Pixie The Lion Tamer (Shifters, Inc.) (5 page)

             
Pixie saw the ripple of dismay run across Hillary’s face as they walked back inside.   Hillary glanced nervously at Fraser’s office as they passed it, but he didn’t look up as they walked by.

             
Tyler was hunched over his laptop, and he gestured at them eagerly when they came in.  “I’ve got something,” he said.  “A man going by the name of Ion Barbu flew a private jet into a small commercial airport two hours from here, three days ago.  He departed from Romania.”  He turned the computer screen towards Pixie.  The picture looked exactly the silver-haired man.  He wasn’t wearing sun-glasses, but looking at the picture, his eyes still seemed odd.  They were blue, but too bright and perfect.

             
“That’s him. I think he’s wearing contact lenses, though,” Pixie said.

             
“Yes, it looks like it.  I’m also sure the name is fake, because when I search other databases, this person seems to have appeared out of nowhere.   I’d say the same for the people that he’s travelling with; database searches don’t turn up anything on them.  I think their passports are fake.”

             
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Hillary asked.

             
Tyler frowned. “Not yet. If they put out an APB on him, it might spook him, and he might flee the area and take the antidote with him.  Let’s give it a little time, see if he contacts Pixie tonight.”

             
Fraser banged on the doorway and leaned in, the perpetual leer tugging at his mouth.

“Looking good, Pixie,” he smirked.

“You saw me like twenty minutes ago.  I haven’t changed,” Pixie said irritably.  “What’s up?”

“Your black magic connection is here.”

Anastasia strode through the doorway, her black ankle length silk dress hugging her lean frame.  She had a pale heart shaped face and flowing black curls.  She wore a leather braided necklace with various talismans and totems hanging off it, and over her shoulder was slung a black suede fringed purse.

There were dark circles under her big dark eyes, and she looked tired and drawn.

“Pixie,” she said. “Long time no see.   We used to be friends.  You never write, you never call.”

“
Apparently I should have,” Pixie said, surveying Anastasia with a critical eye.  “You don’t look so good.”

“I understand
, really I do. If I ever got out of this hellhole, I wouldn’t look back.”

“You could ge
t out any time you wanted.  I did call you a while back, in fact.  I told you we had work for you. You could go legit.”

“Oh, I think it’s a little late for that.”  Anastasia’s smile had no humor and no warmth.  Her eyes looked darker than
Pixie remembered. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Your eyes are dark.  They didn’t used to look like that.”

“Black magic, my dear.  It rots you from the inside out.  It shows up in the eyes.”

“I told you,” Hillary muttered, glaring at Pixie.
“How is dealing with her any better than dealing with that man with the sunglasses?”

Anastasia sneered at her.  “Afraid I’ll turn you into a toad? Oops, looks like someone beat
me to it.”

“Pixie!”
Hillary wailed. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”

“If you don’t want my help, I’ve got plenty of people who do,” Anastasia said, turning to leave.

Great.  Just what Pixie needed right now.  Two adults acting like kindergarteners.  And Pixie would have to be the mature one? Like anyone outside of this room would ever believe that.

“Hillary.  Go take a walk,”
Pixie snapped.

“Fine. I need to call my mother anyway.” Hillary didn’t need to be told twice.  She rushed out of the room without looking back.

“
She has to call her mommy?” Anastasia echoed mockingly.

“
Yeah, yeah.  She calls her mother at least three times a day.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Anyway, let’s get back to our problem.” Pixie introduced Anastasia to Tyler and described, yet again, what had happened at Shifters Inc., including what the silver-haired man had looked like.

Then
Pixie pulled the empty syringe from her pocket and handed it to Anastasia.

“This was the antidote that he injected in Hillary,” Pixie said. “There have got to still be traces inside the syringe.  Can it be reproduced? And what would cause something like this?”

Anastasia held the syringe up to the light, and shuddered.  “I pick up traces of dark magic just from touching this.  Very dark.  Makes me look pure as the driven snow.”

She turned and fixed her
dark gaze on Pixie. “This will cost you, you know.”

“
Of course.”  Everyone wanted their cut.  Kenneth was a billionaire;  money wouldn’t be an issue.  The issue was whether Anastasia, or anyone, could counteract magic this dark.

Anastasia examined the syringe thoughtfully.  She leaned forward and sniffed at it.  She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating hard, then opened them again.  “It’s most likely some type of virus that was infused with a strain of black magic so it would behave exactly the way the maker wanted it to.  A designer virus.  The antidote is created at the same time as the virus, and works uniquely to counteract it.”

“Why didn’t t
he virus affect Dominick and me?”

“He
probably designed it to be fast acting, so it would target only who he wanted.  Obviously, since he needs something from you, he didn’t want it to affect you.  Many viruses, whether magical or otherwise, die within minutes of being exposed to the air.  So by the time you got there, it was probably no longer contagious.”

Pixie nodded.
Anastasia knew her stuff. 

“So what are your next steps?”

Anastasia opened up her purse and dropped the syringe in.

“I know someone who works with black magic curses.  It is possible that he will be able to replicate the antidote.  We also might be able to track down its origin. You know how scientists use DNA to identify people? Magic has its own unique signature, a kind of vibration that a ver
y sensitive magician can detect. There’s only a handful of witches and wizards in the entire world who dabble in this kind of thing, and if we can trace it back to them, we can find out who the client was. I’ll need a down payment.”

