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CHAPTER 2
Director Enyo Sakamoto stared at me over her carefully steepled fingers. Silence suffocated the pristine gray and white of her enormous office, only broken by the perpetual trickle of the artificial waterfall behind her.
How did this woman know exactly how to freak me out? She was holding my gaze just a moment too long. And just when I thought it was over, her other eye slowly swiveled to look at Morrow.
My hair stood on end. She was looking at both of us at the same time, like some kind of insect. Could insects even do that?
I blinked, and her eyes were shut, seemingly in deep thought. Had I just imagined all that?
“But why would the goddess set up a jewelry store, of all things?” Sakamoto asked. “That seems like too much work when she can just fling out binding hexes willy-nilly.”
The director had a point. I mean, I’d just been an almost-victim of the Goddess of the Valley’s mind control. All the zealots and true believers who followed her, how they’d all been gifted with magic through her dubious miracles — surely that wasn’t all just blind loyalty and faith. Or was the temptation of instantaneous power enough? Go from a lowly mundane human to a mage within moments, just add holy water?
“And I’ve checked with the other field agents,” Morrow said. “The surveillance department, too. No one has reported any recent sightings of the Goddess of the Valley’s magpies.”
Her worshippers, those young men in crimson hooded jackets. We’d come to call the cultists hoodies, but the goddess had called them her magpies, sending them out to steal shiny trinkets, magical objects to consume and convert into fuel for her ritual.
Sakamoto drummed her fingernails on her desk. “For a human woman who aspired to divinity — who’d intended to replace an existing goddess with the Rite of Divine Usurpation — the Goddess of the Valley was infused with far too much arcane talent.”
And she had seemingly appeared overnight. There was no way to track every last magic user within the arcane underground. Even magical people didn’t like intrusions on their privacy.
“I’ve asked around,” I said, “but none of my contacts have ever even heard of her. For someone of this much power to stay out of Occultech’s radar is absolutely bananas.”
“Then exercise caution,” Sakamoto said. “Prioritize Happy, Inc., but assume that Lady Paralumen is still on the prowl.”
Another shiver coursed through my body. Sakamoto had already established that names didn’t have the power they used to, at least in a magical sense. Information technology had made sure of that, diluting the effectiveness of sympathetic magic through name alone by flooding the world with a tidal wave of human names.
What eldritch power could you truly hold over a person when all you had to do to find their true name was a quick internet search?
Yet knowing all that still didn’t stop me from getting nervous at the mere mention of her name. Maybe I was more superstitious than I thought. I was being silly. Say “Beetlejuice” three times. Say “Bloody Mary” in the mirror. Only myths. Urban legends.
“Lady — um, that is to say, the Goddess of the Valley.” I clenched my fists, hating myself for stammering. “If we do encounter her out on the street, should we engage her?”
“To the best of your ability,” said Sakamoto. “Defensively. But I hope you’ve learned your lesson. This time, perhaps you won’t copy her spells before you understand what’s happening.”
I threw my hands up. “Hey! I copied the right spell when it mattered. Remember? When she and her magpies breached the basement? Then she broke your creepy drone? Then I mirrored the spell right back at her and busted her stupid lantern and unleashed the actual goddess that split her into tiny little molecules. Or so we thought.”
Sakamoto sniffled. “We were both right there, Frost. Stop recounting your dubious achievements as if for the benefit of some invisible audience.”
I bit my tongue, because Sakamoto wasn’t actually there. Not physically, at least. She was in her allegedly nonexistent war room, the place where she took control of Occultech HQ’s defenses and facilities by ritually flogging and bleeding her personal assistants or whatever. Presumably. I’m just guessing.
“And besides, you broke our ocular drone.” Her mouth split into a pearlescent grin. “Rest assured, we will be garnishing your wages to pay for the prototype. In reasonable quantities, of course.”
I threw my hands up again. “What wages? I’m just a contractor. I don’t even work here.”
“And you never will, with that attitude.”
I glanced at Morrow as if he could even do anything to help me. He shrugged. I frowned. That shrug wasn’t apologetic enough.
“Consider yourselves dismissed, gentlemen.” She looked down at the tablet in her hand, seemingly bored. “Report back if you find anything. Surveillance has been — motivated — and will provide intel as and when it is ready.”
Morrow coughed. “Motivated, Director?”
“Correct. I told them that hovering eyeball drones would replace them if they didn’t do their jobs properly. By way of a memo. That catches fire when read.”
I caught myself before I rolled my eyes. I thought the self-immolating documents were only meant for freelancers like me, dossiers that burned themselves after reading to ensure there was zero evidence left to incriminate Occultech. You needed to be an attentive reader to do mercenary work for Occultech.
Merc work, that is. In my case, I scraped through with that little portion of my talent for duplicating spells that helped me retain information better than your average super-handsome magical boy. Still made my head hurt like hell, though.
