Mob Sorcery 2 - Ch5

Chapter 5

The moment Vince entered his apartment, the heavenly smell of browned butter greeted him. Nina stood by the cooktop, bent over a large pan filled with golden liquid. A bubbling saucepan signaled that some pasta boiled away, if Vince guessed correctly.

“Cooking something new?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.

“Fia told me about an Italian deli that sells fresh pasta. I stopped by and grabbed some ravioli and pancetta on the way home, so I’m trying something new,” she said.

Without looking up at him, she scooped up a little of the sauce and tasted it. A hum of approval escaped her. Then she waved him over.

“You should try some. I always worry that I put in too few herbs and spices, because they hit me harder,” she said, holding up a full spoon over a cupped hand.

He stepped up to her and she fed him the hot liquid. It tasted like herby, toasted butter. Which is to say, it tasted amazing.

“It’s fantastic,” Vince said, blinking in surprise.

“Do you think it needs more salt? More sage?” she asked.

“Nina, I’m happy with burned cheeseburgers. Do whatever makes you happy.”

She glared at him and salted the sauce angrily, as if annoyed that he couldn’t provide her more advice.

Not like it was his fault that she had a fancier palate than him.

“Also, you smell like cigarettes, cheap meat, and wolves. Shower,” Nina ordered him as she cut up a lemon and some walnuts. “I’ll be a few more minutes.”

“Yes, ma—” He paused before finishing what might have been a sentence that doomed him, but she bared her teeth at him anyway.

“Nice save,” she muttered. “I’ll let you pass this time.”

He showered, using the new bodywash that Nina had picked up. It promised to remove any and all scents, including magical and cursed ones with 300% effectiveness. Truly an impressive statement.

Vince wondered what a cursed scent was. Did demihumans rub their scents into their exes or rivals in order to cause them romantic trouble?

Afterward, he made sure to switch into some clean clothes. Ordinarily, he’d tell Nina to deal with Fia’s lingering scent on his shirt, but he had spare jackets to wear around the house and his roommate seemed to be in a mood.

He returned to the main room to find her serving up the pasta onto two plates. There seemed to be an awful lot of it.

When he joined her on the sofa, she handed him a plate. Without even trying, the scent of the dish invaded his nostrils. Sage mixed with butter and cheese, plus a hint of the fatty smell from the crispy pancetta that poked up from the golden sauce.

“If you’re cooking something like this, was it a good or bad day?” he asked.

“It was a day,” she said dourly. The TV remained firmly off as she dug into her plate, spilling melted cheese from the ravioli. “Let’s not talk about it. How’d you go? Keep a low profile for once?”

“What do you mean, ‘for once?’”

“Well, yesterday you managed to get involved in a brawl with a vampire assassin and get threatened by one of the most powerful demons in the city.” Nina glared at him. “An assassination attempt you didn’t mention.”

He leaned against her side but avoided looking at her. She bopped him on the side of the head lightly.

“Don’t play cute with me,” she chided. “Was that assassination attempt the tantrum Quintus mentioned? I saw something had happened down below when I slipped into the club. That was you? Not a peep online about it.”

Huh. Vince figured somebody would have brought up an attack by Juliet, given she had a following online. Hot and crazy worked well to attract guys, and they tended to go missing.

Something told Vince those missing men didn’t get lucky with Juliet as much as she used them as a snack and vaporized the evidence. She seemed to give no shits about lesser races and had barely even reacted to the sexualized jibes thrown her way in the fight.

“The one and only Juliet Forest showed up, acted strangely, killed one of her allies, and then fucked off before the police showed,” Vince said. “Not as dangerous as I expected, to be honest. No clue how to kill her, though. I didn’t get a chance to use my dragon.”

That was a lie. He had a chance but blew it.

Nina lowered her fork to her plate slowly before pushing him off her. She then punched him in the arm. Lightly. At least by her standards. He rubbed the slightly sore spot where she’d struck him.

“Hey. Use words,” he said.

“That barely counts as a love tap,” she said. “And you should have fucking mentioned if Kaziern sent somebody so expensive after you. Juliet’s rates are ridiculous. You think the lions offered you a lot to take out the Lionettis? She makes that look cheap. Her business model is to extort ridiculous money out of desperate clients, because she can’t be killed and has powerful backers.”

Vince frowned. “Backers? And it sounds like you know her.”

“Somebody hired her to take me out once and I had to bail on a job. Never worked out how to kill her, as nobody knows what country she’s originally from. Name’s fake, nobody knows her age, and she changes her accent at will.”

