Rites & Desires Read online

  It had taken her assistant less than half an hour to provide her with a phone number that bypassed the White House switchboard and got her in touch with Lyle Prather. Loki had made it sound like he was rather put out with his avatar’s recent elevation to Leader of the Free World, but Ruby certainly felt otherwise. The man’s abominable politics aside, Prather could prove to be the best president of Ruby’s lifetime--or at the very least, the most profitable one.

  Had any other man occupied the White House currently, Ruby was sure she’d have had a beast of a time getting a direct number to call. There was a chance any correspondence between herself and any other sitting president would have been handled entirely by assistants and media managers. But not this president. This president loved the limelight, he thrived on media attention, and he craved the company of celebrities. When word reached him that the head of an entertainment empire the size and scope of Goblin Records was trying to get in touch, she knew Prather would be forthcoming with his digits.

  She used her business phone to make the call. She wanted to make certain the President’s caller ID reported it was Goblin Records’ CEO calling. There was something a little obscene-feeling about making a call to the White House from her terrace while wearing a bikini and stirring a pitcher of margaritas, but it was what it was.

  "And what can I do for you today, Ms. Killingsworth?" Prather’s smarmy drawl answered after only the second ring.

  Ruby was glad this was only a voice call, and not video; she was free to wear her disgust on her face.

  "I’m calling in regards to a mutual friend of ours, Mr. President," she answered. She had no desire to tease or to obfuscate. All she cared about was getting in touch with Loki. But still, there was the possibility this call was being monitored or bugged, so she had to be a little vague. "A red-haired friend," she clarified, "who lives far away, and likes velvet capes."

  Prather sucked in a breath. "Have--" he began, his voice suddenly a stutter with all its bluster missing. "Have you heard from him? He doesn’t talk to me. Does he talk to you?"

  Ruby frowned. "Not in a while, Mr. President," she replied, emphasis on the title as a reminder to the man on the other end that someone was almost certainly listening in. "I was hoping you had. But if that’s not the case--"

  "I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon, Ms. Killingsworth," Prather said, seeming to have recovered from the initial shock of having realized Ruby was calling more for Loki than for him.

  "Well, then," Ruby said, "you’ll tell him I asked after him?"

  "I suppose I might be persuaded," he replied.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. He was doing that thing where he decided he was going to have the power in the conversation, and Ruby wasn’t having it. She may not have her magic to aid her, but she had years of experience with self-important assholes informing her next move.

  "Well, I appreciate that," she said, "and I know you’re such a busy man that I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Have a lovely rest of the afternoon." And with that, she moved quickly to punch the button to end the call. If Prather wasn’t fully in bed with Loki at the moment, then she had no use for him.

  Her questions were for Loki, not his avatar.

  She’d spent the last week practically obsessed with the sketch he’d sent along with his note. There was no further information provided: just a hand-drawn likeness of an item with a few notes on its size and color. She hadn’t the slightest idea where it had originated nor anything about how it was supposed to work. She hadn’t even been able to discern the name of the thing, so there was no real way to confirm it was in the vault of the CCPD. She had, at least, been able to discover that the vault in question actually existed, and had begun the preliminary recon work to figure out where to find it and exactly how she might go about breaking in.

  She was thinking hard on the possibility of just breaking down the door of the vault and having a look around when she heard an overwhelming noise coming from the direction of Jaccob Stevens’s balcony. He’d been out there tinkering with some device or another for the better part of an hour. Ruby hadn’t been able to tell what he was working on, but it had been his presence in her line of sight that had gotten her onto the balcony in a swimsuit to begin with. And now he’d made a racket so loud that she felt no compunction about peering openly over the top of her sunglasses.

  Jaccob waved.

  Ruby waved back, grinning wickedly at the knowledge that he’d noticed her. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look away. She was enjoying a sip of the tart margarita she’d been slowly nursing when she noticed the noise was getting gradually louder. She turned her head to catch the rather unexpected sight of Jaccob Stevens approaching her balcony from above. She’d known, of course, that as his alter-ego, Stardust, Jaccob possessed devices that gave him the ability to fly. But she hadn’t ever seen one up close.

