Motor City Mage (6 page)

“I’m listening,” Des said as he strode across the room, trying to keep Lana behind him. While she appreciated the thought, she wasn’t about to let him get used to protecting her. She took his arm and walked beside him.

The demon stood and held out his hand. “My name is Vindelius Karakon. I’m sure you can tell
what
I am.”

After a long hesitation, Des did shake the other being’s hand. “Desmond Sutton,
Wyndewin.
What do you want?”

“I want you to blow the portal between Detroit and Gravaki.”

Well.
Lana sat down with a thump. Even Des lifted a brow as he pulled out a chair. “Excuse me?”

Vin shrugged. “Not all Gravaki are like my cousins—the ones you know as Nightshade and Mandrake. Some of us don’t approve of drug dealing, especially across planes. I want you to help me close down the operation in the salt mines and shut the door behind me.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Des leaned forward. “And who the hell is Mandrake?”

“Mandrake, otherwise known as Malen Gavrolis, is the younger brother of Nivri Gavrolis. Nightshade. Your lupine woman here says he killed her grandfather. I know he was producing drugs that fuck with the populations of both our planes.” Vin waved as Sheila and Jerry scurried out of the apartment, making no move to stop them. “As to why I don’t blow up the portal, that’s easy. I don’t want to be trapped on this side. Since it was opened from here, it has to be closed from here as well.”

Well, that made sense. Lana found herself relaxing a little.

Des wasn’t so easy to persuade. “Why should I believe you?”

Vin shrugged. “Because your boss, Brewer, is in bed with Malen? How do you think I found out about you? As soon as he got hold of that sample you gave him, he came running to the mines with word that someone sold to a
Wyndewin
. Those kids that just ran out the door are lucky I was the one sent to terminate them.”

“Fuck.” Des flinched. “Brewer? The director? No freaking way.”

That had to be a blow. Des was intensely loyal to the League. He’d given so much of his life to it that he had to consider this a personal betrayal. She slid over a hand and gripped his knee.

Vin shrugged. “You don’t like it but that doesn’t make it wrong. Sorry, but your director is an asshole.”

“And why the hell should I believe you?” Des glared down the demon.

“Because they don’t intend to stop here. Malen has plans for other planes. Even the one you folks call Underhill. You know your friend Brewer has a real hard-on against elves. He also plans to make you the fall guy—given your, um, family relations with the pointy-eared types.”

Damn it all.
That couldn’t be allowed. Not the destruction of Underhill—they had friends in that world, too—and definitely not Des taking the blame for it.

“So, Vindelius, what’s your plan?” Des’s shoulders drooped as he reached down and rubbed Lana’s hand. She wondered if he even knew he was doing it.

“I can sneak you in tonight as a new dealer,” Vin said. “I assume you can use magic to smell like an addict. Brewer is meeting there with Malen tonight. We push them both through, and then you blow the portal. Mopping up the worker bees shouldn’t be too hard once you get rid of the boss and his two prime lieutenants.”

“One of whom is you?”

Vin nodded. “And the other is human.”

“Even if we blow up the portal, what keeps your boy Mandrake from just opening a new one?” Des still wasn’t buying it.

“He doesn’t have the power.” Vin shrugged. “Believe me or don’t. But why do you think there aren’t more of us here? It takes a fucking powerful mage to open one, much less a permanent version. Nivri was that strong. Malen isn’t.”

That made sense. Only a few
Wyndewin
in the world could open even a temporary portal. Des had never heard of a human mage who could set a permanent one.

The cell phone in Des’s pocket began to buzz. He pulled his hand away from Lana and looked at the screen. “My boss,” he said. “Think I should answer it?”

“Let it go to voice mail,” Lana suggested. “You knew a while ago that something was wrong in the League, when you were sent out of town by ‘mistake’ when Dina was kidnapped.”

