Jocelynn Drake - Dead Man’s Deal

A man looked up from where he was leaning over a long table, his black eyes enlarged by his thick glasses. “Where the hell have you been, woman? I’m ready for the next batch,” he shouted as we came into view. Along the wall behind him was another long table, but this one held a row of silver boxes and several glass containers with tubes coming out of them.

“Those men Reave called about arrived,” she snapped irritably, waving one hand back at Bronx and me.

The man’s eyes settled on us and his frown deepened. “Why they down here?”

“We need to see all of the premises so that the work can be done properly,” Bronx said, but the man didn’t seem to be as trusting as his wife. His frown deepened as his fists landed on his hips.

“Is that one of the new gravity convection ovens or are you still using forced air?” I asked, stepping around the woman to approach the table. The man straightened, his frown disappearing as he glanced over his shoulder at the row of ovens behind him.

“The two on the far end are forced air. I just got in the new gravity convection,” he said slowly, sounding as surprised as Bronx looked beside me. Unlike a lot of tattoo artists, I had studied various methods of preparing ingredients used in potions. Most tattoo artists bought their ingredients prepared for them, while I liked to work with the raw materials. The result was that I knew a fair amount about the machines found in professional laboratories.

“How do you like it?” I asked, scratching my head as I looked over the ovens. “I’ve worked with the forced air for years and think they’re great. I’m reluctant to change when I think something works just fine.”

“The gravity is a dream,” the man said with a chuckle, his whole demeanor relaxing as he imagined that he was talking to someone who was in the business as well. “It took me forever to talk Reave into getting me one, but it has sped up production. It’s a lot more reliable than the forced air.”

“You’ve got a great collection of desiccation jars, particularly the vacuum ones. I wasn’t expecting you to use those.”

He shrugged as he took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses on the hem of his dirty Black Sabbath T-shirt. “They come in handy if you get backed up. If we can’t get the livers directly into the ovens after harvesting, they’ll go into the traditional desiccators, but if we need to let them sit for a while after coming out of the ovens, we’ll drop them into the vacuum desiccators. With all the moisture in the air down here, we have to be careful that the product doesn’t get contaminated.”

I nodded, pretending to be interested in his tools and gadgets when my stomach was churning inside. I knew the basics of how fix was produced. Pixies were torn open, their insides ripped out and separated. Their livers were used for the drug, but most of their other organs could be sold to vendors for potions and a few delicacies. The livers were thrown into laboratory-grade ovens and dried until they could be pounded into a fine powder, which was later snorted or injected by trolls, ogres, giants, and other large races. A smaller creature’s heart would quite literally explode in its chest in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah, that’s got to be a problem,” I murmured before turning back to the man. “Do you keep the pixies on-site?”

“Have to. The product has to be fresh.”

“Can I see the room they’re kept in?”

The man’s expression closed once again as he crossed his arms over his slightly bulging stomach. “I don’t know why you need to see that.”

At the same time I could hear the heavy thump of two sets of footsteps descending the wooden stairs into the basement. The men fetching dinner had returned. Excellent—more gun-wielding assholes running around this enclosed space. Three people with guns we might have been able to handle quietly, but five was getting tricky. The scent of salty fries and greasy burgers hung heavy in the air, adding to the uncomfortable gurgling in my stomach.

I forced an indifferent shrug. “Fine. Reave said to protect the house. It was my understanding that meant the most important parts of the house. I’ll just do the upstairs. You can explain to Reave why I didn’t protect the pixie storage room. You can also tell him that I’m not making a second trip. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

Bronx was expressionless as he started to follow me back toward the stairs. I didn’t even reach the bottom stair when the man was anxiously calling me back.

“Look, man, I didn’t mean nothing. If anything happens to the supply, it’s my neck.”

“I’m just trying to do a job,” I said, still standing by the stairs as if I was going to bolt at any second. “The sooner you let me do it, the sooner I can get out of your hair.” What this guy didn’t know was that Reave hadn’t said anything about protecting the pixies. I think he wanted me to put a quick ward on the front and back doors and drop a fireproof charm over the house before calling it a night. I had something better in mind.

“Here. The storage room is right here.” The man scurried to a door in the far wall. He took an old iron key out of his pocket and unlocked the door while waving me over. I gave a quick nod to Bronx to hang back while I stepped over to the room. The man flicked on the light and there was no stopping my harsh gasp. It was a small room, barely larger than a walk-in broom closet. The entire back wall from floor to ceiling was covered in small cages made of fine mesh metal wires so the little bodies they imprisoned couldn’t squeeze through the openings.

The small room was filled with the sound of rapidly beating wings like a thousand insects gathered in a single space. Over that, there were high-pitched cries. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was heartbreaking to hear. Unlike faeries, pixies glowed with an almost phosphorescent light from the inside, a variety of red, blues, greens, and orange. Their lights seemed dimmer than usual to me.

The man in the thick glasses grabbed a baseball bat from near the entrance and hammered on the front of the cages. “Shut the hell up! Nasty vermin.”

The pitiful cries stopped, but not the sound of those desperately beating wings. It was all I could do to keep from ripping the bat from his meaty hands and using it on his skull. I kept facing forward, walking up to the cages with my hands buried deep in my pockets. Tiny hands reached between the mesh wires at me while wide, liquid black eyes held my gaze.

“How do you keep them from using magic on the locks?” I said in a rough voice, struggling to keep the anger from my tone. The people in this house saw the pixies as animals, or worse, something to be used up and thrown away.

“The inner workings of each lock are made of iron and each lock is opened with an iron key. Their magic don’t work on iron.”

I nodded. I’d guessed as much, but I had to be sure.

“So, you got a way of protecting them?” the man asked my back as I continued to look over the wall of cages.

I winked at the pixie hovering directly in front of me. “Yeah, I’ve got something that will protect them,” I said. The pixie cocked her head to the side, looking a little confused for a second before a small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. Turning back to the man, I motioned for him to precede me out of the storage room. “I’ll need you to leave the door open and stay out of that room while I work.”

“How long is that going to take?” he demanded, looking over his shoulder at me.

“Not long. Few minutes at most. Go eat dinner while I work.”

The man hesitated for several seconds before he walked over to the guards holding the food, his head shaking as he went. I smiled to myself and pulled some blue chalk out of my pocket. Time to go to work.