By a Silver Thread (DFZ Changeling Book 1), page 2
The girl shook her head.
“Then do as you’re told,” he snapped, grabbing her hand and pressing the pill into it.
It was much smaller than the other medicines she’d taken, but her throat still closed at the sight. She especially didn’t like the pill’s color, which was the same shiny red as the fresh blood that still coated her fingers. The hero was glaring, though, so she popped it into her mouth. Like everything else he’d done, it tasted like blood, but she got it down somehow, opening her mouth to show the hero, who was still watching, that she’d done as she was told.
“Good,” he said, dropping the pill bottle into the pocket of her coat. “You’ll take one of those every twelve hours to start, though we might need to increase the dose as your powers expand.”
“Powers?” The girl’s face split into a smile. She liked the idea of powers, but her excitement faded when she saw the hero’s glare.
“Don’t get ideas,” he warned, grabbing the door handle. “You belong to me now. My monster to use as I see fit. You will address me as Master at all times, and you will obey every order I give immediately and without question. Do you understand?”
When she nodded, his face grew deadly.
“Yes, Master,” the girl corrected, scrambling to get the words out fast enough.
He gave her a pat on the head for getting it right before turning back to the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
The girl didn’t see how. Even with the door unlocked, the hallway outside was full of nurses and cameras. They might not care enough to check on her more than twice a day, but surely, they’d notice a stranger taking her out of the building. When the hero led her through the door, though, all the nurses were lined up in front of the nursing station, faces blank and eyes closed as if they’d fallen asleep on their feet.
“Excellent,” her master said when he saw them, tossing the head nurse a set of keys. “Go start my car.”
The woman nodded and rushed to do as he’d said, leaving the girl gaping.
“You’ll see I’m not like other mages,” the man explained, pausing to examine the chart taped beside her door. “Lola,” he read with a frown. “I was going to call you Emily, but I suppose Lola will suffice.” He glanced down at her again, then turned and started down the hallway. “Come, Lola. We have much to do.”
“Yes, Master.”
His handsome face split into a grin at her obedience. As they walked by the sleeping nurses, Lola saw that each one had a bloody fingerprint pressed over their lips. The girl didn’t know what it did, but the security guard had one on his mouth as well. He jumped to open the key-locked door that was supposed to protect the chronically ill children of Detroit. He even pulled off his hat to bid her master a very good day as the hero led his new monster out into the dark, sticky heat that was the DFZ Underground in summer.
20 years later
Chapter 1
Halloween in the Detroit Free Zone was madness.
The moment the summer heat gave the faintest hint of weakening, the streets—both the looping elevated bridges of the Skyways and the gridlocked, shadowed underpasses of the Underground below—were saturated with flashing advertisements for Halloween-themed everything. There were costumes, candy, special-edition vampire-themed sodas, full-immersion VR horror experiences, rolls of preprinted spellwork tape that would illusion your apartment to look like a haunted graveyard complete with howling ghosts that flew through your guests on command. Anything and everything you wanted for the holiday, and a bunch of stuff you didn’t, could be yours for a low, low price, provided you didn’t ask any questions about what went into making it.
Even the wealthy neighborhoods weren’t spared the capitalistic bonanza. The bedroom community of Windsor, Canada, was more restrained—and safer, since, unlike the DFZ, Canada had laws against virtual advertisements popping into drivers’ faces or through people’s windows—but even here, the mansions were decked out in the best horrors money could buy. There were flights of witches cackling through the sky, zombie hands that sprang up from the perfectly manicured lawns whenever a car drove by, even a skeletal dragon that roared green fire from the top of the Great Yong’s riverside mansion—a gift, raved Dragon Watch Weekly, from his human daughter, who was famous for her love of kitsch.
Many a cutting op-ed had been penned in the various magical journals about the backwardness of decorating with ghouls and witches when there were real dragons and spirits flying through the skies. But holidays were about tradition, and Windsor loved tradition. This was where all the rich people who wanted to be near the money explosion that was the world’s most capitalistic magical city—but didn’t want to deal with the DFZ’s lawlessness and perpetual disasters—lived. Cowards, Victor called them. But cowards with money and clout, which was why Lola had been sent here tonight.
Teetering on the sky-high heels of the rail-thin model body she’d been assigned for this job, Lola strode up the walkway to the only house in the neighborhood that wasn’t lit up with three figures’ worth of professionally installed Halloween decorations. The were no lights on inside, but the etched-glass door opened before she could touch it, snatched out of the way by a wild-eyed man wearing a dirty designer suit six months out of style.
“Do you have my pills?”
Lola pulled an orange prescription bottle out of the ridiculously tiny purse that had gone with tonight’s body. The man dove for the container the moment he saw it, but Lola dodged away, using the model’s superior height to lift the pill bottle out of his reach.
“Payment first.”
The man’s unshaven face collapsed into a look of utter fury. He looked a decade older than the last time Lola had seen him. She didn’t know if that was the stress or if he could no longer afford to visit the mage who put on his rejuvenatory illusions, but he looked like hell. Very, very desperate hell.