Des nodded, though she could see new lines of strain around his eyes and his skin was a full shade paler than when he’d come in. “Okay, Vin. Looks like you’re giving me a tour of the salt mines.”

“Us,” Lana said. “You aren’t going anywhere without backup, pal.”

“We could call some others…” Des began.

“Storming the front gate is a bad idea,” Vin said. “Too many early warning systems and plenty of workers who mine the salt. Did you know salt is incredibly rare on Gravaki? And with just minor modifications, is addictive to my people? And here you are, sitting on piles and piles of it.” He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “Here’s the spell for blowing up portals. You might want to memorize that on the way there.”

Des tried to talk Lana out of coming, even to the point of threatening to call her cousins, but she stood her ground. “I don’t care if you call my
mother
. I’m not letting you walk in there by yourself. A dim, half-drunk girlfriend will draw a whole lot less attention than another burly guy. And you know I can handle myself.”

“Can Gravaki see through invisibility spells?” Des asked Vin as they walked out to the street.

Vin shrugged. “Some. Again, if you tried bringing in an army, I’d say yes. One small shape? Not unless we’re actively looking for it. If she goes in as an invisible wolf, odds are no one’s going to see her until she bites them on the ass. Even if they do, nobody will pay any attention. There are a few stray dogs who wander through open tunnels. One of my cousin’s first workers there had the bright idea of bringing them down to act as watchdogs. Since we don’t have dogs on Gravaki, most of the workers consider them a novelty and sneak them food and water now and then.”

And so Des found himself driving with Vin in the front seat while Lana stripped and shifted in the back. He still didn’t like the idea of her going along, but he was glad she’d be in wolf form, if she had to be there at all. As he drove, he committed the words of the spell to memory.

All the old entrances to the salt mines beneath Detroit had been sealed, except for those few areas still in operation. The entrance Vin directed Des to was well away from the modern headquarters, a small building long since abandoned by the mining operations. A simple spell opened the sealed steel door on an empty, concrete block building. An elevator in surprisingly good working order waited to take them down below the surface. Des had been in the mines once before, to help mop up after Nightshade, but that time the
Wyndewin
had permission to use the modern entrance, even utilizing company trucks once they’d gone down an elevator longer than the one at the Empire State Building. If his boss was working with Nightshade, though, that would explain why they hadn’t captured Nightshade or totally shut down the operation at that time. Hell, they hadn’t even found the portal.

Inside the elevator, which had obviously been restored, if not replaced, in the last year or so, Lana chuffed and leaned against his side. In her wolf form, she was compact but powerful, with cinnamon highlights in her gray-and-black coat. Only her amber eyes were the same. Des had tucked her pistol into his jacket pocket. He sure hoped she didn’t have to shift, because he couldn’t figure out a reasonable way to carry her clothes with them. He laid his hand on the top of her head and incanted the spell that would make her invisible—he hoped. It was always hard to tell what other magical species could detect.

The descent was a long one—a lot like going up to the top of the Renaissance Center, but without the glass-backed elevator. No view down here except hundreds of feet of rock. The salt deposits from the sea that had once covered the region were buried deep under layers of glacial till.

“Sorry about this,” Vin said. “They’re just for show. There’s a filed-down link, so you can pop the chain when you need to.” He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and secured Des’s hands behind his back. “Malen—Mandrake insists on it.”

The plan was a simple one, but with plenty of room for error. Vin would maneuver his boss close to the portal and activate it. Once they were through, Des would seal it from this side. Hopefully, he would also capture his own supervisor, if the man was still there. Otherwise, he’d have to deal with that part of the operation on his own, after the portal had been taken out.

The world below was white. Not the pure white of freshly fallen snow, but close. Walls, floor, ceiling, they were all solid rock salt, white with veins of beige or gray. Lights suspended from cables illuminated the tunnels every ten to fifteen feet.

