The scent of spiced beef drifted through the warm night air as Maggie scooped generous portions into our stektas before wrapping them up and handing them to us. Her keen blue eyes assessed us with practiced efficiency.
“Been up to no good again, have you?” she said while fixing Callan with a knowing look.
While taking the stekta with one hand, he pressed the other to his chest in mock affront. “Me? Never.”
“Bah.” She waved a wrinkled hand in front of her face, but a small smile played over her lips. “Well, at least you’re not dripping blood all over the street in front of my stall this time.” Raising a finger, she shook it at him. “It scares off the other customers, you know.”
“I know.” He gave her a smile and then lifted the wrapped stekta in a salute. “Thanks, Maggie.”
“Uh-huh.”
I inclined my head to her before Callan and I moved aside to let another couple order food from the observant old lady. Sizzling filled the air as she ladled more batter onto her flat frying table.
While holding our warm stektas in both hands, Callan and I drifted over to those fairly secluded stone steps between two buildings. We moved halfway up them before taking a seat. I shifted my stekta to my left hand while smoothening out my skirt over my legs with the other.
Paper rustled as I peeled back the wrappings and then bit into the food. The taste of spiced beef, melted cheese, scallions, and that delicious sauce spread across my tongue, and I let out a contented sound.
Next to me, Callan chuckled softly. After studying the expression on my face for another few seconds, he bit into his stekta as well. A similarly satisfied sound came from his chest.
For a while, we just sat there side by side, eating our food and watching people stroll past on the street below the steps. Between the meeting with the arrogant David who had treated us like some damn rookies, and our ambush on those idiots who had attacked us earlier, who we could only taunt but not actually kill, this had been a very frustrating day. But at least the food made it better.
“We need to get the names of the people who usually go to The Black Rose,” Callan said eventually. “And check if any of them can be easily blackmailed.”
I chewed in silence while considering. My eyes drifted towards the old lady spreading batter across her frying table. I swallowed before saying, “Why don’t we just ask Maggie?”
Callan didn’t answer immediately. When he had been quiet for a couple of seconds, I tore my gaze from the food stall owner and slid it back to the force mage next to me. He was still watching Maggie, and there was a slight frown creasing his brows.
“I don’t want to involve her in things that go against Levi’s interests,” he replied at last. “He doesn’t know about her, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“He rules half of Malgrave. You really think he doesn’t know?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think he does. Like I said, Maggie is one of the most dangerous people in this city because of all the information she gathers. So I’m pretty sure Levi would’ve shut her down if he knew what she did. And I don’t wanna risk that.”
I studied the side of his face. “Is that why we didn’t go straight to her to ask what was happening in the city when we first arrived?”
“Yeah. Finding the shadow mage was different because what we were doing was something that would benefit Levi, but that… and this…” Blowing out a breath, he turned to face me again. “I don’t wanna involve her in anything that can be seen as a threat against Levi.”
“Alright.” I gave him a nod in agreement. “No Maggie.” After eating another bite of stekta, I glanced over at Callan again. “So, how do we get those names?”
He ate some more food too before answering. “I might have some other contacts that we can tap.”
“Tonight or tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. Right now, I just wanna finish eating this and then go back to our bed.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Go to bed, huh?”
A sly smile spread across his lips. “I said go back to our bed. I said nothing about sleeping.”
With a matching smile sliding home on my own lips, I bumped my leg against the side of his. He chuckled. Then we went back to eating in silence.
On the street below, people wandered back and forth in varying states of inebriation. A young man threw his arms out and spun around while singing the beginning of a very lewd song. His friends laughed. I watched as one of them slung an arm over his shoulders and steered him away when he tried to seduce a random woman with a flower that he had picked up from hell knew where.
Across the road, two other women were gesturing excitedly as they discussed something before they disappeared into an establishment with a red door.
“We’re gonna have to watch our backs even more now,” Callan said, breaking the silence that had settled over the steps. “Johnson and Kane and the rest of their group are gonna come for us hard now.”
“That’s their names? The ones we visited tonight? Kane and Johnson?”
“It’s their last names. I don’t know their first names. Kane is the blond lightning mage, the one you visited. The fire mage is Johnson.”
“Hmm.”