“I don’t have it,” he said, raking his fingers through hair that used to look thick and golden but was now greasy and thinning. “And I’m not going to be able to get it unless you give me the pills. If you could just give me a few, I—”
“That’s not how this works,” Lola reminded him, resting a hand on the model’s hip, which was so tiny even she didn’t know how it was holding up her printed designer pencil skirt. “You know the rules, Frank. Our master doesn’t make exceptions after the deal’s been struck.”
“He’s no master to me,” Frank snarled, baring his yellowed teeth. “You tell your bastard boss that I know what he is. He’s no miracle worker. He’s a blood mage, a mind controller! That’s illegal even in the DFZ. I breathe one word of what he’s doing to the right people, and the Paladins will string him up before he can smirk.”
“You think it’s that easy?” Lola asked, her picture-perfect model poise falling away as she hunched farther into the doorway, speaking in a whisper even though there was no one but them to hear. “I’ve been under Victor’s boot a lot longer than you. If getting rid of him was as simple as calling the Paladins, none of us would be in this situation. But outside authorities aren’t welcome in the Free Zone, and Victor’s too good to get caught even if they did get in. You can’t threaten him, and trying will only bring him down on you harder.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
A fragile smile flickered across Lola’s impossibly red lips. “Walk away.”
Frank scoffed. “Like I’m going to just give up and—”
“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “This is your chance. Victor’s already gotten what he wants from you. Now he’s just milking your addiction for profit, but you don’t have to let him. There’s a lot of us who can’t escape, but you can. You can leave this place! Go anywhere you—”
“I don’t want to go,” Frank snarled, glaring at her with watery eyes. “Don’t you get it, sweetheart? I had it all! Every studio in town was begging me to work for them because my ideas sold, but I can’t have those ideas without my pills!”
“Yes, you can,” Lola said desperately. “Even Victor can’t make something out of nothing. You said it yourself: he’s a blood mage. His magic monkeyed with your brain to supercharge your creativity, but they were all still your ideas. His pills didn’t make you a genius. You had that brilliance inside you the whole time! All Victor’s magic did was make it easier to grab, but you don’t need—”
Frank’s cracked lips curled into a sneer. “If I could do it without him, you think I’d be standing here, talking to you?” He stepped to the side so Lola could see past him into his dark, empty house. “You think I’d have sold all my furniture and let my face go to hell if I could just ‘try harder’ and get the same results? I need my damn pills, and you’re going to give them to me.”
Lola shook the model’s perfectly coiffed head. “You know I can’t do that.”
“You might want to think again,” he said, pulling a pistol from his pocket.
Lola heaved a long, sad sigh. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!” Frank roared, shoving his gun square at the center of her chest. “You think I’m scared of your boss? He may act like the devil at the crossroads, but he’s human just like the rest of us.” He cocked the hammer with a final-sounding click. “Now hand over that bottle, or your master’s gonna have to find himself a new puppet.”
Lola looked Frank dead in the eyes as she slid the pill bottle back into her tiny purse. “Pointing a gun at me might make you feel better, but it’s not going to change a thing. I’m actually glad you don’t have the payment. Me walking away tonight might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Lola was opening her mouth to keep arguing when he pulled the trigger. The crack of the gunshot echoed through Frank’s empty house, followed by the wet sound of splattering liquid.
Frank shrieked, his bloodshot eyes going huge as the woman he’d just shot shook her head at him, and not because he’d missed. There was a gaping, quarter-sized hole in her chest right above where her plunging neckline ended, but the stuff oozing out of it wasn’t blood. It wasn’t even red but rainbow iridescent and shimmery as a beetle’s wing.
More of it was splattered on the floor behind her where the bullet had passed through. It crawled back to her as Frank watched, sliding up her tall heels like drips of paint going backward.
“What the—” Frank scrambled back into his empty house as the rainbow glop melted into the model’s legs. “That’s not possible!”
Lola winced harder at the words than she had at being shot. “Come on,” she cajoled, scrambling to salvage the situation. “You take magical creativity-enhancing pills made by a blood mage, but me being bulletproof is where you draw the line?”
“You’re not bulletproof,” Frank said wildly, gesturing at the hole in her chest that was already closing. “It went right through you!”
“I’ve got an implant.”
“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve seen every body mod on the market, and none of them do that. Even dragons don’t heal that fast!” He stared at her, body shaking. “What the hell are you?”
“Your last chance,” Lola said, dropping the model’s sultry, sophisticated voice for something much harsher. “I never liked you, Frank, but no one deserves the trouble you’ve just brought down. Victor doesn’t care about me, but I guarantee he already knows you just shot one of his representatives, which he’ll see as an attack on himself. He doesn’t take those well. He also doesn’t like threats to turn him in to the Paladins, so if you want to live past tonight, I suggest you forget the pills and go. Just get in your car and drive away from the DFZ as fast as you can.”
That was the best advice Lola could have given anyone. Advice she would have taken herself if she could have, but Frank was too scared to hear it.
