The Black Masquerade Page 3

  “Okay. I’ll let you know.”

  We ended the call, and I relayed the conversation to Chief.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Let’s go check in and head to security. Might as well be on the other side.”

  Nicole called back five minutes later. “I didn’t end up needing Jacob’s help—the sphere got all of the information for me.”

  The sphere was a magical representation of the forest. It had been a reward for what she’d done to protect the forest while it was under attack.

  Nicole was still talking. “No one is able to pin down the effigy’s exact location, but I did find out the country where it is. It turns out I don’t need more info than that, however, because I also asked the current guardian of Shonlin and he gave me a really great suggestion. I’ll fill you in when you get here. I took the liberty of buying you a ticket to come see me right now. Your flight leaves in forty-five minutes. We were lucky—it was the last one available tonight.”

  “Okay.” I glanced at Chief, not sure what to do about him. I didn’t want to tell Nicole I had company and make her feel guilty for not buying him a ticket as well. Instead, I promised I’d see her soon, and we hung up.

  “Sorry, Chief. She got me the last ticket, and the flight leaves in forty-five minutes.”

  “I trust your friend,” Chief said. “You just make sure someone is with you when you return.” He raised an eyebrow at me, then chuckled. “I know you well enough to realize you’re not going to do that.”

  “In my defense, who would I ask? I don’t know anyone in Montana, other than Nicole, and I’m not about to make her fly back with me. Not when she’s pregnant.”

  “I’ll see if I can get one of my officers to meet you in Montana and escort you home.”

  “That’s not necessary, Chief.”

  “I know. You can take care of yourself. But I’d feel better anyway.”

  I folded my arms and leaned against the wall behind me. When Nicole had called, we’d paused near the check-in stations. I couldn’t afford to miss my flight—literally—but I wanted to make sure Chief and I were on the same page. “You’re going to do it even if I tell you not to, aren’t you?”

  “Lizzie, you’re like a granddaughter to me. You know that. I’m not about to let you do this without a little help from me. Who knows where those beasts are hanging out, waiting for you to be alone.”

  “You know I’ve actually been hired to kill them, right? And the prophecy says I’ll kill them. Not someone else, with my help, but me. I’m going to have to do it either way.”

  Chief glanced up at the departing flights and back before giving me a quick hug. “You’d better hurry now.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice you ignoring my comment.”

  He only smiled. “See you back home.”

  “Thank you—for everything.” As much as I protested, I really did appreciate him. He was such a wonderful person. I gave him another hug, then hurried through security.

  They were doing final boarding when I arrived at the gate. I settled into my seat, trying to relax. The flight was several hours long. Hopefully, I’d be able to sleep for at least some of it.

  Chapter 6

  Nicole was waiting at the airport when I got there. The drive to her place was fun—we spent the time getting caught up on family, in-laws, and old friends. Nicole was pregnant and due . . . any month now. I was ashamed to admit I didn’t actually know when her due date was.

  I asked, and she said, “December. We find out if we’re having a boy or girl at my appointment in three weeks.”

  “I hope it’s a girl.”

  Nicole glanced at me. “So does Austin. It totally surprised me. He wants our first to be a girl and all the rest to be boys.” She chuckled. “I think he’d prefer all boys but doesn’t want me to get lonely.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “Make sure you’ve got someone on your team first.”

  After we’d gotten caught up, Nicole filled me in on what she’d learned about the effigy.

  “It’s somewhere in China right now. As I said earlier, the exact location doesn’t matter. What you’ll be doing is flying to Hong Kong and gradually heading to England, taking flights as short as possible between Hong Kong and Norwich International Airport. The effigy will follow. I’ve got your tickets purchased. You’ll be flying all over the Asian continent, even using small airplanes where necessary to make sure you don’t lose track of the effigy.”

  “How am I going to get the effigy to follow me?”

  “A magical potion. Once we put some of your blood into it, the effigy will be drawn to you.” She looked at me, a concerned expression on her face. “Unfortunately, the hounds will be drawn to you as well. Luckily, they can’t reach you in an airplane—the lack of corners makes it impossible to travel to you—but that doesn’t take airports out of the equation. I tried to make your flights a little erratic so they couldn’t logically predict where you’d be going. And the effigy will be pulling them as well. But make sure you’re never in a room that’s not crowded.

  “Once you get to England, you won’t have the protections I’ve created. You’ll have to return the effigy and get out of that manor as soon as you possibly can. The hounds will be confused by your location when the effigy draws near. I’m hoping that confusion will be strong enough to keep them from finding you.”

  “Boy, this is going to be exciting,” I said.

  She reached over and patted my hand. “I know. You’ll be fine, though.”

  “That’s the hope, anyway.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t going to say it.”

  She smiled at me, and I returned the grin. My heart settled a bit. It felt good to be with my best friend again.

  “Your hair is silver now,” I said, reaching over and fingering her gray strands.

  “Took long enough,” she said. “I didn’t want to buzz it all off. Austin’s mom and I got creative with highlighting and dye jobs until everything had switched completely to silver.”