Des felt Lana brush against his thigh as they walked, but refused to look down at her even though he could see her through his spell. The less attention she drew, the better. He still doubted his own wisdom in letting her come along. If she was hurt on his watch, he’d never forgive himself. Des wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but for the moment at least, he considered her his to protect. He doubted she saw things that way. Lana was the most stubbornly independent woman he’d ever met. Oddly, that was becoming part of her charm, even if it would likely drive him crazy if this was anything but a fling.

Slouching and staggering a little to give himself the look of an addict, he followed Vin through the seemingly endless grid-patterned corridors. He spotted the occasional security camera, and as they drew deeper in, they passed other demons and humans standing guard or going about their business. At the end of one hallway, Des could see workers actively mining the salt. Unsurprisingly, Vin turned the other direction.

Eventually, they came to an area where the gaps between the giant salt pillars were closed off, as if the mining had stopped here. A faint aura of magic hinted that the walls might be illusion, or have been recreated through spells. This then, was probably what divided Mandrake’s realm from the corporate mining operations still going on after a hundred years in operation.

Another turn led them to an area, guarded by maybe a dozen demons, which had been set up as more or less an office and waiting room. And Vin expected they could take all of them? Des hoped the demon knew something Des didn’t. A wooden wall had been erected, sectioning off the rear portion of the space, an oversized door marking the center of it.

“Need to introduce the new guy to the boss,” Vin said over his shoulder as he pushed past what were clearly his underlings.

One of the thugs grunted something, and Vin grunted back but didn’t stop moving. Lana had slipped behind Des and followed in his footsteps. Thankfully, none of the demons seemed to notice. Vin knocked on the door and called something in his native language.

Another voice replied, and then Vin opened the door, roughly shoving Des in ahead of him.

Brewer wasn’t here.
Good.
Des didn’t think he’d been able to alter his appearance enough to fool another
Wyndewin
, especially one who knew him so well. Lana slipped in the room behind them and Vin shut and locked the door as Des turned to face the Gravaki who sat behind a desk in the right-hand corner, facing the door. Two others flanked the glowing spot in the corner opposite the desk, which had to be the portal.

As soon as the door was locked, Vin pulled out a gun. “Go through the portal, Malen.”

The two guards stepped toward him and he shot them both in rapid succession.

Des snapped his cuffs and reached for his own weapon as Malen, huge in his Gravaki form, lunged over the desk. Before Des could fire a shot, the enormous demon was on him, shoving him aside.

Lana growled and snapped as the demon grabbed hold of her.

“Die, wolf bitch,” he bellowed when Lana’s teeth ripped a chunk out of his arm. Des dove at the demon before he could get both hands on Lana’s spine and snap it. In response, Mandrake threw Lana into Des with all of his strength, slamming them both into the wall.

Except the wall wasn’t there. There was a sensation of darkness, of falling, of the universe swirling around him.

Des had been through portals before—the one between Aidan’s home and Underhill. He recognized the feeling.

They slammed into hard-packed dirt. Des looked up into a bright pink sky, still holding Lana’s furry body against his chest.

She chuffed softly as Mandrake stepped from between two stone pillars, not far from Des’s feet. They looked up at eight feet of pissed-off demon.

“You said it,
chán-láng
. We’re screwed.”

The fight didn’t last long.

Oh, she and Des made a decent showing for themselves, Lana thought, but when six of the demons swarmed them, it was pretty much over. Lana had a couple of nasty claw gouges in her side and a sprained back paw, but she didn’t think any of her injuries were serious. Des though—she was worried about him.

They’d been tossed into a rough stone cell with two other prisoners, one Gravaki, though instead of red-and-black like the two she’d seen before, this one’s mostly black scales were patterned in green. He wore a pair of jeans and nothing else. The other prisoner was—something else. She couldn’t identify the scent. The drooling purple thing wore something like a toga. It growled and sniffed at Des’s unconscious body when they were tossed in the cell, so Lana stayed in wolf form, standing legs-splayed over Des, and growled back. She couldn’t see any open wounds on him—all the blood she scented was her own, so there wouldn’t have been much she could do, even with opposable thumbs. Keeping these assholes off him,
that
she could manage.