“It really sounds like you know her well.” He noticed Nina hadn’t brought any drinks to the table, and got up to get some. “Want a beer? I’ll stick with water if we don’t have anything else.”

“Beer is nice. I grabbed you some iced coffees. Figured you could use some caffeinated stuff that isn’t full of magic.”

Nothing like mixing cheap iced coffee with fancy pasta. He grabbed a beer and a small can of what was apparently coffee. When he cracked it open, it at least turned out to be black and not drowned in sugar.

“Why does it matter where she came from?” he asked when he sat back down. “And you never explained the backers part.”

“Forget everything you think you know about vampires. Everything you find online is garbage. There’s an entire cabal of ancient bloodsuckers that flood the net with misinfo, because they don’t want anyone to know how to kill them,” Nina explained. “Killing a vampire comes down to two things: where they came from, and when they were turned.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, there’s more to it, but you can handle them with just that.” She slurped her beer, then ate a piece of ravioli and made a face. “Urgh. These do not go together. I should just eat the pasta and then drink the beer.”

He decided to hold off on more of the iced coffee then.

“There’s only one type of vampire, despite everything you hear. What changes is the person. A vampire from Ancient Rome is different from a Romanian one, and different again from a Ming Dynasty one,” Nina continued. “Their abilities change a little, but more importantly, so do their two main weaknesses.”

“Two. You’re telling me vampires only have two weaknesses? Not the laundry list they have in myth?” Vince said. “That’s bullshit.”

“They’re immortals, Vince. If you could wave some garlic in their faces and kill them, they wouldn’t be feared. The three ways I was told you could deal with them are as simple. Overwhelming amounts of magic, but you need to be far more powerful than the vampire, and fire, water, and light schools work best.”

“Great. So I’ll use my dragon,” he said.

Nina looked at him and he shut up.

After a few moments of silence as they ate, she continued, “The second is called their ‘binding weakness.’ This will weaken or immobilize them. Dracula’s was infamously a wooden stake in his heart.”

“So that was real?”

“Supposedly. Lots of stories about its effect, from freezing him entirely, to just slowing him down or blocking some of his magic. Juliet can teleport, right? Supposedly the binding weakness blocks a lot of their mobility spells.”

“And to kill?”

“Well, that’s the hard one. It’s never sunlight, by the way. That can be a binding weakness. In truth, killing a vampire involves a ritual. Stuff like ‘chop off their head, then incinerate it under a full moon while a wolf howls.’ Weird ritualistic crap like that, often tied to the religious beliefs of the time the vampire was turned.”

Vince was reminded of Fia’s earlier comments, which had indicated that vampires varied based on region.

“This matches Fia’s research,” he said slowly.

“Yeah, she told me about Juliet. I said I’d talk to you about it.” Nina shook her head. “It’s not a cheap thing to research. There aren’t many people with the right knowledge, and they don’t part with it for cheap.”

“And we don’t even know Juliet’s background.”

“Yeah, which was the real nuisance. I had a contact in a mage college who hooked me up with their records. For a princely sum, I could have known the weaknesses of any vampire older than a century. All I needed was to tell them where and when Juliet came from and she’d be my bitch. Instead, I became hers and backed down.” Nina fixed Vince with a serious look. “You need to be upfront with your boss. Even if you can drive Juliet away and somehow find her background, you’ll need a lot of cash to pay off a mage college.”

“What, they charge six figures or something?”

“For outsiders? Yeah. They know if you’re asking, it’s because you plan to kill a vampire and that the elites of the city will flip their shit.”

This hadn’t been how Vince hoped his plans to deal with Juliet panned out.

The two of them cleaned up, while he pondered the possibilities of fighting the vampire. Before they even got through all the dishes, Nina began leaning against him and sniffing his hair.

“Mmm, I like this much better,” she purred. “You already smell like me, and we’ve only been together for dinner.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“You can take it however you like. But I’m still going to ride you and enjoy this.” She rubbed her face against the top of his head.

“I’m trying to clean here, you know,” he pretended to grumble.

“Uh huh.” Her arms wrapped around him. “Before I completely lose myself to enjoying you, I wanted to say one more thing about yesterday.”

“Hmm?”

“You said Kaziern offered you retirement money, right? Well, what if their idea of retirement is death. They tried to off you when you said no. Their big boss seems like a real sleazebag. Not the sort of guy to follow through on a contract.”

“He’s flush with cash. Seems easier to just pay me than double cross me.”

“Yeah, but what if he fears you? Not everyone is like Quintus and thinks they can survive the Second Coming.”

“Maybe. It doesn’t matter. I’m sticking with Alessia.”

