Magical Mafias Book 1

< Previous All Next >

Episode 6: New Faces

Raw Audio for Episode (edited audio coming later!)

Text of Episode

Rhett Shriver, Illa's new identity, clipped on his cufflink, snapping straight his sleeve as he walked. He had a fast and steady clip, like he hadn't time for anyone and knew exactly where he was going.

His Oxfords echoed off the tile floor of Eric's club as he walked past the Closed sign, nodding to the two smoking employees who were pretending to take a break from off-hours cleaning. One of them stood, got in his way, ash from a cigarette dripping onto Rhett's shoe.

"Don't know your face," the employee said.

"Eric sent me." Illa loosened his tie, undid the top button of the shirt collar, just enough to show brass around his neck.

They sent him on, and Illa went behind the bar, Oxfords echoing eerie all the way. He opened an unmarked door in the very back and stepped into a haze of smoke and the stink of alcohol. Heavens, he was going to pick up a nicotine addiction again, wasn't he?

The sound of a whip cracking filled the background. No music pounding, not like other clubs. There were screams, but after their tour of different dungeons for the past week, that just made him feel at home. He caught a smile on his face without even meaning it, found himself walking straight in like he hadn't a care in the world, slipping past naked players and stepping over loose rope until he found the undead man himself, having his boots blacked at a chair in the back.

Gabriel looked good for a dead man. Slicked-back black hair and smooth, light-brown skin that barely showed wear. He must have died young. He had a cigar instead of the ubiquitous cigarettes, and he tapped off the ashes against the arm of his chair as he watched Illa approach.

"Been expecting you," he said. His voice was similar in pitch to Illa's, but with a rusty growl to it. Maybe from the smoking habit.

"I hope Eric put in a good word." Really, it was Greta, but Eric's name was the secret password.

"He has good taste." Gabriel gave a gesture with his hand, like he was pulling on an invisible leash. "Come here."

Illa had crafted Rhett's personality for two goals: to match the profile Greta had cobbled together of Gabriel's preferences, and to be as distinct as possible from the kind of headspace that drew Illa into submissive fugue.

So Illa stepped forward, past the boot-blacker like he wasn't even there, right up into Gabriel's personal space. There were cigarettes and a lighter on the side table, and he took one, lit it himself, made the first puff of that damned addiction his own choice. Didn't cough, though his throat burned, long unused to the heat and scrape of the smoke. Blew it away from Gabriel's face--didn't want to be rude. There was still a smile tugging at his lips.

"Something funny?" Gabriel asked.

Illa tapped the filter of the cigarette with his thumb, couldn't put down the smile. "Just happy. You look like someone I could look up to."

"That sarcasm?"

Illa took apart another button of his shirt, leaned his head back to show the brass collar. "No, sir." Go ahead. Humble me.

A quirk of the lips, a spark in the eye--this was working on Gabriel. Good.

Illa was pretty sure he could keep this up.

A little more tit-for-tat, after which Gabriel asked if Rhett could boot-black. Illa was rusty--Shandra hadn't been much for receiving that service, so it had been a while. It began playful, Gabriel holding his boot at just the angle to force Illa to twist around to reach, and a bap of boot cleats to his nose, just to remind him why he was down there working. But after not too long, Illa remembered the touch for it, body memory settling into just the right motions. The feel of the leather's give against the human muscle beneath it. The way to hold his hand so it curved just right around the back of the boot as he worked. Until the dynamic eased from test and play to service. Illa played it by the intuition Gabriel's movements whispered to him, fed by flickered glances up to read face, body, motion, command. Careful and diligent, his fingertips bringing out the shine in small circles swathed in cloth. This wasn't quite what Illa had planned for Rhett's style, but adapting to Gabriel was the important part here, and this felt like the right way to play it. Even if it clicked too well with Illa. That deeply familiar mélange of odors--leather, grease and polish through a haze of tobacco--put him in mind of old times and secret spaces. The familiarity was reassuring and daunting both. Rhett's persona was all confidence, but Illa couldn't afford to relax or even assume he knew the territory.

