled. The choking black smoke rose and settled in her already frizzed hair. She coughed and wiped away sweat from her forehead as she eavesdropped on the conversation between two elves who continued shoveling up the muck.

  “Master… Gladden… magic,” was all Annie could make out over the roaring fires.

  What does that mean?

  Her presence was obvious. The elves glared at her, their eyes crinkled with distrust. They took their conversation down a few incinerators, beginning their work again.

  “You can’t be back here!” A squeal wafted to her from an elf half her height. “Ma’am,” he added with a bow. Loose skin around his neck wobbled when he stood.

  “The ma’am isn’t necessary. You don’t work for me,” Annie said.

  His wary, frightened eyes darted across the space to the door of the incinerators and back to Annie. “Ma’am. You need to leave.” The elf spoke in a near whisper. Annie had to bend low to hear him and meet his eyes.

  “I will if you tell me who killed the wizard and left his body outside the portal.”

  The elf shook his head repeatedly. “You need to leave,” he whispered.

  He quivered; his children’s clothing, a sailor top and brown pants, rustled against his body. He backed away from Annie and raced for the large garbage heap. With bare hands, he grabbed a fist full of muck and threw it down the tube. His sideways glance was fearful, his actions angry. Annie was gravely aware they overstepped the boundaries.

  “You knew that was coming,” Gibbs snorted, walking up to her.

  “Eh, you never know. Maybe Perkins has a hit on the magical trace or Bucky has a name.”

  The elf busied himself in the sludge, glowering when he looked at her.

  But he came to me! Taking that as a sign that he had something to say, Annie rushed forward and shoved her card into his pocket. “Whatever you or anyone else knows will be helpful. I promise I can keep you safe.”

  Since they were clearly not wanted at the incinerators, Gibbs and Annie slipped back through the doors, integrating themselves back into the market. She dropped a scarf into the waste can and walked down the first aisle, grimacing after taking a whiff of the odor radiating from her hair.

  The stench was so strong that the stall owner just outside the incinerators scowled, before heading inside his tent.

  “So the creatures won’t talk. Any of your contacts you want to hit up?” Annie asked Gibbs. After working in the market for years, the Wizard Guard had gained some confidences they tapped when necessary. It had to make sense, and a contact could not be overused; it could mean trouble for the stall owner if they were known to squeal to the Wizard Guard.

  “Got one,” Gibbs said.

  Annie sighed in relief. She preferred to not use her contact, Joseph—a man she had met eight months ago. He was already an outsider, and she feared another visit from her would put him in danger. The rest of her contacts seemed too low level to be of any use. She followed Gibbs to his.

  They inched their way around the perimeter, taking an angled aisle toward the center. The layout of the market resembled a wheel with spokes. The perimeter aisle was dissected by two perpendicular passageways, one heading east to west and the other headi
ng north to south, both meeting at the market center.

  Annie and Gibbs cut down a smaller cross-corridor, one of the ones that dissected the market into eight large triangles much like a sliced pizza. With more traffic near the center, a traffic jam of wizards, witches, creatures, and domesticated animals stopped their trek.

  Gibbs’s contact was named Arrowhead, a man with disdain for both the Wizard Guard and the black market, who only conducted his business here for the general seediness and for the access to others like him.

  Arrowhead calmly negotiated and assisted customers. Though he was shorter than Gibbs, he was in all other ways a replica of the older wizard guard—long, stringy hair, tight leather pants, and a sleeveless black vest. Normally, Annie found the similarities funny. Tonight, the air was filled with tension.

  Annie and Gibbs were pushed by the flow of the crowd. Gibbs caught his contact’s glance, but the stall keeper shook his head vehemently, his eyes widened in what appeared to be fear. He dropped his conversation mid-negotiation with a customer and entered his tent.

  “Something’s going on,” Gibbs grunted.

  A hushed quiet immediately covered the market; owners and patrons had witnessed the nonverbal exchange between Gibbs and Arrowhead. The crowd glanced anxiously as Annie and Gibbs passed. Some retreated to their tents while others pretended to be engrossed in the wares in front of them, all desperate to ignore them.