“With Alessia, huh?” Nina growled in his ear. “I guess I really am going to have to expand the pride and defend my position as the head of it, aren’t I?”

“Nina, what are you—”

The answer to his unfinished question was found in the bedroom, where Nina dragged him to and “enjoyed him.”

He awoke late the next morning. Late enough that Nina had already left for work. A bowl of shakshuka sat in the fridge, ready for him to reheat in a pan and add some eggs to.

By the time he’d done that, Fia called.

“You up?” she asked, the sound in the background indicating she was driving.

“I hope you’re calling handsfree,” he said.

“I’m a girl of vices, not deathwishes.”

“Then yes, I’m up. Just having breakfast.”

“Wow. You’re a breakfast guy. I figured you to be the sort to drink a coffee or energy drink then hold off until lunch.”

“I was, but Nina eats breakfast so I fell into the habit.”

A whipping noise came over his phone. He ignored it.

“I’ll be ‘round in ten. Head down when you’re ready and we can get back to spell practice,” she said before hanging up.

That turned out to be the task for the day.

He’d finished tweaking his new fire net spell yesterday. That meant today involved practicing it. Over and over again.

He got the casting time down to ten seconds by midday, but any further would take far more time. Every hour shaved a second off. His gains rapidly diminished.

Nina worked late that night. Late enough that he grabbed some sushi with Fia for dinner before heading home, and spent the night fruitlessly looking up information on vampires. As he’d been told, the net was a swamp of misinfo and bullshit. Even knowing what he knew from Nina, everything proved useless.

By the time Nina got home, she wanted nothing more than to cuddle in bed. Work had exhausted her.

Wednesday was more of the same. By noon, Vince had the spell down to four seconds.

“I can’t believe how fast you learn,” Fia said as they stopped for lunch.

She’d brought some wrapped sandwiches with her, complete with parchment paper. Vince guessed they came from some Italian delicatessen, but didn’t ask. He didn’t want to learn that Fia could make sandwiches that looked better than the food he cooked. Prosciutto, plenty of melted mozzarella, and greens oozed out of a large bun, and there appeared to be plenty of olive oil in the mix.

“I wouldn’t call myself a fast learner,” Vince said. “If I was, I’d know a lot more spells, and probably more than just fire magic.”

“Bullshit. You’ve picked up a brand new spell with no tutor in a few days. It takes me weeks to manage the same, and I can’t dedicate the same amount of effort. Just slamming the spell, day after day, hour after hour. How are you not dead on your feet?”

“Good food? Good company? Flirting?” he suggested.

Her tail hit him, and she followed up with a light rap on his skull with her knuckles. “Your mind might be addled, but I don’t think that’s from the spellcasting. The hell did you become an independent enforcer for? With focus like this, I’d have thought you’d have gone somewhere.”

He scowled. “Do you think that little of independent enforcers?”

“No, but everything I’ve gathered on you suggests your reasons for becoming one are run-of-the-mill. A job you took because everything else sucked more. Not exactly Ivy League material.”

“Maybe.” He focused on his sandwich long enough that Fia’s gaze grew concerned. “Magic and school are different things. One’s interesting and lets me do amazing things, and I can choose how and why I’ll learn and use it. The other put me in classes that taught me nothing, and resented me for respecting them as little as they respected me.”

“Yeah, you really have a thing against education, don’t you?” Fia asked. “It came up briefly when we talked about the use of meister spells the other night.”

“It’s not a thing…” He sighed.

“Sounds like a thing.”

Huffing, he stood and began to pace. His sandwich sat on the bench, and Fia wrapped it up for him to eat later. She continued nibbling on her own. Despite her petite frame, she ate more than her fair share. If he didn’t finish his sandwich soon, she’d devour it as well.

A few minutes passed as he got his thoughts in order. This topic, among others, riled him up. Ronin knew well enough to leave it alone after years of friendship, as well as a childhood spent together watching things fall apart in Vince’s life.

“It’s difficult to care for something that I feel fucked me over,” Vince finally explained, keeping his voice as steady as possible. “I had to work to pay rent for my mother. I’d be late, or have no time for homework, or be targeted as a ‘troublemaker.’ Once I fell behind at school, they only made it worse. There’s no ‘catch-up system.’ I was written off and stuck there because that was the law.”

Fia remained silent. Odds were, she couldn’t understand. She’d admitted to going to a wealthier school that catered to demihumans, well away from the general public.

Resentment surged inside him at that realization. He suppressed the feeling, as primal as it was. It’s not like Fia controlled life at that level or made decisions about her childhood.

