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I sighed, looking around at all the things I couldn’t buy. “I don’t suppose you have layaway.”
He shrugged, catching sight of another customer. “My dear, I don’t mean to offend, but unless you are unusually powerful, a magical tap would take decades to resu
lt in that kind of a return.”
He bustled off before I could ask what he meant, but Marco caught my eye. “Don’t even think about it!”
“Think about what?”
“You know damn well what. Once those leeches get their claws into you, there’s no telling where it’ll end. They may say they’re only taking five percent or whatever the legal limit is, but how do you know? Unless you faint and fall over, most people aren’t going to miss more, maybe even a lot more. Then you get in a fight where you need your magic, and, surprise, you got nothing. And you end up dead for what, a couple of bucks?”
“It’s true!” The other bodyguard, another new guy, piped up. “I got in a fight with a mage once, and he said that was why I’d beaten him. Not that I wouldn’t have anyway, but he said he was weak because some shysters had jacked him. And he was telling the truth—he tasted flat. No zip.”
I stared at him.
“I mean, I think he would have, if I’d actually, you know, tried him. Which I absolutely wouldn’t—”
Marco clapped a hand down on his shoulder and he shut up. “Just don’t, all right?” he told me.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said impatiently. “You mean it’s possible to tap into a person’s magic?”
“That’s the idea. You pawn part of your magic for a set time in return for a fee. You never heard of it? ’Cause people do it all the time. The mages do, I mean.”
“I thought only dark mages steal magic.”
“They do. They drain somebody every chance they get. But this doesn’t take all of someone’s magic. Just a small percentage. And since they gotta agree to it, it’s legal. Just really stupid.”
“Who buys it? And for what?”
Marco shrugged. “You want details, you gotta talk to a mage. All I know is, it’s supposed to stay within the maximum agreed on and to end at a specified time. Only sometimes, that don’t happen. Like I warned you, it’s dangerous. The Circle usually keeps an eye on that kind of thing, but with the war on—”
“I get it.” I knew for a fact that the Circle didn’t have enough war mages to go around, not when most of them had been recruited for combat duty. A lot of little things were likely to slip through the cracks, including mundane police work like checking on pawnshop owners.
“And damn, girl, it’s not like you need it!” Marco continued. “Lord Mircea could set you up with an allowance—”
“No, he couldn’t,” I said emphatically.
“He isn’t known for being cheap, and you are his—”
“If you say property, I swear—”
Marco’s cell phone went off, interrupting the conversation. “Sorry. Can’t help you,” he told it abruptly, and hung up.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“It sounded like Casanova.”
The phone continued to ring, sounding shriller by the second. He finally got it back out and switched it off. “It wasn’t,” he said, meeting my eyes easily. Which meant absolutely nothing.
Vampires are great liars. They don’t blush, fidget, perspire or have any of the other tells a human might when under pressure. But I knew how much could be concealed by a calm facade. Usually, the more expressionless they were, the more they were hiding. And Marco was looking pretty damn blank.
“Marco—” I didn’t have time to call him on the lie, because Billy Joe streamed in.
“The Circle just grabbed a bunch of the kids,” he told me without preamble. “I don’t know how many. They were dragging them out when I left. Casanova tried to call you, but he couldn’t get through.”
I grabbed Marco’s phone out of his pocket and hit redial. “Hey!”