  “They know,” Gibbs said.

  They knew the Wizard Guard was investigating the murder outside the market and had been in the incinerators asking questions. Under normal circumstances their presence wouldn’t upset the balance in any way, even with patrons and owners obstructing the investigation.

  This was something else.

  This was fear.

  A ragged witch, hunched and wrinkled with long white hair spilling from her hooded cloak, stopped haggling over price and observed them. Her blue eyes widened with surprise; there was no fear in her ancient face. She bent closer to the shopkeeper, whispered, and pointed with gnarled hands. A smile spread across her face.

  “We’ve been outed,” Gibbs whispered and grabbed Annie by the arm, maneuvering them through the crowd and bypassing Arrowhead’s tent.

  “Yeah, probably that merchant outside the incinerators,” Annie said as they crossed into a perpendicular junction of two aisles.

  “Get them!” a disembodied voice shouted from the crowd. The mob froze but after a moment their collective gaze found Annie and Gibbs, who didn’t look back or wait for the crowd to honor the request.

  Gibbs tugged at Annie’s arm, and she flew after him.

  The crowd squeezed all available running room from their path, jamming their bodies together so tightly that Gibbs could barely hold onto Annie’s wrist. They pushed against the eager crowd. A large hairy arm reached out for Annie. It belonged to a cyclops, who yanked on her.

  “Gibbs!” Her shout was drowned out by the cheers and jeers of the crowd, but Gibbs felt the tug on Annie and slammed the cyclops with a jinx. The yellow, hairy arm shook and dropped her arm. Its owner grunted loudly as Gibbs pulled Annie away.

  Footsteps stampeded against the hard ground. Voices protested, criticized, and complained as the wizards were manhandled by their pursers. The squeaky, high-pitched cries belonging to the elves and the deep, low grunts of the trolls wafted toward them. They were being tossed aside without much thought.

  Annie pushed her panic away, keeping her eyes just beyond the end of the aisle, thinking of only making it to the portal and teleporting home. Gibbs wrenched her into the thickest part of the crowd, which swallowed them. The thing that hindered their escape now also hid them from those tracking them.

  Annie’s elbows flew through the horde of wizards and demons as she was jostled by the crowd. Gibbs lost his grasp on her arm as they got sucked into the flow of the crowd. After a split second of chaos, Annie no longer saw Gibbs.

  Pushing through the jam, she shoved a demon into the wizard next to him. The wizard sailed across a table into the booth owner, and both men glowered at her. Ignoring them and the dread she felt inside, Annie ran.

  The crowd was nothing but a blur of faces, Gibbs was nowhere in sight. Shouts closed in on her and she glanced behind her. Two tall, gangly vampires searched the crowd and spotted her.

  Damn it!

  She pushed against a demon and ran. After a moment she spotted Gibbs in the junction between two alleyways. The path was tight and unyielding, and Annie couldn’t push through the crowd. Dizzy from the heat and stench, from the push and pull of the crowd, she chanced a teleport to Gibbs. Rather than feeling the freedom of floating through space, she felt a tug on her leg. She was dragged back toward the jam-packed aisle and crashed against the vampire who had pulled her down.

  An excited din hovered above her. Evil wizards, monsters, and creatures surrounded her. Instinct and adrenaline coursed through her as she pushed herself from the demon. The momentum against the smooth, dry dirt caused her boot to slip, and the vampire grabbed her shoe with icy hands. Annie shivered.

  “Gibbs!” she screamed. He couldn’t hear her through the suffocating horde’s jeers and taunts.

  With her free foot, Annie kicked the vampire in the nose until she felt cartilage crack. He grunted, yet still his chilled clutch tightened around her ankle.

  Frantically, she twisted her body away from him, waving her arms. She swiped at anything within her reach and toppled a wizard standing above her. Thrown off balance, he flailed his arms and fell on top of the vampire, who growled. Fangs extended, the vampire dropped his grip on Annie’s leg to throw the wizard from him.