Gabriel rose when Illa had finished. Caught his eye enough to make sure Illa was paying attention, and then gave him a nod.

Illa had won this round, then. Good.

Illa kept working the bench a while, since Gabriel hadn't made any gestures to lure Illa out for further kink. Trying to get a sense for the people here. Greg, the sub whose boot-blacking Illa had interrupted, was a companionable sort, once he'd deemed Rhett sufficiently humbled. Gave him shit when Gabriel wasn't listening, to which Illa replied with a mixture of sarcastic deadpan and intentionally taking him far too literally. Took a few exchanges before Greg picked up on the joke, but once he did, that was enough to earn Illa a back-slap and a fresh jar of polish. There. One contact made.

Eric arrived as the time drew on. An up-nod in recognition when he saw Illa--Greta had introduced them in preparation for this--and then he stalked towards Gabriel. The two met in a byplay of swagger leading to touches leading to a shove, firm, as Gabriel pushed the taller man against the side of a rack and matters drew to intimacy. A fervor there, certainly never present in Eric's false affair with Greta. And rough by intention, because they each moved with perfect spatial awareness of each other, the kind of fluidity that spoke of long experience.

Eric and Gabriel were close, then. Would that be an advantage for this mission, or a disadvantage?

Gabriel took Illa aside at the end of the night. Sized Illa up, looking him up and down, something incisive in Gabriel's gaze, as if he were adding something together. But he didn't say what was on his mind, so it probably wasn't that Illa had blown his cover already.

"You safe where you're staying?" Gabriel asked.

Rhett's background had him on the run from the Morleys, since that was the usual profile for people Greta sent Eric. "Might not be."

"You need somewhere to stay?"

"You offering?"

"I'm offering. Could give you other kinds of help, too."

Enigmatic, that last bit. Nonetheless, Illa wore the glamours for deep cover, if the mission needed it. And this offer was perfect for his infiltration. Was, in fact, what they'd concocted Rhett's story hoping to achieve.

"That would mean a lot to me." Illa looked over his shoulder, as if he worried still about Morley pursuit. "You sure?"

"I'm sure."

The mansion where they'd set up the school was a beautiful, echoing thing, still empty of students and most of the teachers. A servant walked Thairn in her guise as teacher Alanna Abercorn from the entrance of the house all the way to the ballroom, giving Thairn plenty of views of marble halls with tapestried walls and bedrooms with servants a'bustle within them, still being outfitted to hold students.

The ballroom was a sweeping space with an antiquarian map of the human world inlaid in the floor. It sat today mostly empty, except for a line of teachers-to-be, a couple of servants, and three other figures. The middle figure was an old woman, skin a light brown, paled with age, hands mottled with liver spots. She grasped a cane, a curious specimen with a raven's skull for the top, octopus arms curling down the shaft, and a bull's hoof at the base. Just the way she gripped it spoke power. Magdalena Morley, she had to be.

At her right hand stood Greta, dressed in black and scanning the incoming teachers. She gave no special notice of Thairn as Alanna, made no signal. Good. Just as planned.

At Magdalena's left hand stood Mickey Morley. He was a lanky young man, somewhere in his twenties, with skin a shade darker than Magdalena's and two shades lighter than Greta's. He had something of Greta in the shape of his face, but nothing of her intriguing eyes--his were a dark brown, the same color as his hair, which came to his shoulders in a face-framing wave. He wore a three-piece pinstripe black suit--tailored better than Illa's, no looseness in the shoulders--and held a cane, though it seemed more for show than for balance. Elaborate, serpentine carvings twisted through the wood. Was that his wand, perhaps?

A servant called out a name, and the first teacher in line stepped forward. Another servant reached for the teacher's tweed jacket, which he gave up willingly, and then for his buttoned dress shirt.

The teacher swatted the servant away. "What are you doing?"

"The fae store glamour in objects," Magdalena said. "So you carry none."