Vince ran a hand down his face. “Ronin got into the police academy, despite his grades being as terrible as mine. But everywhere else felt closed off to me, or utterly pointless. I might be able to cast better spells than half the apprentices in a mage college, but they cared about my chemistry grades and attendance. But I am good at magic, and I know it, so I stuck to what I already knew.”

“Working for demons,” Fia said.

“Basically. Humans get treated like shit as enforcers unless they go for safe jobs or have some sort of sorcerer background. Quintus, as awful as he was, kept the work rolling in and usually avoided throwing me into the meat grinder.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t quite know what you mean by meat grinder.”

He laughed and stopped pacing. “Immanuel is massive, and has its fingers in all the pies. Smuggling, dealing, protection, prostitution, security, bodyguards, running fancy casinos and shit, assassination. But they also jockey with the other conglomerates all the time. Gang warfare like that is where Nina made her name.”

“So I’ve heard. It’s where a lot of enforcers cut their teeth. You get in some brawls, learn how to fight and take blows, and discover if you’re hot shit or not.”

“Are you?” Vince asked.

“I’m hot enough.” She shrugged at his look. “I’m not a natural like you at vaporizing everyone around me, but I can put other enforcers under easily enough. But I wouldn’t think of gang warfare as a meat grinder.”

“In Immanuel, it is for the independents. We’re expendable. Even if you are hot shit, as you call it, there’s always someone hotter. A bigger fish. Someone like Nina who would rip my spine out through my ass without even blinking. Hell, the stronger you are, the more likely you are to meet the big fish. Nina ran with so much gear and prep because she knew that any job she was on risked some other hotshot being hired to stop her.”

“Didn’t sound like that happened.”

“She says it did, but was smart enough to always back down. Better to lose a contract than your life.”

Fia narrowed her eyes. “And you? Your terms are nasty if you pull out.”

“I’m crazy enough to commit to my jobs.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll admit, now that I’ve made the news before fighting the Golden Path, I’m worried. Juliet’s not the only problem. I don’t think anyone will have worked out the trick behind my spell, but the Golden Path will send much stronger enforcers than they otherwise would have. I was confident I could have repelled the assault long enough for the police to step in. Now…”

No further words were said.

Vince wished he had more time. More tricks.

In the end, he had to make do with what he had and keep training. Once he dealt with Kaziern, he’d turn his mind back to the Golden Path. With any luck, he’d have the time to practice more.

“Alessia wants to meet tomorrow,” Fia said abruptly. “The NASTA conference starts then, and the blackshirts are already pulling back.”

“Why not tonight?” he asked.

“Because it’s too obvious. We’re also worried that Kaziern will pull something. They tried to hire you to take us out and have Juliet in their pocket. That means they want to end this. If they move first, we want you available to stop them. Otherwise, we’ll strike on Friday, after the blackshirts withdraw and hopefully before Kaziern realizes our true intentions.”

Sounded like a plan.

He spent the rest of the day practicing. His progress stalled, with his new fire net spell barely falling to three seconds to cast.

He’d likely need to slowly work on it over the next few months to get it down to a rapid cast.

On the way home in Fia’s car, he shot Nicki a text to let her know he’d need her on Friday or possibly the weekend. A thumbs up shot back in reply.

No sign of Nina by the time he got home. A message let him know that she’d get back around eight, so he ordered some takeout to arrive around that time.

While he didn’t care much for TV, he checked the news anyway. Nothing but NASTA nonsense. Some sort of pre-conference event took place tonight at a fancy French restaurant, and the entire police force came out to keep everyone else at bay. Newsbirds hovered high above to try to get video of the guests while police birdfolk harassed them.

Vince wondered whether the news next week would be about the police assaulting the news crews. Then again, the last time that had happened, the local media baron had showed up with a camera.

Given Garn Trippych was an ostrich birdfolk who stood about eight foot tall, was built of muscle, and had been a mageweight boxing champ in his youth, the police took very little action. Even in his fifties, the billionaire could probably send an enforcer flying through a city block with his haymaker.

The TV abruptly focused in on a trio of Japanese foxes exiting a limo. While the news anchors rattled on about whatever natter they preferred, Vince tried and failed to place the foxes.

No markings on the limo, and no badges or emblems of affiliation to be seen on any of the foxes. The male leading them wore an immaculate jet-black suit, but the two women flanking him wore elegant multi-colored Japanese kimonos. Or something similar to them. Vince was far from an expert on traditional Japanese clothing.

Each fox had seven tails, which he knew made them old and powerful. Only the very upper crust of Houou had as many tails. Hell, Houou’s CEO only had eight tails.

