Zombies Sold Separately

TWENTY-FIVE



“Just drive,” I said to the driver as I told myself to breathe.

Breathe, Nyx.

I sucked in a lungful of air and let it out. I had to get myself together. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be doing right now. And it was important, whatever it was.

Oh. The Sorcerer.

I glanced at my cell phone and saw that Adam and I had spent about an hour at lunch. The call I’d missed was from Olivia. I’d forgotten that the phone rang while Adam was … while Adam was breaking up with me.

I took another deep breath, trying to shift focus. The light blinked telling me I had a message and I saw that it was a text from Olivia:

Do you have the address for the meeting with the Sorcerer?

I’d forgotten. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten.

It was a quarter after two and Sun Lee hadn’t called with directions yet.

Just as I was about to dial her number, a call came through. I recognized it this time as the gallery.

When I answered, Sun Lee said, “My apologies, I only now received the address. Desmond was unavailable,” she said. “His loft is in the Gunther Building.” The southwest corner of Broome and Greene Streets in SoHo.

She gave me the apartment number and I thanked her before I told the cab driver where to go.

I clutched my purse to my chest, over my breaking heart. I tried to relax against the seat of the taxi but my muscles remained tense. I had a job to do and I needed to focus on that.

Not Adam.

We were almost there when I remembered I needed to tell Olivia. My brain just wasn’t cooperating with me right now.

Instead of sending her a text, I called and gave her the information. “Sorry,” I said. “Just got the address a few minutes ago.”

Olivia said she was on her way and would meet me there.

When the cab driver pulled up to the Gunther Building I tossed him a twenty, not caring that I’d just way overpaid him for the short drive.

It was a beautiful cast iron building, and I might have enjoyed looking at the architecture if I wasn’t so heartbroken.

I felt sick inside, a weighted awful feeling. I couldn’t stop seeing Adam’s face. Hearing his words.

When I stood in front of the elevators I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and focused on the meeting. This was too important to screw up. Lives counted on me gaining the assistance of the Sorcerer Desmond.

Now that it was time to meet him, I felt the weight of the stones in my purse. Not the physical weight, but a weight on a different level. As if just having them with me put pressure on my head and shoulders, pushing me down to the floor. When I got on the elevator and the doors closed behind me the pressure seemed to increase with every level we passed until we reached the top floor.

I found the apartment number of the loft and knocked on the door. It occurred to me then that I’d forgotten about waiting for Olivia, that I was supposed to go to the Sorcerer with her. Maybe as long as she showed up, it didn’t matter if we arrived at the same time or not.

A sound came from inside the loft, like someone was brushing up against the door to look out the peephole. I realized I was holding my breath, hoping the Sorcerer wouldn’t realize he had a paranorm on his doorstep and that something could be up, before I had a chance to talk with him. The Magi had said he wouldn’t be happy about being found. Her exact words were that he’d be angry.

Not promising.

The rattle of a chain lock, the sound of a bolt lock, and the twist of a lock on the door handle were loud in the stillness of the corridor as I waited. The door squeaked as it opened and Fae bells jangled.

Terrific. The door was warded and he’d know I wasn’t totally human the moment I stepped over the threshold.

I barely had time to think that over when I registered the Sorcerer himself. I’d been expecting someone older, maybe even someone with a few wrinkles and gray hair.

What I didn’t expect was a man who looked to be in his early forties with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and a day’s growth of stubble on his cheeks. He was startlingly good-looking and in incredibly good shape with a swimmer’s build. His naked chest had a slight sheen of sweat and his Levis fit him a little loose around the hips and thighs.

I’d never expected to find a hot Sorcerer.

His blue-gray eyes had a wild, excited, impatient look to them and he had a smudge of green paint on his cheek as well as on his bare chest.

“Desmond?” I said. “I’m Nicole Carter.”

“Hurry on then.” He gestured with his hand for me to come into the loft.

His fingers were stained brown and green and he held a paintbrush in his left hand. Behind him I saw a tall painting of a Siren in song. The Siren had a slight greenish tint to her skin like my friend Nadia had when she was in full song. The painting was so lifelike and looked so much like Nadia, gorgeous thick red hair and all.