Tyler
, who’d been sitting back and listening to their conversation without a word, spoke up.  “I can take care of that.  I have access to the company bank accounts.”

“One hundred thousand.
  And another hundred and fifty thousand if we can come up with an antidote.”

Tyler nodded. He didn’t even blink. 

“What bank account shall I transfer it into?”

She rattled off a string of numbers.

Within minutes, he’d transferred the money into a bank account in the Cayman Islands.

“A witch with an offshore bank account.
I had no idea,” Pixie said.

“We keep up with the times just like everybody else. 
You and Tyler need to give me your contact information,” she said.  “If we can trace this to its maker, we’ll have a better idea how to counter-act it.  I’ll make this top priority, and I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”

Tyler and Pixie both recited their phone numbers.

“You know, this money…this would be enough to get you out,” Pixie said.  “You’re still supporting your family, right? You moved your little brother out to the suburbs with your aunt? This is enough to buy them financial security.”

Anastasia gave a small, resigned shrug of her shoulders
.  “It’s no longer just that.  Tapering off from black magic is harder than you’d think. It becomes addictive, like a drug that gives you an incredible high when you’re casting, and then makes you feel sick and loathsome when the high wears off. There’s a point of no return.  The man you described to me, his eyes…he’s definitely passed that point, long ago.”

“You haven’t,” Pixie insisted.  She knew what it felt like to live one day at a time, without hope of things ever getting better.

“So now you’re a professional do-gooder? Just worry about yourself, Pixie, I’m really not worth the effort.   And don’t argue with me; you have no idea what I’ve done for money.”

“I know what I’ve done for money.  In the past,” Pixie said. “I know how I let people treat me.”

Anastasia turned away, ready to leave. “I’ve got work to do.”

Dominick walked in, his face radiating tension, and Anastasia glanced up at him, then Pixie.

“Your fated mate?” she asked.

Pixie barked out a laugh. “Thanks, Anastasia, I needed the comic relief.”

“No, he is,” Anastasia said, her voice serious.  Now Pixie was worried.  This dark magic stuff had apparently given Anastasia brain damage.

“Okay,” she said in a soothing voice.  “Sure he is.  You call us the minute you find out anything, all right?”

Anastasia nodded, and left.  Pixie watched her go, frustrated.   She should have made more of an effort to keep in touch, although who knows if that would have helped.

One emergency at a time, she reminded herself.

Tyler glared at Dominick.  “Good of you to join us,” he snapped. “Did you have a nice walk?”

“Hey,” Dominick growled at him. “I’m dealing with something here.  Where are we right now? Have we made any progress?”

Before Tyler could answer, the disposable cell phone rang.

Pixie pulled the phone
out of her pocket, her stomach clenching.  If she messed up, said one wrong thing, it meant her friends’ lives.  She hated it that everything was resting on her shoulders.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Pixie.”
  His voice sent chills crawling up her spine.

“How
do you know my name, and what is it you want with me?” she snapped.

“All in good time.
I will need your services tomorrow.  Be available, and keep the phone with you at all times; sleep with it by your bedside. I’ll tell you where to go, and a car will be waiting to pick you up.  No police.  If you call them, I will know,  and I will let every last one of your friends burn up and die.”

Then there was a click. “Wait!” Pixie yelled. “God damn it…”

              “I have a location,” Tyler said.  “I’ve locked on to the phone that he used to call you.”  He looked at the computer screen.  “Hmm. It looks as if he’s at the Gilded Swan Hotel.  Give me a minute…” He tapped on the computer for a while, and then looked up.

             
“An anonymous party booked the penthouse suite and the entire top floor of the hotel.  There’s literally no name in the hotel register, and it says the room was paid for in cash.  Thirty thousand dollars a day.”

             
Pixie nodded.  “We can disguise ourselves as bellhops, go up to his floor.  Tell him the management is sending up a complimentary bottle of champagne.   Once we get in, we can play it by ear.  My hope is we can grab him, drag him out of there, and force him to talk.  If there’s too much security in there, we can at least plant a bug so we can gather some more intel, and have men planted outside the hotel who can follow him if he leaves.”

             
“I’ll come with you,” Tyler said. 

             
“No, you need to stay here and keep doing whatever research you can, and keep running Shifters Inc.,” Dominick said. “Coordinate with all of the firm’s connections and resources.  You’re much better at that than either of us would be.”

             
“Yeah, you need to be here when Anastasia calls back, too,” Pixie said. “And by the way, for the love of God, don’t tell Hillary where we’re going.  Tell her we went out for a drive.  I can’t deal with any more of her nagging.”

             
Tyler grimaced, but nodded.  “All right.  I just feel like I’m sitting here on my ass while our friends are-”  he glanced at Pixie, then glanced away.  “While our friends are getting excellent medical care.”

             
Pixie pictured all her friends lying on hospital beds, burning with fever as the virus overwhelmed their systems, their organs straining and failing, and she realized that she was actually, literally, about to cry.   She turned away from him and Dominick and blinked furiously, desperate not to shed tears in front of him.  Where she’d grown up, showing weakness got you killed.

             
To her surprise, Dominick grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and didn’t say a word.  He stood there for a moment, his big, strong hand wrapped around hers, and she felt an odd calm flowing into her.

             
“I’m fine,” she said finally.  She should have let go of his hand, but she found herself enjoying his comforting warmth far too much.

             
“You better be,” he growled. “If you cry, I’m going to have to smack you around some, and you might like it too much.”