Wild Card (3 page)

That being said, occasionally I had a difficult time persuading my contacts to be forthcoming with information. When the thief in question was a disreputable nachtmagi, talking too much went way the hell beyond risky. I could understand their reluctance, since a nachtmagus could kill you, bring you back, kill you again, and keep right on going in that happy little cycle of life and death until they got bored and let you die for good.

A man known for resurrecting dead people and swindling them didn’t have many, if any, moral lines he wouldn’t cross to begin with. I imagine that anyone who made the poor choice of pissing him off was in for a whole new level of vengeance.

Lucky for me, no one was reluctant to talk. Though that probably had everything to do with none of my contacts having either the ring or the big jewels Mortsani had stolen.

Lady Kaharit had brought a small bracelet with her to my office that had also belonged to her grandmother. The stones were tiny and the gold was not the highest quality, so her husband hadn’t taken it. The nuts and bolts of seeking worked the same regardless of whether I was looking for a person or an object. If I was looking for a missing person, I needed one of their valued possessions or a favorite article of clothing. The closer the person was to that possession, the better. If someone had been kidnapped and a scrap of cloth from their clothing had been found at the scene, I could use that to see exactly what had happened to them, very often experiencing the crime through their eyes. Not fun by any stretch of the imagination, but then it hadn’t been me that’d been snatched off the street, or from wherever the victim had been taken. And if they had been injured, blood was the best linking medium there was for a seeker. Again, bad for the victim, great for me. Not only could I become an eyewitness to the crime, I could use that blood like a two-legged, psychic bloodhound to track where they’d been taken.

To find a missing object, I needed another object that had been kept in close proximity to or worn by the same person. Not only had the bracelet been owned and worn by Lady Kaharit’s grandmother, it had been kept in the same box as the ring and the stolen jewelry. It was all about imprinting. Objects that had spent time in contact with one another came to have the same psychic imprint. Basically, like called to like. Having one object, more often than not, meant I could find the other.

After Lady Kaharit and her retainer had left my office, I’d spent the rest of the day checking in with every pawn shop owner and fence who might have received a visit from Sethis Mortsani, or whoever he had moving the stones for him. On my third stop, I’d found where the smaller stones had ended up. Mortsani had had one of his servants bring them in and sell them. Not surprisingly, those stones were long gone. No one had seen the ring, and surprisingly, no one had bought, been offered, or even seen the larger jewels. And what I sensed matched what I was being told. The big jewels hadn’t been anywhere I’d been today. Either Lord Mortsani had sold the stones to a buyer who wasn’t local, or the goblin nachtmagus still had the jewels. I wasn’t going to hold my breath on the latter, but it’d sure be nice to recover what remained of Lady Kaharit’s property.

Now that it was well into the evening, I was gearing up for the main event.

Find Sethis Mortsani himself—and if Lady Luck was in a generous mood tonight, fleece the bastard. 

Lady Kaharit had told me her husband gambled at Sirens.

I wasn’t surprised.

When it came to finding missing valuables, more often than not, they ended up on the bad side of a bet. As a result, more than once I’d ended up at Sirens.

Sirens was a high-class establishment. Unless you had a small fortune to risk on any given night, you took your gambling urges elsewhere. I didn’t have that kind of money; if I did, I sure wouldn’t be gambling it away. However, for my cousin Phaelan, gambling was his second favorite pastime. His primary entertainment when in any port involved ladies of the evening variety. And as a successful pirate—excuse me, seafaring businessman—he had plenty of gold to spend on games and girls.

Phaelan would be going with me this evening. Not because I had a problem going anywhere in Mermeia by myself. I knew my way around a pair of dice, but cards—especially the high-stakes kind—wasn’t my thing. Phaelan not only loved playing cards, he was one of the best I’d ever seen, even when he wasn’t cheating. Lady Kaharit said her husband’s greatest weakness was cards. The higher the stakes, the better. To get my hands on that ring, I needed someone at the table I could trust to run up the pot and ensure His Lordship had to dip into his stash of ill-gotten jewelry to stay in the game. 