“You’re not human!” he cried, his voice cracking as he dropped the pistol on the floor. “Get out of my house!”
Again, his words hit Lola harder than the bullet. The hole in her chest that had been closing reopened at his shout. Her face was also having trouble, the photo-shoot perfect features melting like wax. This only made Frank panic worse, which meant it was time to go. She’d tried her best, she really had, but you couldn’t force a horse to drink, and Frank was a very stupid horse.
The sight of her melting face had already sent him screaming into his empty living room, so Lola gathered what was left of her body and made her own exit, tottering through the dead grass of his neglected lawn on what was left of her rapidly softening heels. The stilettos had dissolved completely by the time she made it to the sidewalk, but that actually made it easier to run down the tree-shaded street to the armored black sedan idling at the corner. The tinted rear window rolled down as she approached, and then a smooth, hateful voice spoke from inside the dark car.
“You look a mess, my monster.”
“This whole thing’s a mess,” Lola replied, or at least she tried to. Frank’s stubborn disbelief had done a lot more damage than she’d expected. The fairy gossamer that formed her body was melting so quickly that her jaw felt like soup, and the rest of her wasn’t doing much better. Her limbs had gone so soft that she looked more like a kid’s jelly toy than a person as she struggled to open the car door.
It wouldn’t have been a problem if the man sitting in the back seat had helped. He had a driver, a handsome man whose mind had been so invaded by blood magic that he couldn’t do anything but smile and slavishly obey. Her master could have ordered the man to stab himself, and the poor thrall would have done it in a heartbeat. Telling him to scoop Lola off the ground would have been nothing, but Victor Conrath didn’t believe in help, so Lola had to improvise by squishing her body through the open window.
“I can’t believe you let Frank do this to you,” Victor said as she landed on the leather seat beside him. “The man doesn’t have an ounce of conviction in his body.”
The melting puddle gurgled back, causing Victor to smirk as he pulled an orange pill bottle stamped with the name LOLA out of the pocket of his crisp gray blazer.
“You’re going to have to do better,” he said as he opened the cap and tapped a bright-red pill into his palm. “If you continue to be this fragile, you’ll be right back to the state I found you in.”
He smiled and tossed the pill at the melted woman. It landed in her softening body like a drop of fresh blood. As it sank in, her melting body grew rigid again, churning and changing until she was the perfectly made-up blond once again, right down to her too-tall stilettos.
“Ugh,” Lola retched, scrubbing her chest where the pill had landed. “I hate melting.”
“Then don’t do it,” Victor said coldly. “Frank Grimes is a hack who never had an original thought unless I showed it to him. He shouldn’t have been able to touch you.”
“It’s because he’s a hack that he hurt so much,” Lola argued, examining her fingers, which were still a little noodly at the edges. “Gossamer only works when people believe what you’re showing them, and anyone would have a hard time buying a woman who doesn’t die when you shoot her through the chest. A more creative person could have come up with some sort of explanation, but Frank’s mind is as set as a cement brick, which is why his disbelief hit me like one.”
“Not if you’d given him a better show,” Victor scolded. “Why didn’t you throw out some blood or pretend you had an antibullet ward sewn into your clothes? Anything would have been better than letting him see the truth. Honestly, have I taught you nothing?”
“I was upset,” Lola muttered, which wasn’t an excuse. She could and should have done any of those things, but she’d thought maybe she could get through to Frank if she showed him what he was really dealing with. She also hadn’t expected him to panic so hard.
“You were an idiot,” Victor said, glaring at her with those blue eyes that still made her feel one inch tall. “That’s a very dangerous thing for a monster to be. Do I need to re-educate you?”
“No,” Lola said, dropping her head.
“No?” he repeated expectantly.
“No, Master,” she whispered.
“Better,” he replied, pulling out his cell phone. “I take it Frank Grimes won’t be making his payment?”
She shook her head. “You want me to put on a different shape and try again?”
“You’ve done enough,” Victor said, his elegant fingers moving through the air as he tapped a message into his smartphone’s augmented-reality field. “I’d hoped to get a bit more blood out of that stone, but he’s clearly all squeezed out. I’ll take care of things from here.”
The way he said that sent shivers through Lola’s still-firming body. “He can still be useful,” she insisted. “Frank’s an idiot, but he knows people. You could—”
“Why are you arguing his case?” Victor asked, his eyes sliding back to hers suspiciously. “I thought you hated him.”
Lola didn’t hate Frank. He was like all of her master’s clients: a sad, selfish man willing to do anything to get what he wanted, even if it meant taking a deal from the devil. No one deserved to be under Victor’s thumb, though, and Lola would eat a bullet any day if it kept even one more drop of blood off her hands.
“I can still fix this,” she told him. “Frank said he was going to call the Paladins. I could take the shape of one! Everyone’s afraid of those zealots, even nonmages. I could use that to convince Frank to—”
“My decision has been made,” Victor said crisply. “Frank’s contract is over, and I have other work for you.”
Lola’s gossamer began to sink. “Another job?”