  He arrived at the foot of her chaise aboard some bastardized combination of a rocket and a skateboard with what looked like an upcycled bicycle handlebar on a pole for a handhold. The thing was loud, and by Ruby’s best guess, unfinished, but here was Jaccob Stevens on her balcony. And unpleasant noises or no, that was progress.

  "Well howdy, neighbor," she greeted him, inclining her head and shooting him her friendliest smile.

  "Sorry about the noise," he said, stepping off the board and onto the polished concrete of the balcony.

  Ruby waved her hands in a gesture of dismissal. "I’m sure you’re not used to having neighbors fifty stories up," she said.

  "That I am not," he affirmed.

  "Never a dull moment," she commented, smiling coyly as her lips just brushed the rim of her miniature margarita glass.

  "No," a fidgeting Jaccob said in reply, "I guess not."

  "Just promise you won’t make a habit of doing this at four in the morning," she said, gesturing to the board at his feet, "and I think we’ll be okay."

  "I’ll do what I can," Jaccob replied, suddenly seeming less off balance. Ruby was getting the distinct sense he was starting to enjoy this exchange. "But if the city needs me--"

  Ruby threw her head back in far more demonstrative laughter than was really necessary. He was being cute on purpose, and the least she could do was reward him with an unmistakable reaction.

  "Of course," she drawled, "I moved in next to Stardust. Surely I can’t expect too much peace and quiet."

  "Well, you’re right about that," he agreed, gesturing to the board on the deck, "So I guess this is ‘welcome to the neighborhood.’"

  Ruby chuckled. "Have a seat," she offered, gesturing to the chaise beside hers. It was mostly in the shade of her giant umbrella and much closer to the pitcher of margaritas than Ruby’s own chair. "Have a margarita," she added, "and tell me what this is."

  Jaccob looked lost for a moment. Maybe "have a seat and pour yourself a drink" was more than he was ready for so soon after Elizabeth had left. But the hesitation was over in a moment. Jaccob did as he had been invited to and seated himself on the edge of the next chair. He poured himself a drink from the glass pitcher as he answered her.

  "I call it the StarBoard," he said. "It’s something I’m developing for times when I need to get off the ground, but can’t get to the Suit."

  "Ah," Ruby said, raising her glass to clink against the one he’d just poured himself. "So I guessed correctly--it’s superhero stuff. Also helpful in case of a fire alarm, if you don’t care to walk down fifty stories of staircase."

  Jaccob laughed as he took a sip of his drink. "Other than the possibility of a fire drill, how are you liking high-rise living?"

  Ruby nodded. "It’s nice. I like having a forty second commute home from the office. And," she added, tilting her head to look at him over the top of her sunglasses again, "the neighbor seems awfully nice ... if a little noisy."

  Jaccob’s face flushed a little. He could tell she was flirting. And he wasn’t walking away. This was good. He averted his gaze for a moment and then l
ooked back up at her and changed the subject. "You know," he said awkwardly, "my son was really excited to learn you were going to be next door. He wants to be a musician. He was pretty keen on the idea of my living next door to the biggest record label on the East Coast."

  "Is he any good?" Ruby asked.

  Jaccob shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. My taste in music is hardly modern."

  Ruby genuinely laughed out loud at that. "Just between us," she said candidly, "I can’t tell the good from the bad anymore, either. If you look at my playback history, you’ll see hits of the 80s, a few one-hit wonders from the 90s, Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting Wagner, and the greatest hits of Benny Goodman."

  Jaccob seemed both amused and surprised at her revelation.

  "But I can tell what’s bankable," she added. "You know, we’re always looking at new artists. If you want, send over his contact information. I’ll get him hooked up with one of our development people."

  "And what if he isn’t any good?" Jaccob asked.