The teacher swallowed visibly under the matriarch's stare, but did not object further. The servant took his shirt, his belt, all the way down past underwear into nakedness. No privacy. Privacy required trust, and there was none here.

The denuded teacher was presented first seemingly to Magdalena, but really to Greta, the servants nudging him to slowly turn in a circle. At the end of the rotation, Greta passed Magdalena some unseen signal, and Magdalena nodded.

Mickey set his cane against Magdalena's chair and came forward. He first brushed fingers through the teacher's hair, neat and matter-of-fact, then ran those hands down the teacher's back in a slow, smooth glide that would be sure to snag on any hidden wings.

"I am sorry, sir," Mickey said as he went. "Faeries can be tricky, you know, and so can other wizards."

"Do you have any expertise?" the teacher demanded.

"None at all, but someone's got to do it."

So this was the man Thairn was supposed to stymie? He didn't seem like he was at risk of leading any mafia.

A servant brought a basin for Mickey to wash his hands, and after the servants and Greta were done, he started on the next teacher. He offered up jokes for the nervous ones, just enough to ease the tension.

When it was Thairn's turn, the servant shed her of her red dress--backless, so as to show her lack of wings. She hesitated deliberately on the gloves, and, at her hesitation, Mickey stayed the servants, offered his hand to hold them.

"You won't like what you see," she said. "I was planning to shock my students with these."

"Have you seen where my hands have been?" he asked. "I think I'm out of shocks."

She took the gloves off herself, laid them in his waiting palm.

Her hands beneath the gloves were disfigured as if by acid and fire, covered in melted, uneven, discolored skin. Tied to a glamour in her fingernail, of course, but he wasn't to know that. It was her excuse both to keep gloves on, that she might touch iron and steel at will, and for her incapacity with evocation, which wizards channeled through their hands, and which the fae could not cast at all.

"No shock," he said, on seeing it. He offered to take one of her hands, which she allowed, and kissed the back of it as he would a gentleman greeting a lady. He froze for an almost-imperceptible second on the way there, but overcame whatever disgust he had and went on as if it were no matter, face pleasantly neutral. He carried her gloves away with him so the servants could finish stripping her, held them as she did the twirl for Greta. Magdalena took the signal and gave the nod, face impassive, and Mickey tucked Thairn's gloves into his breast pocket next to his embroidered handkerchief. He approached.

He began with her hair, undoing it from the twist she had it pinned up into. The glamour did not disguise its true length, which fell all the way down her back. As he went, he made little jokes like, "Ah, found another shiv, you really can hide quite a lot in here." The search brought brushes of his hands down her face, her neck.

Her back next. He moved her hair from the way, then sent both hands gliding down her shoulders to where she held her wings as close and tight to her body as she dare manage without allowing the tension to bleed into unglamoured muscle. Hyperaware of the graze of his palm. The glamour felt right to her, and it had passed Illa's test, but she thought she caught a hesitation somewhere between breaths. Couldn't be sure. Perhaps just paranoia, for he said nothing, only cracked a joke when he got lower about everyone having better lats than he did.

Somewhere beneath the sparks of paranoia, she found a liking for the smooth confidence of his touch, and when at the end he called her good to go, she found she wanted him to keep touching her. Maybe in private, later? Seduction wouldn't be a bad way to stymie him.

He returned her gloves with a flourishing bow, pressed them into her seemingly-ruined hands with a touch that flattered by lingering. She met his eyes, put her interest in the length of her gaze and the set of her smile. He gave her an extra little nod and bow, and then he was washing his hands for the next person while she was off to dress.

There was orientation for the teachers, and Thairn was interested to find Mickey attending, seated in the back and trying to be subtle. Would he be teaching, then? It made sense; it was his family that wanted to brainwash all these young wizards, anyway.

In the evening was a welcome party in a private bar inside the mansion. Thairn mingled, nearly getting into an argument with the Theoretical Magic teacher about musical spells, and catching the fun end of a drunken rant from the Herbs teacher about crystallanthemum monoculture. Thairn said just enough to prompt her further, and it was far too easy to let Herbs take up almost the entire burden of the conversation. Educational, too. Good instructor?