Behind it were at least a dozen paintings lining the plain white walls, leaning up against the red couches, and any other available space in the somewhat sterile room. Mostly outdoor scenes with meadows, lakes, mountains, forests.

“I’m in the middle of a thought and I need to get back to my painting until the thought is on canvas.” His accent sounded Scottish yet not.

He turned away. “Allow me a few—”

The moment I followed him through the doorway the warding bells jangled like crazy. The door slammed behind me and I heard all three locks click or bolt into place.

Desmond whirled to face me, his hands raised. Green electrical currents sizzled and snapped from paint-stained fingertip to fingertip. His paintbrush hit the wood floor and rattled as it rolled away.

My heart pounded and I got ready to throw an air shield around me. I should have expected this.

His eyes looked wild and it passed through my mind that I might be facing a crazed being.

“What are you?” His words came out like he was gritting his teeth, as if holding onto his magic like trying to rein in a horse with a piece of ribbon.

“I’m Drow.” I kept very still as I spoke and clenched the strap of my purse. “My real name is Nyx Ciar.”

“Dark Elves cannot come out in the light. Yet my magic tells me you are speaking the truth.” Desmond looked incredulous. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Rather than go into details immediately, I just said, “The Magi sent me to find a Sorcerer named Desmond. So here I am.”

“The Magi?” The look of disbelief on his features was even stronger now. “Why would the Magi send Elves to me, much less one of the Dark Elves?”

A spark of anger stirred in me. Bigot.

I held back from gritting my own teeth. “I don’t know why the Magi think you can help us but that’s why I’m here.”

He narrowed his gaze. “What do you mean us?”

“My partner should be here any moment now.” I should have waited for Olivia. Although maybe not. She didn’t take well to being threatened, by magic or by any other means. “She’s human and her name is Olivia. We’re private investigators.”

The Sorcerer had backed up so that there was about five feet between us now. He hadn’t lowered his hands. “A human?”

“Yes.” I still hadn’t moved, afraid he’d shoot me with a little green bolt if I did. Maybe a big green bolt.

The electrical sizzle between his fingers went away. “Why not?” he said, gesturing with his hands while he spoke. “Why not send the whole damned city here?”

I relaxed a little. “I—”

A loud knock at the door cut me off and the Sorcerer raised his hands. Electricity crackled again. “Get out of my way.”

“Yes, sir,” I mumbled and moved aside from the door.

The Sorcerer flicked his fingers in the air and the locks undid themselves one at a time. He used his magic to open the door, staying a good ten feet away. His hands were in a ready position, but the electrical charge seemed to be in the “off” position.

The door swung open and Olivia stood in the hallway. A startled expression crossed her features, which surprised me. Very little caught Olivia off guard. The look vanished.

“You didn’t wait for me,” she said and took a step forward.

The warding bells went totally nuts. I would have chocked it up to the handgun holstered at her side underneath her Mets jacket, but there was something about the ferocity in the way the bells rang.

“No!” Desmond shouted.

The door slammed in Olivia’s face. Every one of the locks slid into place.

“What the hell?” Olivia pounded on the door. “Let me in,” came her muffled voice, “or I swear I’ll take this door down.”

Desmond whirled to face me. “You brought one of them here. To my sanctuary. What have you done?”

Stunned, I looked from the Sorcerer to the door and back. “What’s going on? That’s my partner, Olivia. She was an NYPD cop. She’s one of the good guys.”

“She’s evil.” Desmond said in a growl. “They got to your partner.”

“What?” I repeated, dumfounded.

“Twenty years I’ve been safe, then you show up at my door.” Desmond turned away and rushed to a closet, jerked the doors open. He yanked a Yankees sweatshirt over his head and slid on a pair of hiking boots, no socks. “We must get out of here before they come.” He pulled on a jacket but didn’t bother to zip it.

The Sorcerer grabbed a worn leather messenger bag from the closet floor and slung it across his body. “This place has been compromised.” He paused just long enough to glare at me and say, “Thanks to you and the Magi.”

I followed him as he jogged to a window. “I don’t understand.”

The lock flicked open on the windowsill and the window rose without him touching it. Cold air flooded the formerly warm room, making goose bumps pebble my skin.