  Ruby shrugged. "Then he washes out of development and that’s that," she answered plainly. "But you’re still father of the year because you got him the meeting with the big, important record label."

  "And you’d do that?" he asked. "For me?"

  Ruby shook her head. "Jaccob," she said pointedly, "if it wasn’t for you and your neighborhood revitalization efforts, then I wouldn’t be sitting on top of this glorious building from which I can direct my empire. The least I can do is listen to your kid play guitar ... piano?"

  "Guitar," Jaccob affirmed.

  Ruby smiled. She knew that, of course. She’d seen Mike Stevens playing his guitar through the windows of the neighboring penthouse more than once, but she couldn’t very well tell Jaccob that. "It’s really no problem," she assured him.

  "Thank you," Jaccob said sincerely, taking another sip of his cocktail. "This is good."

  Ruby nodded again. She sat up on the edge of the chaise and reached for the pitcher, refilling his glass and then her own and giving him basically no choice but to look her in the cleavage as she did it. As much as she was aware of her own shortcomings, Ruby also knew how to use her assets. And she had always had an awfully nice rack.

  "You thank me now," she allowed, "but you’ll be cursing my name when he’s a giant success and suddenly too cool to come home for Christmas." Ruby sat back with her glass in both hands and pretended like she hadn’t noticed him looking.

  "Nah," Jaccob commented after another sip of margarita. "For one thing, we’re Jewish. And anyway, that’s more likely to be his mother’s problem than mine."

  Ruby shot him her sweetest and most sympathetic smile. The tabloids had only just started to get ahold of the story of the Stevenses’ recent split, and she hadn’t wanted to bring it up. She wanted him thinking about just about anything but his wife. Reaching over and patting his hand where it sat on the chaise beside him, she declared, "Well, that’s a problem for another day. No use in borrowing trouble. And anyway, I have a much more pressing problem to deal with at the moment."

  "Yeah?" Jaccob asked, sounding genuinely interested. "What’s that?"

  Ruby quirked her lip. Was it really going to be this easy? "How," she began, screwing her face into an expression of feigned seriousness, "am I going to convince you to stay for dinner?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ruby sat at her desk and tried not to sulk. Lawyers were bothersome. Music rights were bothersome. Ever since the loss of her powers, just about every single interaction she’d been forced to have with another human being had been bothersome. Ruby had never particularly cared for people in general. But at least with the power to influence and manipulate them, she’d seen to it throughout her life that each interpersonal encounter she’d been made to suffer had at least been fruitful to whatever purpose she was seeking. Now, as the head of a Fortune 500 company, and without the benefit of even the little power she’d been born with, Ruby’s world had descended into unacceptable chaos.

  She still wasn’t sure why that alien had chosen to abduct her for their machinations, but she’d been grateful for the powers it had gained her, even though the ordeal had been somewhat less than pleasant. She’d enjoyed the additional power immensely. Ruby had always wished her innate magic had been more powerful, so she’d more than welcomed her supernatural gifts from outer space. It hadn’t taken long for her to get the hang of the additional abilities and integrate them into her day-to-day bag of tricks. Which had made the tragedy last Christmas all the more horrible.

  Bolstered by her new and improved magical abilities, Ruby had been sure ... sure ... she’d be able to work a ritual that would finally give her the thrall over her supernaturally gifted peers that her magical abilities had thus far failed to give. Everything had been perfect, until her well-meaning building manager had suspected dark magic and set off the fire sprinklers to stop it. Up until that moment, she’d had no idea that Arsho was familiar with ritual magic. And how was she supposed to guess that her Turkish underling was actually Armenian, and that there were specifics of iconography she’d missed in setting up the ritual?

  Magic hadn’t been the same since.