Mickey was sitting alone by the bar, cane resting between his legs, polishing off what looked like his third scotch, if he hadn't already had further glasses taken away. But he seemed sober when he caught Thairn's eye and gestured her over. She sat, and he propped his chin on the cane, eyes alighting on her with interest.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced," she said. "Alanna Abercorn."

"Mickey Morley," he said, drumming his fingers on the cane. "It really is a pleasure. Order you a drink?"

She shook her head. "I'll get water from the tap myself when I'm thirsty."

"You really did get caught by the faeries, didn't you?" He lost his smile. "Sorry, not a nice topic. If you've a better one, I'm glad to hear it."

So, he'd heard Alanna's backstory. Made sense, if he was involved in assessing the new teachers. She'd been refraining from taking a drink out of paranoia left over from Greta and her Sleepless Dream, but it was good to know it played into her cover. She'd have to be careful with that cover, of course--it was fine to let the wizards think the faeries had once threatened to enthrall Alanna with food and drink, but essential to ensure the wizards also thought the enthrallment either hadn't happened or hadn't been maintained, so that none of them believed Alanna bound to fae will. Wizards' magic could weaken and even break enthrallments, so that was something to her aid.

"Hmm, let's see," she said. "I've never been in a mansion with a bar before, that's a nicer topic."

"Been in many mansions?"

"No, not too many," she lied. "You?"

"Oh, loads. They don't all have bars, but they could all use them."

"Fond of drink?" She gestured to the empty tumblers.

"If you had a family like mine, you would be, too."

She thought of her own family. There wasn't any reason Alanna's had to be much different--maybe poorer. "Can't say I blame you, if they're anything like mine."

"Do they try to kill each other?"

"No."

"Then they're better, I assure you." He toasted with the remnants of his last tumbler, downed the scotch in a single go. "But, I thought we were going to talk about pleasant things, so let me try again. Besides, no good scaring the new teacher on her first day."

"Don't worry," she said, rubbing her gloved hand in a way meant to look unconscious, "I don't scare easy."

He started her in, of all things, on the topic of lipstick shades. (His opinion of bright red, it turned out, was far lower than his opinion of purple.) One ramble of conversation later, she'd gotten up to get herself that water, and he'd downed another scotch. It barely seemed to touch him.

As the conversation continued, they found themselves brushing fingertips across the table, and he was sitting back in that chair as if he hadn't a care in the world. He'd gotten onto the topic of telenovelas (he was part-Latino, didn't speak Spanish, but loved to watch them, anyway, and had endless trash to talk on his favorite characters), and she was riding the conversation easy. He left gaps for her to cut in, listened with interest when she did talk, but she was more than happy to let him go on. She'd learn more that way, was her hope. Though, truth to tell, she didn't know how much she could garner from anything he'd talked about, especially as he dodged anything he deemed unpleasant (read: anything important) by a mile. Tricky bastard. At least he was entertaining, and at least she could read that he didn't take himself too seriously, or maybe just wanted her to think he didn't.

Halfway through an explanation of how Rosa was completely wrong for Enrique, who clearly needed to be with Carlos no matter what the writers thought, their fingers intertwined, and Thairn found she'd forgotten if Alanna was supposed to flinch or not from the sensation.

She spoke to cover. "We've been talking for at least an hour, and you haven't once asked what happened to my hands."

He stroked her palm with one thumb. "I know exactly what happened to your hands."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Of course not. It's a secret."

"From me?"

"Especially from you. That you're the one who has the hands, that's got nothing to do with it."

She laughed, and squeezed his fingers tighter, and decided that Alanna didn't need to flinch, not from his touch.

At the end of the night, he stood up and stumbled, clinging to his cane for balance. He was faking it, if she judged it right.

She knew it for sure when he said, "I think you were right about my drinking, Miss Abercorn. At this rate, I'm going to need a chaperone just to get to my room."

She took a last sip of her water and stood. "I suppose I can be your designated walker."