Desmond paused to look at me as he stuck one leg through the window so that he was straddling the windowsill. “If you want to live, you’d better come with me.”

“Are you nuts?” I pointed back to the door. “That’s my partner and one of my best friends. She’s not some evil being sent here to destroy you, or whatever it is you think she’ll do.”

“They got to her.” Desmond’s gaze flicked to the door. I glanced at it, too, and I saw it shake from the force of the pounding against it. The Sorcerer looked back to me. “Her body is a Host now. It may appear it is her, but who she is no longer exists in this Otherworld.”

My head was nearly spinning with confusion.

A Sorcerer who I’d been sent to by the Magi was acting like a madman and he was trying to get me to climb out onto a fire escape several stories above concrete and asphalt.

My best friend was pounding on the door and yelling that she was going to break it down. She was only five-two but I wouldn’t put it past her level of abilities.

The Sorcerer had said Olivia’s body was a Host now. That person outside the door wasn’t really her. The warding bells had gone nuts the moment she tried to cross the threshold.

The Magi had said to bring her with me.

Was this why? To find out the truth about Olivia? She’d been late getting back from Christmas vacation and I hadn’t pushed her on the reason.

But she’d seemed so normal.

“Come on, now.” Desmond held out his hand, looking frantic and concerned all at one time. “This might be your and the Magi’s fault, but I can’t just leave you. Get out here. Hurry!”

The door exploded inward.

Wood scattered across the room.

A huge piece, the part with the doorknob and locks, flew at me.

I threw up an air shield just in time and the wood rebounded off the shield, straight back at Olivia who’d just bolted into the room.

The warding bells started jangling again, rising in the air instead of lying flat against the wall.

“Nyx!” Olivia ducked under the flying debris and ran toward me.

Desmond grabbed me by the back of my coat and yanked me hard, away from Olivia. He’d come back through the window to get me.

“What’s going on, Nyx?” Olivia looked genuinely confused, hurt even, as I stumbled back.

That wasn’t the way Olivia would normally act. No, she’d get pissed before she’d act hurt or confused.

He was right. This wasn’t really Olivia and we needed to get out of here.

I let Desmond grab my hand and draw me back. Before I could get to the window, Olivia lunged for my purse. Jerked me toward her when she tried to yank it out of my hand.

The stones. She wanted the stones.

Two males and one female ran into the loft, dodging jagged pieces of shattered wood jutting out from the doorframe. The warding bells jangled with such ferocity that I could barely hear.

“Sentients.” Desmond snarled from behind me and I heard the sizzle and crackle of his magic.

I tried to yank my purse away from Olivia but she was strong. As strong as the Sentients had been that Colin and I had fought off just last night.

I gathered my air magic and blasted it at her. Olivia gasped and tried to take a breath but my magic hit her too hard. She lost her grip and stumbled backward into the easel with the painting of the Siren.

The easel collapsed. Olivia’s feet tangled with the easel’s legs. She landed on top of the painting, her well-rounded rear end going right through the canvas.

My chest ached. Instinct to help my friend warred with the realization that it wasn’t really her.

And the Sentients—the Magi had said we couldn’t kill them or the Hosts.

I knew what I needed to do. Capture Olivia and the other Sentients, take them to the PTF detention center until we could figure out what was going on.

Olivia got to her feet.

The Sentients rushed toward me and Desmond.

I gathered my elements. Prepared to throw up a shield of protection until I figured out how to contain the Sentients and Olivia.

The room crackled with magic. Electricity snapped through the air, green currents bouncing from object to object.

My scalp prickled and hair rose on my arms. It was like being in the middle of a lightning storm, tension in the air gathering and gathering until I felt squeezed by it.

Desmond was going to fry the Sentients and Olivia with his magic.

My eyes widened as I shouted, “No—”

The power of the explosion of magic threw me back. My head hit the wall. My purse landed on the wood floor with a loud thump. Stars sparked behind my eyes.

I scrambled to my feet and came to a sudden stop. A cry of horror and disbelief rose up inside of me.

The three Sentients and Olivia were sprawled on the floor.

Dead.