Morning Star (Sins of the Father 3)

for all the money you owe us. Remember? For retrieving the one magical weapon you actually do own, plus the other two that you lied to us about?”

The god laughed, covering his mouth when the first peals came out too loud and thundered around his office. “It was entertaining, all right? So very amusing, seeing all of those disparate parties come together, all because you two numbskulls couldn’t be bothered to do a little research.”

My eyes narrowed as I focused on his stupid face, as I imagined how much fun it’d be to punch his teeth in. “I don’t like libraries. I don’t like books.”

That was a lie. Reading’s fun, when I’m in the mood for it. But considering how my last few brushes with books nearly got me killed – I’m talking about Quilliam and his levitating literature, here – I wasn’t too keen about opening one up for some light afternoon reading any time soon.

My lips curled. Quilliam. Just the thought of him made my blood simmer. I dug my nails into my palms, reminding myself that we were only at Happy, Inc. to pick up our paycheck, and not to rearrange Loki’s face.

“More’s the pity,” Loki said. “There’s so much to be learned from a good spot of reading. One or two spells, for example. Ah, but surely the newbie nephilim, the son of Samyaza has no use for tawdry hedge magic. Why bother when he has twenty-four hour access to divine miracles and the armories of all the heavens themselves?”

I hadn’t meant to do it, but the joints in my knuckles popped when I clenched my hands into fists. The god grinned, satisfied and pleased by how he was getting his hooks into me.

“Listen, Loki. We didn’t come here to chitchat. We’ve got no reason to make nice and polite with you, considering the number of times you’ve put me and my friends in danger. So if you don’t mind – just sign the check out to Mason Albrecht.”

Loki laughed again. “Please. I know I run a corporation, but we, gentlemen, are members of the arcane underground. We don’t do checks and apps and bank transfers, not between us supernaturals.” He grinned, and the sight of it sent a chill up my spine. Uh-oh. “No. You have done Loki a fabulous service, and so I will shower you with riches.”

“Oh, shit,” I muttered. Florian blinked at me in confusion as I rushed to him and raised my arm, conjuring the hugest shield I could summon from the Vestments. Box yelped and clattered across the floor to join us as the first of the coins fell from the ceiling.

One tinkled to the ground, then another, and another, and what started as a slow drizzle of currency quickly grew into a hailstorm of metal beating steadily across the surface of my shield. A few gemstones clinked as they fell to the floor to join the coins, a carpet of treasure that could have dealt some serious damage to anyone who wasn’t made out of solid rock.

When the rain of treasure stopped, I dismissed my shield, then pushed myself up off the floor. I raked my fingers through my hair as I studied the little lake of silver and gold that had formed around us. How the hell were we supposed to transport all this shit out of the building, much less across Valero without being mugged? I knew it. I just fucking knew there was going to be a catch.

“You’re an asshole, Loki.”

One last emerald the size of a tangerine fell out of thin air, tinkling as it hit the pile of treasure. Loki’s laughter was hearty, musical, jingling like a pouch full of coins.

“Correction. I’m a wealthy asshole.”

5

I learned something special about Box that day. Turns out that mimics liked to dress up as treasure chests for a reason. He slurped all of Loki’s treasure up right quick, hoovering every last coin into his slobbery gullet in a matter of minutes.

Loki wasn’t laughing much anymore after that. He was especially unhappy about how much saliva Box got on the carpet, which was something I quietly found amusing.

And yes, I made sure to check. Who knows where Box kept it all, but the treasure was definitely inside him, somewhere, maybe in a special treasure-storing organ of some sort. I shook him a little, just to check, and he definitely jangled.

What’s even better was that he shrank again, into the size of a tiny little cube that could fit in my pocket. Super handy. Next time you find a gross, whitish cube of jelly out on the street, take it home. As far as I’m concerned, mimics are the bomb. It was like having one of Beatrice Rex’s dimensional handbags, minus the garish hot pinkness.

Of course, the big problem was actually finding someone who would take the whole load off our hands, which was why Florian and I headed straight to the Black Market, Valero’s biggest and – well, I guess only bazaar dedicated to the trade and exchange of magic and magical goods. You can’t just walk into a supermarket and try to buy a loaf of bread and some apples with a ruby the size of a chicken nugget.

Fortunately, it didn’t take much asking around to find someone we could turn the treasure over to. People at the Black Market were quick to point us towards Abel’s Appraisals, a magical pawnshop of some repute that would offer us fair value for Loki’s reward. Florian and I kept it vague. You don’t go around broadcasting the fact that you’re lugging around a wading pool’s worth of silver and gold, after all.

One less savory type suggested that we could try fencing the goods, which had the added benefit of possibly paying less and the potential bonus of a knife in the belly. Abel’s Appraisals it was, then. The place was easy enough to find. The shop was pretty cool, a little old, but charming, much like Abel himself.

Lit with small magical fires that lurked in various corners, the shop’s dark shelves were filled with a vast assortment of magical knick-knacks in all flavors: wizened hands of glory, black candles, crystal balls, murky wax-sealed bottles of who-knows-what, and of course, your standard selection of dusty and possibly explosively lethal grimoires.

Abel himself was a kind, portly older gentleman who looked like he was permanently dressed in waistcoats, pocket watches, and wire-rimmed glasses, even in bed. He also wore a jeweler’s loupe on a chain, which he used to study the gems and coins that Box methodically horked up from within his biological depths.

I liked Abel. He didn’t even complain about all the slobber he had to wipe off every single coin. Florian was very good about helping out, too, and in under an hour, with the assistance of some rags Abel produced from out of a backroom, we were able to sort all of Loki’s treasure into several stacks of coins that looked vaguely like a small fortress, or a gleaming city of silver and gold.

It was exactly fifteen thousand dollars. I wanted to be surprised, but Loki was the exact kind of sociopath who would know to dispense just the precise amount of treasure he’d need from his hidden hoard to hit the right number in American dollars, even accounting for whatever exchange rate Abel subscribed to.

Abel sniffed as he placed the last coin onto the final stack, completing his sparkling little city of riches. “I will, of course, be taking a small fee off the top.”

“Naturally.”

I nodded as Abel quoted his price. A couple hundred bucks seemed fair, especially since that meant that we’d still have plenty left over even after paying Beatrice Rex her asking price.