He flourished a bow, pretending clumsiness. She took his arm and guided him into the hallway. Two men, she noticed, were following them. One white and all gangly limbs, with messy strawberry-blond hair, whom she didn't recognize. The taller one, though--black, bald and bearded, with an expression so carefully closed she couldn't read it. Wasn't he one of Mickey's rivals for the Morley succession?

"I didn't know you'd invited company," she said.

"Luke and Xavier, my bodyguards. Ignore them; they're like furniture."

He still trusted Xavier enough to bodyguard? Interesting.

"We heard that," Luke said.

"Oh, go grow a cushion," Mickey said. He leaned a little heavier on Thairn, hand brushing her back, and muttered. "Maybe I really do need a chaperone."

His bedroom was some distance away from the teachers' suites, and the entrance to it shimmered with wards in every color. She reached out her fingers as they passed through, felt the sizzle of their magic. There were wards against eavesdropping here, she realized. Strong enough that once she was inside the room, no one outside could hear her talk. Or scream.

But, angels and devils, wasn't the whole mansion a death trap?

Neither bodyguard followed them into the bedroom, thankfully. Was it trust in her, she wondered, or confidence in Mickey?

He wasn't faking drunk anymore, or at least was now doing a better job faking sobriety. Either way, he went to a rolling chair by the vanity, turned it to face her, and sat with one leg over another, toying with his cane and watching her with a very different sort of speculation than she'd walked into this room expecting.

"The best relationships," he said, "Make you discover new things about yourself. You've done that for me, and it's made me feel grateful... and generous."

"Generous?" she asked, perching on the edge of the bed. "Do tell."

"I told you in our little barroom that I know exactly what happened to your hands. Would you show them to me again? I want to get this magic trick just right."

She peeled off her gloves, just to see what he would do, held out her hands in all their gore and luster. He slid the wheely chair towards her in a display of profound disregard for dignity, and took those hands in his, pressing his fingers into those false scars. He squeezed her hands together between his own palms, and leaned in close to her.

"What's happened to your hands," he said, "Is absolutely nothing at all."

"Hell of a nothing," she said, yanking her hands back. She turned her voice to hurt. "Did you really bring me in here to make jokes?"

He crossed his hands over his knee, let his eyes flicker over her in a cold and assessing way that was nothing like he'd been in the bar. "You put on a good face. I don't know how you fooled Great-Aunt Greta--she's supposed to be the best, you know. And me? I'm not supposed to have any glamour-piercing power at all, but apparently it doesn't fool my sense of touch. Thank you for teaching me that--I guess you are a teacher, after all."

She said nothing, just focused on making her fists shake, her eyes begin to tear.

"You are such a good liar. It's fun to watch." He leaned back in the chair, still studying her with those cold eyes. "Taking cover as someone hurt by the fae, that's a good strategy. Deciding to teach 'Fighting the Fae', though, that might be a little much. Is finding you out the final exam? Do I pass?"

Those hesitations she'd thought she'd imagined, they had to be real. He knew. Or did he? Was he playing her, trying to get her to confess herself, some further test? And if he did know, why hadn't he said anything in the ballroom? Had he told Magdalena in secret? It didn't sound like Greta had let him in on anything--but then again, Greta was under life debt's burden to tell no one.

She made a show of visibly restraining herself. "What are you after?" she asked. It neither confirmed his claims nor denied them.

"I don't know if you've heard, but I'm competing for the succession of this delightful cabal of villainy. I've got the Test of the Serpent, and that means a strike in secret to secure some family aim. And you?"

"And me?"

"You're perfect to help me with that. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one in this whole mansion who knows what you are."

"And what would I get for helping you?" She had still confirmed nothing. This could still all be trickery.

"I won't tell anyone else what you are, for one. But also, I think you'd like me as the Morley successor. I'm not nearly the zealot the rest of my family is, when it comes to faeries. An in with the Morleys, I think that's what you came here all along to do, isn't it?"

"I'd imagine some faerie infiltrator would be after more than that, and I think you know it."