  An Arete’s hair, when he or she mastered all of the elements, turned silver. It was a mark of honor that I would never receive. I’d really struggled with that in college, but had come to grips with it and eventually accepted it. And now I wouldn’t give up my job for all the gray hair in the world. Most Fire Impeders didn’t master the other elements—there was no reason, and it would sometimes actually set them back. Access to too much power gets in the way of the very fine and small tasks Impeders do.

  We arrived at her house and sat at the kitchen table, where she had a bunch of sharp objects laid out.

  “Only a drop is needed,” Nicole said. “We’ll start with the most conservative approach first. I didn’t really want to go the movie route—slice your palm open and get blood all over everything.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Nicole chuckled. “I suspect that even in movies, only a drop of blood would be necessary. But they have to go for the dramatic.”

  She picked up a device that diabetics use when checking their blood-sugar levels. “The needles in these are very small—smaller than sewing needles. And they always get one drop of blood out of my mother-in-law, so let’s try it first. It’s the least painful of all the options.”

  I nodded, holding my hand out. She pushed the little device against my arm instead and glanced at me.

  “Ready?”

  “Don’t you need my fingertip?”

  She shook her head. “This kind uses the arm. It’s less painful.”

  I appreciated that. The pricks on my hand from the door at Mount Koven were mostly healed up, but they still hurt. No sense adding to them or giving me a wound on the other hand.

  Nicole pushed the button, and the needle pricked my arm. With her help, I squeezed a drop from the little wound, and positioned my arm over the vial. We watched in fascination as my blood dripped into the milk-colored liquid already there. The whitish stuff turned red and began sparkling.

  “Cool,” Nicole said. “I
wasn’t expecting that.”

  “How does it work?” I asked.

  “You’ll put some of it on you and then on the outside of every single plane you take. The potion causes the effigy to be drawn to that drop of your blood. Make sure only to use a little on each plane—one dab is all it takes. And then dump the rest of it out at the manor and leave the vial there. You’ll then have about thirty-six hours to get as far away from the manor as possible. That’s how long it’ll take to wear off. After that, you’ll have a buffer as the hounds reorient themselves to following the real you and not the effigy. I don’t know how much additional time that’ll give you.”

  “Should I head to my house after I’m done with the effigy?”

  “Yes. Alexander’s things are still working, right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Good. You should be fine there.”

  I chewed the inside of my lip, watching as Nicole put the stopper back on the bottle and handed it to me.

  “How am I ever going to pay you back for all this?” I asked, pocketing the vial and helping her put the other sharp objects away. I didn’t want to think about how much she’d already spent on airfare.

  “Don’t worry about it. In fact, I’m going to be wiring some money to your bank just to help cover the cost of everything you’re doing.”

  I shook my head. “No way. You’ve got your own expenses to take care of.”

  Nicole raised her eyebrow at me, filling a glass of water and handing it to me. “How much are they paying you to hunt down these hounds?”

  I didn’t have to respond. She already knew the answer.

  “And how many lives are you going to be saving just by getting rid of them? They’ve been preoccupied with the effigy. If they kill you, do you think they’ll suddenly start living responsible, loving lives?”

  “I won’t let them destroy me.” I drained the glass, setting it on the counter next to me.

  Nicole snorted. “Pardon my skepticism, but if you’re completely strapped, it won’t matter how hard you try. Bad things happen when you have no way to cover the basics. I want you to be able to focus on hunting these hounds and not on paying your mortgage every month or even figuring out exactly how to pay to hunt the hounds.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Just how much are you expecting to give me?” Knowing Nicole, it would be an absurd amount.

  “Just five or six million.” She raised her hands. “Before you tell me that’s too much, how easy do you think it’s going to be to hunt and kill these hounds? There are hundreds of them—I fought them, remember? It’s going to be a long, drawn-out process.”

  My mouth was still hanging open from the dollar amount she wanted to give me. “Nicole, my mortgage is only seven hundred a month. I do not need five million, let alone six!”

  “Four million, then.” Nicole led the way to the couches in the living room.

  I sank into the plush leather next to her. “If I need money—if—there’s no way I’d accept over a hundred thousand. Maybe two hundred.”

  Nicole folded her arms, one eyebrow quirked. “And just how far is one hundred thousand going to get you? Those plane tickets cost me fifty thousand dollars, Lizzie. I’m not telling you so you feel guilty—I’m telling you so you see reason. One hundred thousand would only last you—” She messed around with her phone before glancing back at me. “—forty minutes. It took me twenty to find your flights. Granted, my history with family vacations and flying all over gives me more experience with cities and airports, and it would possibly take you more time to pull something like that off, but still. One hundred thousand dollars is not going to be enough.”

  “I did say maybe two hundred.”

  Nicole glared at me with her arms folded again, a stubborn expression on her face.

  Chapter 7

  I shook my head. “I’m not accepting more than five hundred thousand.”

  Nicole threw her hands up, exasperated. “I married into money, Lizzie, and you know exactly how much I have left over from my inheritance. I won’t even notice a few million gone. What do you think I’ve been doing with that money over the past several years? It’s just sitting in the bank, gathering dust.”

