We headed to the door. The familiar scents washed over me: rice, onion, chili peppers, cumin, coriander. Mom was cooking nasi goreng, fried rice. I was home.
Help me.
Jim sampled the wind. “It’s past one. Does your mother usually cook after midnight?”
“No, it’s special for me. She sensed us coming.”
I raised my hand to knock on the door. Before my knuckles touched the wood, it flew open and my mother clamped me in a hug. Looking at her you could tell exactly how I would look in thirty years or so: tiny, skinny, dark, quick to move.
“Why are you so dirty?” My mother pulled a cobweb out of my hair. “What is happened? Come inside. Who is this man?”
Here we go. I took a deep breath and walked in. “This is Jim.”
Jim stepped inside.
My mother shut the door and peered at him. “He is dark. Very, very dark.”
Jim grinned, showing a tiny edge of his teeth.
I felt like slapping myself. “Mother!”
“What is it you do?” She leaned over to Jim. Her accent was getting thicker. “Do you have money?”
“He is my alpha. He’s in charge of the whole Cat clan. Very important.”
My mother’s eyes sparked. Oh no.
She leaned over and patted Jim’s hand. “That is so nice. My daughter is so smart. Always respectful and well behaved. Never any trouble and she does as she is told.”
“You don’t say,” Jim murmured.
“Doesn’t spend a lot of money. Two doctor degrees. Little problem with her eyes, but that’s her father’s side of the family. Very rare magic, a white tiger. One in seven generation. Very special. She can cure evil eye with a touch. And if you had your house cursed, she can purify it for you. Everyone respects my daughter. All our people know her.”
Jim nodded to her with a solemn look. My stomach lurched. I felt like throwing up. “Mother . . .”
She nodded to Jim, as if sharing a grave secret. “And she’s a good cook, too.”
Jim leaned a little toward her, his face deadly serious. “I’m sure she is.”
My mother smiled, as if he’d given her a diamond. “Best match. Of all the girls, mine is best match.”
Aaaaa! “Mother! There is something wrong with him. He’s magic-sick.”
My mother stood up on her toes and peered at Jim’s eyes. For a long moment they were eye to eye, my short mother and tall, muscular Jim, and then she switched to Indonesian.
“Let him go.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“He is strong. Very good in the body. But you must find another one.”
“I don’t want another one! I want him.”
“He’s dying.”
“I have to save him. Please help me. Please.”
My mother bit her lip and pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
Jim sat. She leaned over and pulled his right eye open with her fingers, examining the iris. “Something is eating his soul.”
“I figured that out. But I can’t see it.”
Mother sighed. “I can’t see it either. Until we see it, we can’t do anything about it. We need Keong Emas.”
The Golden Snail. My heart dropped. My legs gave out and I landed on the couch. The only place we could get a golden snail would be in Underground Atlanta. It used to be a shopping district in Five Points, where all the big buildings stood before the Shift. The Underground started out as a big train depot in the mid-1800s with shops, banks, and even saloons, but eventually the city had to build viaducts over the railroad tracks for the car traffic. The viaducts ran together until a good portion of the train tracks, the shops, and the depot were underground. Before the Shift, it used to be full of little bars and shops. Once the magic hit, the shop owners fled and the black market moved in. The mob-sponsored traders had burrowed deep, cutting tunnels running from their shops right into the ruined Five Points and Unicorn Lane, where the magic ran wild and no sane cop would follow them. Now the Underground was a place where you could buy anything if you were desperate enough.
“Is there any other way?”
My mother shook her head. “Don’t even think about it. You can’t go to the Underground.”
I exhaled, blinking. “We don’t have any choice.”
My mother made a short cutting motion with her hand. “No!”
“Yes. We need to buy the snail.”
My mother drew herself to her full height. I stood up and did the same.
“No, and that’s final.”
“You can’t keep me from doing it.”
“I am your mother!”
Jim opened his mouth. “Mengapa?”
Oh my gods.
He spoke Indonesian.
My mother’s eyes went wide and for a second she looked like a furious cat. “He speaks Indonesian!”
“I know!”
“Why didn’t you tell me he speaks Indonesian? This is a thing I need to know!”
I waved my arms. “I didn’t know!”
“What do you mean, you didn’t know? You just said you knew.”
“I meant I didn’t know that he did and then he did and I went ‘I know!’ because I was surprised.”
“Ladies!” Jim barked, standing up.
We both looked at him.
“You’re speaking so fast, I can’t understand,” he said. “Why does Dali need to go to the Underground?”
“You explain it to him,” my mother said. “I will make tea.” She went into the kitchen.
I pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
He sat and lowered his voice. “What happened to your mother’s accent?”
“We’re past that now,” I whispered to him. “Her little Asian lady act is just for show. She has a master’s in chemistry from Princeton.”
Jim blinked.
“Well, where did you think I got my brains?”
Jim shook his head. “Explain the Underground thing.”
I sighed. “How much did you understand? And since when do you speak Indonesian?”
“I’ve got the idea that something is seriously fucked up and it seemed like an interesting language.”
“Interesting language? Really? So what, you got up one day and said, ‘Hmm, I think I will learn Bahasa Indonesia today’?” He was up to something.
A green sheen rolled over Jim’s eyes. “Dali, the Underground?”
There was no easy way to say it. “Something is feeding on your soul.”
“Explain.”
I leaned closer. “All people generate magic. Some can use it, some can’t; some generate more than others, but all of us are magic engines: We absorb it from the environment and emit it back out. That’s why we can shift during technology: We store enough magic in our bodies to allow us to change shape. Let’s take Kate.”
Jim’s voice betrayed a quiet warning. “What about Kate?”
Kate used to work with Jim in the Mercenary Guild. Kate was gorgeous, funny, and she could kill anything. I hated her. She could say anything to Jim and he would just needle her back. I was so jealous of her I used to have to leave the room, until I realized that Kate crushed on Curran. She was now mated to him, and since he was the Beast Lord, that made her the Beast Lady and not interested in Jim. Kate and Curran had some seriously rough time with an ancient goddess who blew into town, and now Kate walked with a cane and Curran was barely three weeks out of a coma.
“Ever notice how when Kate gets stressed out the phones stop working?”
“The phones are unreliable as a rule,” Jim said.
I shook my head. “No, it’s Kate. She generates so much magic, she short-circuits tech if she isn’t careful. I do the same thing, except I control mine better. She can’t shoot a gun either. I’ve watched her practice and it either goes wide or doesn’t fire at all. And she has no clue. Watch her sometime: She will stomp in, grab the phone, make that growly noise, and walk away. Ten minutes later you can order takeout on the same phone. It’s the funniest thing.”