Were these new foxes representatives from Japan, sent here for the conference?

The camera moved on, and Vince lost interest. He cleaned up a little and took a shower.

By the time she got home, the takeout had arrived. He munched on the orange chicken he’d ordered for himself and waved at the other box.

“You could have waited for me,” she whined, taking off her shoes but remaining in her office clothes.

She practically jumped on top of him, nearly knocking his food out of his hand. Her face rubbed against the side of his head and she took a deep sniff of his hair.

“You used my conditioner. Nice to see you noticed what I used this morning.” Purring rumbled off her. “And you even got rid of that wolf’s scent without me asking.”

“If I got rid of her scent, how do you even know I met her today?”

“Your clothes.” Nina picked at his jacket. “You wore the same ones after washing. Plus, this jacket is full of her cigarette stink from being in her car this week.”

Vince sniffed his jacket. No stink at all.

“I don’t care what you can smell,” she said. “Anyway, there’s no helping it. I’m realizing that you’ll smell of the others once you form a proper pride. What matters is that I have some way to make it clear you’re mine, first and foremost.”

As if to prove her point, she nipped at his neck and her hands wandered across his lower body.

“Can we eat first?” he asked. “I also need to talk to you about work. The moment you start, we don’t stop.”

“We could stop,” Nina suggested, clearly feeling horny after a day of work.

“Uh huh. We have never stopped after we start so far.” He pushed her hands away. “Eat your food, grab a drink, and let’s talk.”

“Fiiiiine.” She took another sniff of his hair, then did as he asked.

They ate in a comfortable silence as Nina rubbed against him, her tail tickling the back of his neck.

Once finished, he tossed the trash and grabbed her a beer. He stuck to an energy drink, as he wanted to refill his magic after a long day.

“So?” she asked.

“The conference is on. That means I’ll be hitting Kaziern shortly. My plan hasn’t changed, but I wanted to check whether you thought of anything or have any… complaints.”

Nina sighed. “I was mostly bitching about your job out of jealousy. Work sucks and you were spending your time with other women. But everything I said about the two sites you need to hit is true. Depot first, then office. Avoid getting caught in a big brawl in public. The police will eviscerate you. Your little stunt is water cooler talk.”

“Do offices even have water coolers anymore?”

“No. But every chat group I’m in at work has talked about what happened at least once. It even came up in an all-staff meeting yesterday. The mayor will strangle you to death himself if you embarrass him again.”

Bad news, then. Vince would definitely be embarrassing the mayor again once the Golden Path reacted.

“Thanks,” he said regardless. “Tomorrow should be fine, but I’m guessing the weekend may be another write-off between taking out Kaziern and the counterattack.”

“Hmm. I wouldn’t expect an immediate counterattack.” Nina took a swig of her beer. “If you’re catching them by surprise, then they’ll need to assemble enforcers. Strong ones they think can stop you and take out the Lionettis.”

“Didn’t you suggest they were already prepping to take me out?”

“Sure, but they won’t necessarily be preparing to recapture Kaziern’s territory in Albion.”

Vince took the good news at face value. If true, he’d have more time to plan and train.

The next day started quietly. Fia told him that she’d pick him up when Alessia organized the meeting. So he took it easy after a few days of hard work and training.

All work and no play… Well, Vince couldn’t use that line given he’d been playing with Nina every night this week.

Fia collected him in the early afternoon. They drove to Albion at her usual glacial pace.

“What can I expect today?” he asked.

“A meeting and planning,” Fia said. “It’ll just be us, Alessia, and Pola.”

Oh. Lovely.

His first encounter with Pola since rejecting her and sleeping with Nina.

- - - - -

Commentary: For the food porn, I'm sticking to foods of a theme (i.e. related to the origins of the characters). So Nina is cooking pasta. Honestly, brown butter pasta dishes are basically cheating, in that smothering a dish in a couple of sticks of butter plus loads of salt and herbs will always taste heavenly. Try it, if you haven't, or find a good Italian place that does one. I forget what the Italian deli sandwich is, though.

So, I reveal my version of vampires. I wanted one that fit with my theme of "knowledge is power" while still acknowledging the myth. So you get effectively unkillable vampires with highly specific weaknesses.

I'm also generally leery of having the MC voice personal issues with aspects of life that can be easily related to reality. Vince's opinions of the education system can easily be seen as my opinions of the education system (they're not, but they do echo common criticisms and problematic practices, such as streaming of students). I edited this section a couple of times because Vince should have problems with school, given the situation he went through, and it's silly to ignore it even if I don't want to dwell on it.