"Well. You'd probably need to wreak less destruction if you had the promise of an open ear and a new leader, wouldn't you? I could end this little war between our houses, maybe open up trade again. Anything's possible, once I'm in power."

"You talk a lot of ambition, and a lot of betrayal. Who says I'm not going to turn you in?"

"They trust me, and they've only just met you. What do you say? Help me out?"

"I'll help you, and you'll help me. I think that can be a deal." Keep it vague enough, and it didn't breach her promise to Greta, because as far as Greta was concerned, stopping Mickey was helping him. His proposals, they were tempting, but she didn't have more than an hour of conversation about soap operas to determine how seriously he meant them. And she'd no intention of risking Illa.

"Wonderful," he said. "I accept. Here's the first help I want, then. Figure out if Lucía's the one who got Xavier in the running, and if she is, whether he volunteered to be her game piece."

"Don't exactly take things slow, do you?"

"I save drawing things out for the bedroom." His gaze flickered around to where they were, an amused quirk lifting the corner of his mouth. "Metaphorically."

"Very well." She slid her gloves back on, covering up the glamour. They deactivated it when they were over her hands, at least until someone else touched them. Anything to keep the magic from burning into her skin and leaving her with permanent scars. "Then I'll ask you, first: if you distrust him this much, why is he still your bodyguard?"

"Because that's the best way to keep an eye on him, and it unsettles Lucía. Second?"

"Second, what all do you know about Lucía? I can't find anything out for you if I don't know what I'm getting into."

"And you certainly don't have any other uses you want to put all that knowledge to."

"Certainly not." Said with a smile. He had style to him, she'd give him that.

They spent the next while discussing Lucía. Thairn had a notion, between things she'd heard at the teachers' reception and what Mickey was talking about now, as to a few ways to get close to the woman. Mickey had some fairly extensive personal insight, not just from familiarity, but because he had a good sense for people. Thairn didn't have to slow herself down for him, either--he could keep up with every turn as she worked through his knowledge and her own inferences. And yet, for all that sharpness, he hadn't the faintest idea he was giving her the keys to keep him from the succession.

The discussion lasted well into the night.

"I suppose I'll see myself out?" Thairn asked, when it was over.

"As you like. Would you mind pretending we've been sleeping together? It'll be easier to explain."

To be honest, she wouldn't mind if it were actually true. He was handsome enough, for all he didn't need to be. It would get her closer, might make him open up more about himself, since he kept directing their conversation everywhere else. But it was late, and that would be far too obvious a maneuver to make right away.

For now, all she said was, "That's fine. I don't want any suspicion landing on me, either."

"Very well, then, my dear false lover. Another night?" He stood to open the door for her. He was already changing his movements to fit the lie, a satisfied looseness to his body.

She wondered, for a moment, when she reached the shimmer of his wards, if they'd let her back out. They did. He took on a tipsy-looking grin once they'd left the doorway, started trading jokes with his guards to relax them, since locking them out for so long had left them tense.

Not what she'd expected, going alone with him to his bedroom. But useful all the same.

< Previous All Next >

Internal Links:
Home Page  Series   Book 1   Spoiler Corner

External Links:
Ko-Fi   Art Gallery   Twitch   YouTube   Dreamwidth

Image Credit:Favicon (little icon on the browser tab) licensed from automotive.stocks on Deposit Photos

Copyright Statement/Fanworks Policy: Unless otherwise indicated, all works of fiction posted here belong to me. I offer revocable permission for readers/listeners to create non-commercial fanfiction and non-commercial fanart, as long as it does not reproduce substantial portions of my work, does not claim ownership of my work, and does not involve claiming to act/speak on my behalf. I reserve the right to revoke or modify this permission at any time, including by actions such as updating this statement, through direct contact, etc. If you want to create commercial derivative works, please reach out to me to inquire about arranging a license agreement. (Statement last updated 2023/03/12.)

Privacy Notice: This site takes IP logs that are deleted monthly. As far as I'm aware, this site does not capture or store any other user data. (Notice last updated 2023/03/12.)