Another short silence fell. I wondered what their story was. Based on what Kane had said when I ambushed him in his home earlier, I was pretty sure that I had a rough idea about their issues with Callan. But I wondered exactly what had happened.
“You’re wondering what I did to them, right?” Callan asked, as if he had read my mind.
I blinked in surprise and then turned to meet his gaze again. “Yeah.”
He nodded. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me about that. And for you to ask me why people here refer to me as Coldblooded Callan.” A curious expression blew across his features, and he furrowed his brows slightly as he looked back at me. “Why haven’t you?”
“Because neither of us is used to sharing personal stuff, and I didn’t want to pry. I figured if it was important, you’d tell me. And if not…” Trailing off, I lifted my shoulders in a casual shrug.
A genuine smile drifted across his mouth as he just watched me for a few seconds. I shifted my leg closer so that my thigh was resting against his. He exhaled deeply and dragged a hand through his black hair while crumpling up the now empty wrapping paper with the other.
“I killed their families,” he said at last. “Well, only part of Kane’s, I suppose.”
“Why?”
He let out a surprised chuckle, as if the complete lack of judgement in my tone and expression somehow surprised him. I found that a bit strange since we were both dark mages who had slaughtered our fair share of people throughout the years with absolutely no regrets. Hell knew my own hands were covered in blood, and my sense of morality was practically nonexistent at this point.
“Because Levi ordered it,” Callan answered with a shrug. “Kane’s older sister used to work for Levi, but then she turned traitor and started selling information to the constables on the north side. So I killed her. The Johnson family was apparently friends with the Kane family, so after her death, Johnson’s parents started trying to get people to rise up against Levi and get rid of him. So Levi sent me to kill them too.”
“And the rest of the group that attacked us?”
“I don’t remember their names or recognize their faces, but yeah I’m pretty sure I killed their family members too.” He shrugged again. “It was my job, both when I worked for Levi the first time and when I came back here to clear the debt five years ago. Levi gave me a name and I killed that person for him. Some were rivals or enemies. Some were strangers. Some were people from inside Levi’s organization who I had worked with and been friendly with. It didn’t matter.” Raking a hand through his hair again, he tilted his head back and gazed up at the darkened sky visible between the buildings. “And that’s why people started calling me Coldblooded Callan. Because even if they were colleagues who I had laughed with and gotten drunk with just the day before, when the kill order came down, I took them out regardless.”
“Is that how you know Mi-ri and Winston too?”
“Yeah. I was ordered to kill them, among others, when I came back here five years ago, but figured that their magic could be useful in case my deal with Levi went to hell, and I set them up on the north side instead. Them and a few others with rare magic that I thought could benefit me at some point. The rest? I killed them all without hesitation.”
“You were Levi’s assassin.”
“Assassin is too fancy a word for what I did.” He let out a humorless laugh and then met my gaze again. “I was his executioner.”
There was a guarded expression in his dark brown eyes as he watched me. Waited for me to reply. I wasn’t really sure what it was that he was worried about. Maybe that I would be put off by the fact that he had been obeying someone else’s orders without question? But that wasn’t at all what had gone through my head when he told me all of that.
So I let out a short laugh, shook my head, and then said what I had really been thinking. “I can’t believe I managed to survive a five-year war against you.”
Shock flickered in his eyes, and he blinked at me in stunned silence.
I frowned at him. “Why are you looking at me like that? Your entire job in Malgrave revolved around you killing whoever Levi pointed to. How is it shocking to you that I’m surprised I’m still alive?”
“Because I’ve been thinking the exact same thing about you.” A laugh rolled off his tongue. “After watching you fight and scheme up close like this these past weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out how in the hell I’ve managed to survive five years of attacks from you.”
An equally surprise laugh spilled from my own lips. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, now I feel a bit better about myself.”
“A bit?”
“Alright, a lot.”
“You know you’ve just fed my ego quite a lot too, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
We chuckled in unison.
On the street below, drunk and happy people milled about. Songs and chatter drifted up into the dark night while colorful lights painted their smiling faces in shifting hues.
None of them looked up. They just continued about their business. Completely oblivious to the two vicious villains laughing about their blood-soaked past on the steps above.