You might think that women didn’t go to Mermeia’s gambling houses by themselves. Up to a point, you’d be right. As has always been the case, a woman out at night by herself tended to attract the kind of man who thought that a woman on her own simply hadn’t met
him
yet. 

I’d taken a page from my Uncle Ryn’s book and provided a few well-publicized examples. He’d told me that there was always a suicidal dumbass in every pirate crew—at least one man who felt the need to push his luck when it came to getting along with his fellow crewmen. When that happened, Uncle Ryn usually let the men work things out on their own. Occasionally that involved chucking the offending brother buccaneer over the side of the ship into less-than-friendly waters—be they infested with the ships of a competitor or one really large, hungry shark.

But generally they only needed to make one example per voyage. Any other new crewman who was starting to get on his shipmates’ collective nerves suddenly experienced a behavioral epiphany.

As a result of making some examples of my own, I now had a reputation for not taking any crap and dealing swiftly and creatively with any offenders. However, I remained perpetually alert for the inevitable future suicidal dumbass.

Sirens was a favorite casino with Mermeia’s wealthy women for a similar reason. While there were still men who considered any woman there alone to be longing for their companionship, if the “gentleman” in question had a problem understanding a lady’s refusal, Sirens’ staff was always close by to quickly step in and resolve the situation—to the lady’s satisfaction. Most men wisely backed off at the first warning; a few were obnoxiously persistent—or ignorant of Sirens’ policy of tossing the offender into the canal behind the casino for a midnight swim. Any subsequent incidents resulted in the man being banned. Word got around that chivalry was alive and well at Sirens, and as a result, it was a big hit with women of means.

The fact that the goblin owner, Tamnais Nathrach, was the embodiment of sin itself didn’t hurt. How much those women enjoyed gambling probably paled in comparison to how badly they wanted to “play a couple of hands” with Sirens’ proprietor.

There was a knock at my door.

I looked out through the peephole. Surprisingly, Phaelan was right on time. His punctuality probably had everything to do with what I’d told him was on the schedule for tonight—fleecing a thieving husband at one of Sirens’ high-stakes card tables. That’d be my cousin’s idea of a fun night out. Heck, Phaelan had probably been here early and had been pacing in the street, killing what time was left until he was supposed to pick me up.

I opened the door to a vision in emerald. My cousin liked to be noticed.

“Ready for some fun and games?” he asked with a rakish grin.

Phaelan’s doublet and matching breeches were emerald buckskin, with the sleeves slashed to reveal an ivory linen shirt—all of the above a perfect complement to his dark hair and eyes. His high boots were tooled black leather, and at his side was his favorite rapier.

I nodded toward it. “You know you’re going to have to give that up once we get to Sirens.”

“I know.” Phaelan said it, but he clearly didn’t like it.

For obvious reasons, Nathrach didn’t permit weapons in his casino. High-stakes gambling meant flaring tempers. He had a fortune in carpets on the floors, and blood was a bitch to clean.

The instant he saw what I was wearing, Phaelan’s grin was gone. “Nice dress.”

“Nice try.” I turned to get my cloak from a nearby chair. “I don’t want to be noticed or annoyed by anyone. Tonight I’m a highly observant wallflower.”

While my cousin liked to be noticed, my goal tonight was to blend in. I could hardly wear my usual leathers—doublet, breeches, and boots—in a fancy casino like Sirens; but unlike many of the women at its gaming tables, I had no desire to compete with a tropical bird.

My dark blue gown was of simple cut and covered what I didn’t want stared at. I couldn’t do anything about my hair and skin. My hair was red gold, and my skin pale—visible even in the darkest shadows.

“I hate to break it to you,” Phaelan said, “but you’ll stand out because you don’t stand out.”

I swung my cloak around my shoulders. “I don’t display what’s not available.”

“That’s not all you’re covering up. I saw Will Brenkman this afternoon.”

Crap. I let out a little sigh. Will was one of the city’s best fences, and a friend. I’d been upfront with him about what I was looking for, who had taken it, and why. I couldn’t blame Will for leaking the identity of our mark to Phaelan. My cousin was like an inquisitor when he wanted to know something. And as one of the most profitable pirates in the seven kingdoms, Phaelan was one of Will’s best customers. The fence was simply being a smart businessman by not pissing off the man responsible for a large chunk of his income.