“All right. Nice doggie. We get it.” The Gravaki in the corner yanked his buddy back onto the bench on the far side of the cell. His English had something of a western twang to it. “No one’s going to hurt your precious human.”

The purple thing snorted, drool flying as it did, and muttered something in an incomprehensible language of grunts and whistles.

“He says he just wanted to see what it was,” the Gravaki translated. “He’s never seen a human before. Or a dog, for that matter. Though why the hell I’m talking to you, I don’t know.” He studied her closely. “Unless you’re a werewolf? I’ve heard of those, back when I was working in the mine.”

The other Gravakis had imprisoned him for a reason. That made him at least a potential ally. Lana looked him in the eye and nodded cautiously.

“So, what’d you do to rile up Malen?” The horned, green-and-black demon snickered. “Oh, wait, can’t talk much like that, can you?”

She shook her head, but eased off Des and sat on her haunches between him and the demons. For long moments they stared at each other in silence, until Des started to stir, his faint movements ruffling her tail.

“Fuck me.” Des’s voice was groggy and soft, but Lana’s ears pricked up and she edged back so she could watch him with one eye while keeping track of the demons with the other.

“You’re not my type, hominid,” the Gravaki said with what Lana thought was meant to be a reassuring laugh.

Des ignored the demon. “Lana?”

She leaned over and licked his ear, hoping he understood that she was fine, just worried about him.

He struggled to sit, then slumped back to the floor with a groan. “Concussion,” he told her. “Something else internal. This is going to take a while.”

Lana whined and licked his hand. He reached up and buried it in her fur. “I’ll be okay, babe. But it’s going to take me a few hours to patch myself up. I’m not nearly as good at healing as my sister.”

“Hey, human, what did y’all do to get dragged across the portal instead of just having your throat slit?”

“Took him on in his own office.” His voice was weak and he’d started to shiver. Whatever the internal injuries were, they were sending him into shock. She spotted something that might have been a blanket on the bench with the demons and limped over to take it in her teeth. Neither of them gave her any trouble, moving aside to let her take the filthy rag. It was all she could do not to gag as she carried the blanket over and laid it over Des, before lying down, full length next to him. Her body temperature was higher than a human’s and might help keep him warm.

Once she was under the blanket herself, with Des’s arm around her, she shifted, feeling some of her own wounds repair themselves as her body transformed from wolf to human. Unfortunately, her lupine regeneration was limited to herself. It wasn’t something she could share with Des. “Water?”

The Gravaki shook his head. “Only when they feel like it, little lady. Same with food. Sometimes once a day, sometimes twice. Occasionally they forget altogether.”

“Shit.”

The purple thing burbled something at his friend and the Gravaki nodded. When purple-boy talked, Lana felt a sort of buzzing in her head, as if her brain was trying to translate the speech. Tall, grape and slimy pulled a plastic bottle out from under his tunic and rolled it across the floor to Lana.

A half-full bottle of spring water. Lana looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you. My name is Lana, and this is Desmond.”

“Ordwel.” The Gravaki pointed his thumb at himself. “And Flshhsshhhplth.” The noise he made sounded a lot like someone blowing a raspberry. “I usually call him Fish.”

“Then thank you, Fish, for the water.”

The purple guy nodded, bowing over his hands. Lana could have sworn she heard him say,
you’re welcome,
inside her head. Ignoring her own nudity, Lana sat up to return the gesture.

“And, Ordwel, thanks for translating.” Turning her back to them, she leaned over Des to lift his head. Once his eyes opened, she trickled a small amount of water between his lips. He swallowed, took another drink before closing his eyes.

“Good. Thanks.”

As she laid him back on the floor, his eyes popped back open and he gasped out, “Put some clothes on.”