  At first, she’d thought the magic loss would be temporary. It had been the largest and the most powerful ritual she’d ever attempted. Having it interrupted could have just burned her out--it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d needed a few days to rest and recharge after working powerful magics. But days had gone by, and then weeks, and there was no sign of her powers returning. Her initial feeling was that she’d only lost the powers that the alien had somehow gifted her, which she could have accepted, since she had lived without those powers for most of her life. But as the weeks went on, she realized she had lost all of her power--even that little but well-honed magic she’d had with her since childhood was nowhere to be accessed.

  And that was bad.

  It was, indeed, bad enough to send her through the Coil to knock on Loki’s door.

  She had to have magic to function. She wanted all of her power back, but she needed, she required, her original power returned. It had been nothing short of torturous to deal with the world and run her business without the magical ability she was accustomed to. It was tantamount to losing a limb. And she couldn’t stand it.

  It was high time she did something about it.

  The best information she’d managed to glean about the item in Loki’s drawing had come from a roundabout set of sources. She’d thought to do a search for items known to be in the occult vault of the Cobalt City Police--the one that supposedly housed the item in question. It turned out that all the artifacts stored there were considered "evidence" from the various investigations that had brought them into police custody and were therefore subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Finding out the contents of that vault was as easy as clicking a link.

  Each item was listed individually, catalogued with intake information, case numbers, investigating officers’ information, chain of custody, and other pertinent details. There were all sorts of magical wonders stored there. Ruby thought for a moment about how she could make millions by cleaning the place out and re-selling those trinkets to those who might use them to create mayhem. Of course, that was only a fleeting thought. She already had millions. What she didn’t have were her powers.

  Each item in the vault had been photographed, too. Deep in the case file, once a person figured out where to click, there were several images of each piece of evidence, photographed on at their intake as proof of the condition of the things upon entering police custody.

  But there was no sign of the stone-in-metal she’d seen in Loki’s drawing. Maybe he’d been wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time the god had been mistaken about things. Or perhaps his information was just out of date. The item may have once been in the vault, but wasn’t any longer. There was a long disclaimer on the front page of the evidence custodian’s website about property being returned to its rightful owner upon the disposition of a case. Just b
ecause Loki had heard that the item’s last known location was in this vault didn’t mean it was still there. He may have been a god, but he wasn’t omniscient. The thing could have been quietly returned to its proper owner and he would never have heard of it.

  Ruby had dwelled hard on that possibility and even found herself actively sulking about it for the better part of the day after she’d had dinner with Jaccob Stevens. But by the time she’d sat in her living room watching him tinker with his Stardust suit the next night, it occurred to her to dig deeper. She’d gone back to the website and carefully read every detail of every item listed as being in CCPD custody, this time keeping tabs on any entry that mentioned magical power in its description. She’d then combed through those pictures again. What if the item were somehow disguised? It could have been buried in or attached to any number of the larger pieces in the evidence vault.

  After what must have been several hours of this, and long after Jaccob Stevens had put down his super suit to turn in for the night, she’d hit what she guessed to be the proverbial jackpot.

  It was called the Eye of Africa. Not the most original name, but Ruby didn’t so much give a damn. She hadn’t noticed it in the photos on her first pass because it didn’t look at all like itself. In fact, all that was pictured was a hardened metal case--lead, if she had to guess--with shock wires wound around it attached to what looked like an antique six-volt battery. That had to be it. There was no chance at all any of the other items in the vault contained what she was looking for. All of them had been too extensively photographed, and there was no sign of anything even remotely resembling the item in the drawing.

  But this Eye of Africa? It was an item so powerful that the police kept it in its protective case. The case, she learned, had come from a museum. When she’d clicked through and downloaded a PDF of the case notes surrounding the Eye, she was quickly convinced she had the right thing. The jewel, as it was described in some of the older paperwork, was said to have originated in another dimension. Some slave some thousands of years ago had pulled it from a mine in Ethiopia--King Solomon’s Mine, according to some sources--and presented it to the Queen of Sheba. Apparently that’s where the name came from. No one was sure of all the hands it had passed through over the centuries, but everyone was sure it gave its wielder far more power than any one human ought to have.