“You know damned well which! War Mage HQ!”
“I don’t have a listing for a War Mage company, sir,” the box told him, smugly regretful. “But perhaps you meant Warring Herbs and Tinctures? Or Wimberley Magical Exterminators? Or—”
“The Stratford Branch of the Silver Circle, War Mage Division, Office of the Lord Protector,” he said, slowly and distinctly. “And don’t tell me you can’t find it!”
“Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?” the face in the mirror said pertly. “Please hold.”
It disappeared, and John fantasized about putting a fist through the bloody surface, but it might affect the enchantment. He didn’t know. He didn’t know how anything worked around here!
The booth was in a city that John had minimal experience with, and which bore very little resemblance to the human version of Hong Kong. At least, he was pretty sure that was where he’d ended up, along with half of the Vegas branch of the War Mage Corps. He’d visited a few times in the past on assignment, and it wasn’t the sort of place you forgot.
Most cities of any size had supernatural enclaves of one type or another, carefully hidden from human view. Some of the larger ones, like New York or London, or those containing the headquarters of important supernatural organizations, such as Stratford or Paris, had a number of them. But there were a few, scattered around the world, that weren’t human cities at all.
Supernatural Hong Kong was one of them.
Of course, it wasn’t called that. Colloquially, it was known as Rogue’s Harbor, after the port of choice for smugglers and pirates, assassins and thieves, that it had once been—and some would say still was. More often, though, it was just Hong Kong, because it occupied the same space as the human version, living among it, beside it, but slightly phased out of existence with it, so that two cities could occupy the same space at the same time.
That marvel of metaphysical construction was centuries old now, but had never been surpassed due to the huge ley line sink that lay directly beneath the city. Ley lines, the mysterious rivers of magical energy that crisscrossed the planet, were prized for the power they possessed, some of which the supernatural community had tapped into to fuel wards, run large spells, and cut portals from one line to another, creating short cuts around the world. Some crazy bastards even surfed the lines themselves, going directly into the current protected only by their shields.
The wells of power created where lines crossed were even more valued, and Hong Kong had one of the largest on earth. Almost every ley line of any importance in Asia ran through it, generating so much magical power that it could keep the supernatural city in a slightly different space, quantumly speaking, than its human counterpart on an indefinite basis. Resulting in a community that didn’t have to hide anything.
And, oh, the difference that made.
John eyed a bunch of little cards that had been tucked around the mirror, with more scotch taped to whatever space was available in the booth. Some were ads for local restaurants or businesses, but most were of a more . . . personal . . . nature. Blondes, brunettes and redheads, of every type and description imaginable, shook their collective groove thing in his face no matter where he looked, trying to get him interested in the charms provided.
And for once, John found himself wishing them every success.
The damned spell was so much stronger here.
He’d felt the flood of memories back in Vegas, but not the spell behind them. But he was making up for that now. It had taken everything he had to get here, fighting through streets crowded with dead-eyed war mages, half of whom he didn’t know, maybe because they weren’t from Vegas. He had no idea how many of the Circle’s bases had been compromised, but it was definitely more than one, and the implications of that . . .
He didn’t want to think about the implications.
Especially since it was all he could do to stay in the booth and not join them! His body was shaking, sweat was breaking out on his face, and he felt like he might throw up. And all the while, cards of sultry beauties shook their assets at him.
He stared at a pert brunette directly in front of his face, in pride of place on top of the mirror. And tried to will some of the incubus side of himself to the surface. It had plagued his life for years, that legacy from his father, causing him to lose concentration at inopportune and even dangerous times, and resulting in countless sleepless nights, tossing and turning with emotions he couldn’t afford to feel. But now—
Damned if he couldn’t use a distraction now!
The figure on the card was doing her best to oblige. She shimmied and shook, posed and preened. She was going for the exotic, or maybe the sacrilegious; he wasn’t sure. But she was wearing an Indonesian temple dancer’s headdress in chased gold, along with a few diaphanous wisps of a matching fabric that revealed . . . pretty much everything. She made some attractive poses, only stopping every so often to point at the number on top of the card.
Which, John assumed, one could call to find out what fetish, exactly, she catered to.
He took the little card down, causing the level of gyration to reach almost contortionist levels, because the animation spell was obviously designed to respond to any indication of interest. But try as he might, he didn’t have any. And that fact suddenly did help, although not in the way he’d imagined.
A wash of pure fury coursed through his veins, so hot that it felt like it displaced the blood. It was so typical! When his nature could hurt him, it was Johnny on the spot, yes, sir, be right there, sir! But in one of the few instances where it might actually help—
Where the hell was it now?
Magic prickled at his fingertips and surged with every heartbeat as John tried to calm his famous temper. It didn’t work. But the rage did do something else: it pushed back the effects of the spell, giving him a clear head for what felt like the first time since he’d woken up, and making everything come into sharp, even brilliant focus.
Allowing him to see clearly the burst of magic erupting from his left hand before he could stop it, a dazzle of white-hot fire that—
Shit!
Had just melted the door handle.
John struggled with the now-fused door, wondering what was next, and what the hell was wrong with his control lately. He’d never had this much trouble governing his power. Was the spell interfering? Because that made no damned sense. He hadn’t been spelled all week, when he’d been threatening to burn down the casino he called home. So why would it—
His thoughts cut off abruptly, as another flood of power sizzled through the air, but this time, it wasn’t coming from him.
It also wasn’t a spell. But more like the feeling he sometimes had at HQ, when too many overpowered mages were squashed together in too small a space. As if the very air was electric.
It therefore wasn’t exactly a surprise to look up and see a large group of heavily armed men and women appear at far end of the street. They didn’t look like police, if this place even had police. He frankly doubted it, because the city wasn’t run that way. The first time he visited, he’d been told that it had been divided into territories by the vampires who first built and still ran it. And while personal fiefdoms were now outlawed, Hong Kong—especially magical Hong Kong—wasn’t known for being particularly law abiding.
And it didn’t look like the local vampire mafia were pleased to have a bunch of war mages suddenly show up on their turf.