Ordwel snickered and Fish made a gurgling sound that might have been a laugh. Somehow, she could
sense
his amusement.
Weird.

Lana snorted as she blinked back a tear. “Same old Des. In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t any spare orange jumpsuits lying around.” Instead, she lay back beside him, tucking the blanket over them both.

It was maybe ten minutes later, after Lana had dozed off, when Des spoke again. “You’re bleeding.” His hand rested over the worst of the claw marks on her waist.

“Not much, and they’ll go away after I shift another time or two.” She didn’t want him wasting his limited healing powers on her.

“Then do it.”

Lana looked over at the demons. Fish seemed to have curled up and fallen asleep in the corner, and Ordwel had his feet up on the bench while he did a set of push-ups, flexing his already impressive muscles. Neither of them looked like they gave a damn what Lana or Des did, so she shifted into wolf form then human, then furry again. By then, she knew her wounds were completely healed, but she’d worn herself out. Still in her fur, she curled into Des and let herself drift back to sleep.

* * *

Des had never been on the Gravaki plane before, so he had no idea what the daily cycle was. Darkness had fallen in the cell a while after Lana went to sleep, though he couldn’t be sure how long. He’d been too weak most of that time to bother lifting his wrist to look at his watch.

Now daylight began to creep back in through the barred slits high in the walls, and Des had recovered enough to finally sit up and look around. His internal bleeding had been difficult to heal, and the concussion was still a nagging headache, but he’d managed to repair enough that he wouldn’t bleed out and he was able to function. Lana, thank the gods, seemed to be fine now that she’d shifted. Like the rest of their cell mates, she still slept soundly, her furry body pressed close to his, lending him much needed warmth as he’d healed himself.

Weird as it was to cuddle up to a wolf, especially one he’d had sex with in her human form, he’d clung to her in his sleep. And while he hadn’t felt the slightest stirring of arousal for her as a wolf, he’d still taken comfort from having Lana beside him. He was sure a therapist would have a field day with that.

Now that they were both back in more or less working order, it was time to find a way out of this place.

At least some Gravakis could teleport. They’d discovered that in when the one who’d attacked Lana’s pack. So there was probably some kind of magic blocking that, since Ordwel was still sitting here. Unless it was a limited ability, and only some of the species could do it. Des would have to ask Ordwel about that when he woke. Then there would be the matter of finding the portal and getting through it without being killed. With a Gravaki drug gang guarding it, that would be no easy feat.

He wondered what had happened to Vin. Had the demon turned on them? Been killed? Or was he possibly being held in this same prison but a different cell? Hell, Des didn’t even know if the place had other cells. For all he knew, they were in a palace dungeon or something. All he’d seen around the portal was a ring of stone pillars, set in twos, almost like Stonehenge without the capstones. Maybe half a dozen portals, with nothing around them but desert. He had no idea how long he’d been out or how far they’d taken them afterward. Hopefully Lana had been conscious enough to have some of the answers.

She stirred against him and shifted back into human form as she woke. Reaching up to touch his chin, she smiled and whispered, “You look better.”

“Much.” He sat and pulled his slightly battered flannel shirt over his head, glad he’d worn casual clothes and hiking boots for the meeting with Malen. “How about you?”

“Never better.” She eased up to her knees and tugged his shirt over his head, rolling the cuffs up several times to just above her wrists. “Well, okay, I’ve been better. The situation sucks, I’m starving, covered in dirt and blood, and I have to pee like a racehorse. But if I have to use that drain in the corner again, I should’ve stayed four-legged.”

Yeah, Des had already been pondering that problem. Being a guy, he didn’t much care about pissing in a corner, but he wasn’t thrilled about having two other males watch while Lana took care of business. “I can hold up the blanket as a screen.”

“Thanks.” She gave him one of her wry grins and her eyes twinkled despite their situation. “I figured conjuring real plumbing with a shower stall and garden tub was a little out of your magical ballpark.”