“I knew how you’d react,” I said, “so I opted to omit some things until I got you face-to-face.”

“Well, here’s my face. You know how I feel about mages.”

Mages? Not one of Mermeia’s most notorious nachtmagi?
I bit back a smile. I owed Will. Like me, he’d told Phaelan the truth, but not the whole truth. Thankfully. If Phaelan knew everything about Sethis Mortsani, even the joy of potentially fleecing a fellow thief might not have convinced him to help—or pried him out from underneath the bed in his cabin.

My cousin didn’t like mages. Magic gave him a raging case of the creeps. Yes, I was a magic user, but my magic didn’t include what Phaelan called “spooky shit.”    

Lord Sethis Mortsani was the walking and talking personification of “spooky shit.”

Since if everything went according to plan tonight, my cousin would be sitting at the same card table with the goblin nachtmagus, it was time for me to put my own cards on the table. Lord Mortsani wasn’t one of those nachtmagi who had runes stitched into their robe, not just to protect themselves from the dark forces they were foolishly messing with, but to broadcast how magically badass they were. But to the truly adept and dangerous, like Lord Mortsani, all wearing a flashy robe meant was “I’m going to die young and leave a big smear.”

I told Phaelan everything.

To my surprise, when I’d finished, he didn’t turn around and run out the way he’d walked in. On the other hand, he didn’t appear to be breathing all that well, either. 

Eventually, he spoke. “A nachtmagus.” 

“For our purposes, he’s just a husband who’s stolen all of his wife’s jewelry.”

“A nachtmagus.”

“Who’s taken the last piece of jewelry she has—a ring that belonged to her grandmother.”

No change in expression.

I blew out my breath. “Where’s your chivalry?”

“Hiding behind my survival instinct.”

I did not have time for this. At this rate, by the time we got to Sirens, Mortsani would have gambled away the ring.

“Are you going to help me or not?” I asked.

“If not?”

“I’ll do it myself.”

Phaelan snorted. “Raine, I’ve played cards with you. For your own financial preservation, you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a table.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

“Then I won’t play cards. I’ll confront him. I’m good at confrontation.”

“With a nachtmagus.”

“
I’m
not scared of him.”    

“I’m not scared of him, either.”

“That’s not what it sounds like to me.”

“Having good sense and being scared are two entirely different things.”

“If you say so. Oh, and by the way, while you’re keeping Lord Mortsani occupied at the card table, his wife will be burglarizing his private office.”

“For what?”

“To expose what he does for a living.”

“Being a nachtmagus is legal.”

“Not the way he does it.”

Silence.

I knew I had him on the hook, or at least eyeing the bait with interest. My cousin had many weaknesses, and two of them were curiosity and a delight in scandal.

“Her Ladyship says that he keeps meticulous records,” I continued casually. “The arrogant bastards usually do. Kind of like taking trophies.”

“What does he do?”

“Our boy’s into raising the dead for profit.”

That last word was one of Phaelan’s favorites. I’d also said dead; but for my cousin, profit trumped dead things. 

“Profit?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. Relatives want a chance for one last chat with the dearly departed, usually when a will’s being contested or there’s a stash of valuables hidden in the family palazzo.”

“If they wrote them out of the will or didn’t tell them where the family jewels were hidden, why would being brought back from the dead change their minds? I’d think they’d be pissed off at being called back.”

“Usually it wouldn’t change their minds,” I said. “But spirits that get pulled back into a body are confused and easily manipulated. Sethis Mortsani and nachtmagi like him are offered a cut of the inheritance for compelling them to sign a will predated to just before their deaths. The parchment is bespelled, so everything’s nice and legal. Immoral as hell, but legal.”

“I steal from people, but I’m honest enough to do it to their faces, and while they’re alive. Taking advantage of dead people. . . that’s just. . .”

“Wrong,” I said helpfully.

“In any and every way. And this Lord Mortsani cons dead people out of all their money for a living? Then he loses that at the card tables and has been stealing his wife’s jewelry?”