  Annie scurried away. “Gibbs!” Her panicked voice was no match for the ruckus that enveloped her. “Gibbs!” She knew she was lost. Anxiety crept from her stomach to her throat. She teleported, but those cold, long fingers reached her again, wrapped around her left shoulder, and spun her around. She threw a stiff arm, pushing against the vampire. He grabbed her wrist and pulled.

  “Ahhhhh!” The pain was immediate, radiating from her shoulder to her wrist; it took her breath away. Annie felt hot and lightheaded. It was all she could do to keep from passing out from the shooting agony in her newly dislocated shoulder. Realizing she was injured, the vampire yanked on her the weakened arm and dragged her down the aisle. Too weak to hold him off, she cast a jinx with her good hand. The spell hit the vampire in the kidney. He jerked, she jerked. The vampire sneered and wrenched her arm again.

  “Ugghh!” Tears rolled down Annie cheeks. She was ashamed to show weakness in the middle of the market, but her shoulder burned. Afraid she might lose her dinner, she pursed her lips. As she blinked rapidly, she saw faces sneering and staring at the vampire attack. She conjured a vial of holy water and heaved it on the demon. It shattered against his taut body, bursting in a thousand shards of glass. Liquid spattered against him and soaked his shirt. White smoke billowed in the air, and the stench of burnt skin wafted to her.

  The vampire let go of Annie’s wrist, and she ran, her arm hanging limply at her side. As she passed the crowd, she stumbled into Gibbs, who in one swift motion reached around her waist and teleported them from the crowd. Again, Annie felt the pull on her leg.

  The vampire jumped the teleport!

  But this tug didn’t hinder their escape. Whoever it was, wrapped themselves around her, and they floated through time and space to the portal. Annie nearly passed out as Gibbs opened the entrance, pulled them through, and teleported them home.

  Chapter 8

  Gibbs landed on Annie’s back porch, and the extra weight attached to her leg released itself.

  “Oooof.” A small body rolled from the deck and down three stairs, landing in a patch of grass in the back yard.

  “Look what I brought back from market.” Annie winced. Taking in a breath, expanding her lungs, and clenching her muscles was agony. As her left side radiated with pain, she slunk against the back wall of her house to hold herself up.

  The elf lay
face down in the brown grass; his small body rose and fell, and he shuddered with difficult breaths.

  He’s alive. “Gibbs,” she whispered through a wave of nausea. “Is he okay?”

  “It’s not your friend,” Gibbs said and gently lifted the injured creature into the house, setting him on the sofa. “Can you make it inside?” he called out.

  “Yeah. I’m good.”

  Annie stumbled through the hallway and took a seat in the club chair, laying her head against the high back. As she closed her eyes, a rush of heat filled her body, bringing lightheadedness with it.

  “You okay, Annie?”

  “Just help the elf.” She heard leather squeak and fabric rustle.

  “He’s been hit.” Gibbs said as he pulled on the hole in the elf’s brown pants. The edges were singed; smoke rose from his leg where a jinx had burned a hole through the fabric and onto a large patch of the creature’s skin, leaving it blistered raw. “I’m calling your boy,” Gibbs said.

  After a short phone conversation between Gibbs and Cham, Annie heard cabinet doors flying open and slamming shut. Her cauldron squeaked as Gibbs dragged it across the countertop. Water sloshed against its heavy iron sides, which banged against the top of the stove as Gibbs set the water to boil to for the pain potion.

  Annie adjusted herself in the chair. Her attempt to ease the pain and make herself comfortable was in vain; her fingers still radiated some pain.

  The elf’s labored breath rattled his small chest, and a groan escaped his swollen bloody lips. He had been beaten; Annie could see the remnants in the bruises that dotted his face. She looked past the bloated face. Gibbs was correct: it wasn’t the elf she’d met in the market. The clothes were different and so was the face. This elf had a higher forehead, a smaller nose. His tiny little body shuddered and shook with pain.