Page 18 of Elixir of Strife
“Well, my being is doing just fine, Tina. Thanks for your concern. Seriously, I appreciate it. There was one thing she wanted from me, though. She wants me to steal something from my client. The exact client Leon and I are working for right now.”
Johnny grimaced. “You’re not gonna do it, are you?”
“Of course not.” I tugged on my jacket, frowning. “I’m offended you’d even think that. And for Divina, of all people?”
“I’d caution you to be on your guard.” Tina glanced to either side, as if double-checking the door and the window. “You know how Divina acts when she doesn’t get what she wants. Next step is to ask Daddy to do it for her.”
“Fuck, oh fuck, you’re so right.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “I wonder if I should warn the people at Succulence.”
How Divina even knew the evil olive existed was anyone’s guess. But most anyone would talk when presented with the right kind of money.
Johnny patted me on the arm. “Keep it quiet for now. No sense scaring your client if nothing’s gone awry just yet. If this Divina person is as nasty you described, she won’t go down quietly. You’ll know if you need to play bodyguard.”
“Excellent point.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around, Johnny.”
He swatted my hand off, then beckoned for both me and Tina to help him finish that damn playlist. I lingered for a couple more minutes, at least until the two of them started passionately arguing about whether the playlist really needed another eight-minute Indian drum solo.
I headed to the kitchen and packed up the garbage, pretty much full and almost overflowing, wanting to make myself useful. I gave Leon a quick, playful peck on the cheek, which was met with a wrinkled nose and a confused “Why are you so stinky, Max?”
Roscoe laughed and called out after me. “You’re a sweetheart, Maxy. Thanks for taking out the garbage. I wonder how you managed to fit Johnny in there.”
I shook my head and chuckled, waving over my shoulder as I exited through the back of the café. Good thing the place was empty, I wouldn’t have to negotiate around any poor customers. I hucked the bag into the dumpster, relishing the satisfying clang as it hit the bottom, then turned to re-enter the café.
A man stood in the way. A man wearing a white mask.
“Oh, great.” I crossed my arms and cocked an eyebrow. “This again.”
The nameless Masque blinked, then offered me his too-perfect smile. “Greetings, Mr. Drake. Or should I say Mr. Brillante?”
I wished I could cross my arms all over again. All I could really do was scowl harder at the slits in the man’s mask, at the holes where his eyes glimmered, watching, taunting me.
“Could we not make a habit of calling me that? There’s a reason I go by Maximilian Drake these days.”
“Oh, but of course,” the Masque said. “Far be it from me to deny someone the basic courtesy of using their preferred name. It’s just that — well, your past is catching up with you these days, isn’t it? At least your family is.”
“The Brillantes will always be a pain in my ass for as long as I stay in Dos Lunas. That’s all I’m willing to say on the matter. Is there anything you actually wanted to discuss with me, or did you just miss my face?”
Without words, I knew the Masque was questioning why I didn’t simply skip town. But he said nothing, only stared at me and grinned, perfect eyes and perfect teeth. I hated that. I hated how much their organization knew about me, about everyone in the arcane underground.
“There is, in fact, something I wanted to ask you about.” The Masque raised his hand to his face, a pale glow appearing in his palm as he summoned his spiritual computer screen. “Ah, here it is. There was a disturbance at the docks last night, something to do with the near-simultaneous breakage of — goodness — of an entire warehouse’s stock of glass bottles. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now, would you?”
He had that information loaded and waiting on the end of his forked tongue. He didn’t need to consult his stupid little palm screen at all. Just another delaying tactic, another way to waste my time. The other possibility was that Mr. Masque here was a very lonely man, and this was all the social interaction he was getting for the day.
Still didn’t make me feel any better about taking his bullshit. Jerk. Lonely, friendless jerk.
Okay, maybe that was too mean.
“We were there for a client,” I began, rubbing the back of my neck as I recounted to the best of my ability. I told him everything, start to finish, because I knew our case was clean. “We had nothing to do with the bottles breaking.”
He nodded. “I see. According to our files, some sort of tremor seized the building.”
“But not an earthquake,” I corrected. “Only the bottles were shaking, some kind of vibration in the warehouse.”
The Masque smiled, but this time I could see malice dripping like venom from his teeth. “And you don’t suppose that these vibrations had anything to do with the dragons that your, ah, partner, is capable of conjuring?”
My forehead wrinkled, my face caving inward beyond my control. “But, no. I’ve only ever seen him do it once, and that was to terrify me, back before we started working with each other. The dragons are just illusions.”
“Curious. Most curious. Then would you consider this an illusion as well, Mr. Drake?”