His lips twitched. “A wee bit. But I can manage a screen, and I can probably clean us both up a bit. Will that do for a start?”

“That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. Based on her laughter, his confusion must have shown on his face.

“It’s from a kids’ movie. You know,
Babe
, about a sheep-herding pig?”

Des shook his head. “Not a clue.”

“Oh, sweetie, you really need to get out more.” She leaned over and kissed his jaw. “Or at least watch some DVDs with your niece. Now about that screen…”

He used magic to stick one edge of the blanket to the ceiling, forming a tattered bathroom wall. A few minutes later, Des expended a little more power on cleaning both of them up, and on lengthening his shirt so it reached Lana’s knees. He could probably have done more, but didn’t want to leave himself depleted, just in case the opportunity for something more important came up. It was hard to look at a Gravaki and not see the demon who’d hurt his sister, though that one had been black and orange. Still, rage, and if he were forced to admit it, a little fear, simmered close to the surface.

By that time Fish and Ordwel were both awake, and with a shrug, Ordwel stepped behind the suspended blanket, then Fish.

“Aww, they’re being gentlemen,” Lana whispered. “How cute. Last night I just kept my eyes closed.”

Des resisted the urge to growl. “Did they tell you what they’re in here for?”

She shook her head. “Though I know they don’t think much of Malen. The green one was making limp-dick jokes about him half the night, and I swear the purple one was laughing.”

“That’s good enough for me.” He studied the other males—at least he thought both beings were male. In Ordwel’s case, the anatomical details were kind obvious, even though he wore a pair of too-tight jeans. Real ones, from Earth. With Fish—well, Des didn’t even know if that species had sexes. “So where the hell are we?” he asked by way of good morning.

“Ah, the human speaks.” Ordwel stretched his legs, clawed feet bare, out in front of him and gave them a big, toothy grin. “Nice trick, being able to heal yourself like that, pardner. You were a mess when they threw you in.”

Fish gurgled something and nodded.

Ordwel pointed. “He thought you were a goner.” His English was accented with the drawl of the 1950s western flick. Clearly the guy had spent time on Earth, and he’d obviously watched one too many John Wayne movies. “But I’ve met Brewer. I had a feeling you were like him.”

“Sure, I’m a walking miracle. So I repeat, where are we?” It took effort to keep from shouting, but that would have aggravated his headache.

“In the pit that passes for a dungeon in Nivri’s castle.” Ordwel sneered at the mention of Nightshade’s real name and dropped his Western twang. “Jerk-off thought he was a fucking king or something. Built himself a gods-damned palace.”

Okay, some of his language hadn’t been picked up from cowboy films. Some was from the streets of Detroit. “So I know why we’re here. What did you two do?”

“Fucked Malen’s girlfriend,” Ordwel answered, his pointed teeth gleaming. “And damn if it wasn’t worth it. Fish here, he just killed his overseer. When other species wandered through the portals, Nivri liked to make them into slaves to work the mines. After Nivri died, Fish thought he had a chance, so he dynamited his overseer and took off.”

Lana winced against Des’s shoulder, but she kept her voice steady. “Messy, but effective.”

Ordwel tipped his head at the other prisoner in some respect. “Would’ve worked, too, but Malen showed up and decided to take over while Fish and his buddy were making a run for the portal.”

“I take it the buddy didn’t survive,” Des said.

“Nope. Fish has some political connections on his home plane, so Malen’s hoping to get a ransom.”

“And why are they keeping you alive? Or us, for that matter? They could have just killed us last night.” Lana quirked one eyebrow at Ordwel.

“Me? Because Malen likes to take me out and torture me now and then for information about how his brother ran the operation. I was one of Nivri’s right-hand men. You? Probably just for the fun of making you scream.”

Des clamped down on Lana’s shoulder as she started to lunge at the Gravaki.

“You? You worked with the bastard who tried to destroy my pack?”