  “Actually, it’s probably gathering interest.”

  My attempt at a joke only made my argument weaker, and I recognized that immediately. Crap.

  Nicole obviously sensed a victory. “Then take the interest I’ve been gathering.”

  “Fine!” I said in frustration. “One million. And not a penny more.”

  Her argument had been sound, though. How far would even that much take me? Not as far as I’d dreamed and imagined all growing up. Nicole had been the one from a wealthy family, not me. Mine was as average American as you could get, and a million dollars had felt so incredibly out of reach.

  Nicole gave me an expression of triumph. “It’s already in your bank.”

  My mouth dropped. She’d been planning on giving me one million from the start! “You tricked me!”

  “I couldn’t help it. I know how your brain works.” She handed me a folded piece of paper. “Here’s your receipt. I made arrangements this morning while waiting for your flight to land. And no, I didn’t take out money for the airplane tickets I just bought. Those are on me. Happy birthday, Merry Christmas, and happy anniversary.”

  I scoffed at her. “I’m not married, Nicole.”

  She ignored the sarcasm in my voice. “But you will be soon, right?” The look in her eyes let me know she was teasing.

  “Hardly.” I was still miffed that she’d bested me.

  “How are things going with men, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “I still haven’t seen Abel. He said he had to take care of a few things.”

  “And Detective Cole?”

  I leaned against the couch, resting my head on the back. “Haven’t heard much from him either.”

  Nicole chuckled, pulling her legs up underneath her. “This is a new experience for you. Getting ignored by men? Whatever is Lizzie going to do about that?”

  I playfully whacked her shoulder with a pillow. “Stop that. It’s not a rare occurrence, you know.”

  “Yes, it is. Maybe not over the last couple of years, but definitely all growing up. Junior high. High school. College.”

  “Believe me, I much prefer life the way it is now.”

  “Single? Alone?”

  I sighed, letting the stress and joking leave my system. This was a conversation I needed to have right now with my best friend. “Yes, I’m lonely. But you already know how I feel about the loneliness that comes while dating the wrong person. I did enough of that in college. I can’t repeat the mistakes I made back then.”

  A worried expression crossed Nicole’s face. “Do you ever think about him anymore?”

  I knew immediately who she was referring to. “Sometimes. Not often.” And I was grateful to find that was true.

  I’d been engaged during my specialty training school after college to a man who had died in a freak classroom experiment. Six years had passed, and I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since.

  “You seem to be more at peace now than last time I saw you.”

  I gave her a smile. “Probably because last time I’d just watched a dog mangle a man to death.”

  Nicole chuckled. “Good point. Still, you’re in a better place than before.”

  “I am. I’m much more careful with my heart now. I don’t jump into relationships anymore—I take all the time I need to know what I want. And Detective Cole and Abel are both good men.”

  I glanced at Nicole, trying to figure out how to say what was on my mind. “Detective Cole is kind, warm, and sensitive, but clueless about my life and what it’s like to be an Arete.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t want that to stop me, but our backgrounds and cultures are so different. Possibly too different for us to be happy together. I mean, he wants a wife who will settle down and raise kids. And I want that too. But Fire Impeders are so incr
edibly rare, and if I stop, there’s no one else who can do my job.

  “And not only that, but I’m obligated to do what I’ve been asked to do—that prophecy was very explicit. If I don’t do this, no one can. The hounds will continue growing in strength and feasting on knowledge and the people who possess it.”

  I slumped in the couch, staring at the wall opposite me. “Can you tell how conflicted I am? At first, it was nice to feel needed, important. But now, I feel like my life and my options have been stolen from me.”

  Nicole put her hand on my arm. “You’ve got too much lying on your shoulders. Too much responsibility and power. I know how that is.”

  I nodded. Nicole had married up, magically speaking. Austin had always been far, far more powerful, but she’d been the one chosen to accomplish things well beyond the reach of an average Arete. She’d saved hundreds of thousands of people. Not once, but twice. And even apart from all that, the event several years ago had left her with magic that didn’t have a threshold. She’d had to learn to control so many aspects of her life before she’d been able to relax and start a family.

  “It’s a lot easier when you marry someone who shares your beliefs and abilities.” Nicole looked at me. “Happiness can be found anywhere. I truly believe that, no matter how different you are from each other. But marriage is hard enough as it is when you do have everything in common.”

  She didn’t say what she was insinuating, but I knew nonetheless. “But Abel . . . He’s so abrupt, so impossible to predict. I don’t know if I can handle his level of intensity.”

  “He’s toned down, though, hasn’t he?” Nicole rushed to continue. “I’m not trying to convince you to date him—heaven knows he’s off-kilter and unpredictable. But there’s still plenty of time for him to even out. And for Cole to learn more about you.”

  I nodded. I knew she wouldn’t try to push me toward one man or the other, and I appreciated that.

  “I wonder what Abel’s going to be like when he comes back,” Nicole said. “That much power in one person—is there anything he won’t be able to do?”