“I’m supposed to eat this?” I blanched, fighting every urge not to slap it away. “And how does that work?”

  “Are you aware of the eight Disciplines? Divination?” Assad asked, then answered his own question. “Of course you don’t." He laid a hand on his chest, "Do you know what Haruspicy refers to?”

  “Reading entrails. You're a Haruspex.” I recalled it being mentioned in the Shamanism books.

  “Ah, you’ve been reading,” He pressed the toe closer to me. “Yes but the first Etruscan haruspex didn’t limit themselves to entrails. That was more of a Roman trend. Nothing went to waste in the old days. Nowadays, I believe you practitioners refer to my art as Anthropomancy.”

  “And you chose the toe?”

  “Less of a choice and more a personal brand.” He offered the toe again. “Today, Jain Shin Hallow.”

  Every interaction I had with someone new, the more questions I had. I hadn’t known that non-Practitioners could practice magic at all. From what Assad was saying, that wasn't the case at all Which brought me to the next topic of the eight disciplines. The book had glossed over it, but I hadn’t had time to read it.

  If the eight disciplines were anything like the Ying-Yang Five Elements, there would be relationships. Fire and water. Wood and metal.

  Was there a weakness I could exploit if I found out what Victor and Mina's discipline was?

  Familiar first, survival second, research later.

  I took the object from him, trying to keep my lips from curling due to its more than unpleasant fragrance. Though soft on the outside, there was a firmness to it. Exactly like a pickle.

  I opened my mouth, brought it near, stopped, and repeated the motion a few times.

  “I believe you mentioned something about time?” Assad said helpfully.

  “I know,” I nearly snapped, “It’s just my first time.”

  “With good old uncle Assad.” He said cheerfully.

  Now I knew why my dad never told me he had friends.

  “Ok.” I took a deep breath, working up the guts. “At least it’s a girl’s toe.” My brain didn’t have a chance to filter the words, and registered Abigail’s scathing look through my peripheral.

  I closed my eyes and tossed the toe in my mouth before more second guessing could take place.

  My mouth exploded into juices of flavor and memories.

  Different assortments of fragrant salt and spices traveled up my tongue then pharynx triggering my sense of smell. Strong odors pervaded through my skull so thoroughly that I could imagine them filling up to my eyeballs.

  Knowledge came with it.

  My Third Eye resonated with the power contained in the toe. Diagrams of summoning circles and the assortment of materials needed flooded the space between my brain and spirit, engraving themselves there.

  My mom had done more than hand over her familiars. She had put in some other things too.

  But the memories were fragmented into smaller masked parts that my mind struggled to identify. I understood why instinctively. Even this influx of disjointed parts had been near enough to overcolor the knowledge that really mattered: the Familiar ritual.

  Another piece of knowledge unrelated to familiars floated in my mind: that Paris stood for Palis, a vampiric creature from Persian folklore that licked blood from sleeping people’s feet using its barbed tongue.

  “You’re bleeding, Jain.” Abigail gasped.

  I had noticed the slick wetness dripping from my nose. When I dabbed at it, my hand came away stained with blood. More droplets fell to the ground, creating spots of scarlet on the warehouse floor.

  “Are you ok, Jain?” Abigail took a step towards me, but Assad stopped her with an arm.

  He bared his teeth, eyes nearly bulging out. When he spoke, his voice was a near whisper. “Did you get what you intended, Jain Shin Hallow?”

  My mind sifted through the pages of information dump that happened in my head, mental fingers flipping through the pages and trying to make sense of it all. If this really was from my mom, she wanted me to know a lot more than just the ritual for contacting familiars.

  She wanted me to know that Assad Xiazhi Paris was just a front. That the man was a beast-vampire, who had been one of many to sell out the Achaemid Persian Empire to Alexander the Great. Before that, he’d been part of the traitors to sell out Babylon. Before that? Etruscan. And many, many, many before that.

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  My Third Eye aided with another vision –a dark-skinned man presumed to be Paris traveling in a caravan. Coins exchanging hands as tea, spices, slik cloth were unloaded and loaded from merchant carts. It was Assad, traveling along the silk road.

  Then he was in China, blending in with the local supernatural creatures. He spent the next few centuries with the local Yaoguai; until the Spheres of Influence were carved out. Next, he moved to the middle east and adopted the name Assad. Then, he immigrated to the States.

  The overlapping images faded.

  “Jain Shin Hallow?” Assad was walking closer to me, but I wasn’t listening.

  Every time there was a big conflict, the Persian Vampire found a way to profit off of it. Always. To the end, he was a businessman.

  This whole interaction, it had been part of keeping up his end of the bargain with my mom.

  Was that all there was? What was my mom trying to show me with this set of knowledge?

  “Stop right there.” My words came out a little slurred. I looked for what to say next, to buy time to think about what to do. “You can’t hurt me.”

  “Ah, yes.” Assad’s pupils were filling up to the brim of his eyeballs. “That was part of my deal with your mother. Yes, I cannot until this whole thing is over.”

  But my mom hadn’t trusted him even with the deal. That was the reason why she had added in his background into the haruspexied toe. I scuffed the blood stains on the floor with my shoe.

  The name of Assad’s game was profit. If he could profit off of a deal he already profited off of once, he’d do it. He’d sell out a business partner, especially if that business partner was dead.

  I don’t hate all rich people. I hate the type of people who have no morals, that they’d take advantage of someone else. Especially if that someone else didn’t have much to be taken from in the first place. Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of the world works.

  The IRS. Feds. Cops. They don’t go after the wealthy, the famous, and the rich. Those people have the power to fight back.

  They go after the ones who have nothing. People like me and my dad.

  Fragments of different possibilities began to come together, forming a new one. The conversation with Abigail in the car. Paris being part of the Table which put out a bounty on me. How he always always played both sides.

  Abigail hadn’t been trying to threaten me. She’d been trying to warn me.

  Oh god, things started to come together in my head, dread raining down on the joy I was supposed to be feeling at finally getting something done.

  “You set me up.” I spat.

  The vampire stopped in his tracks. “Oh? What makes you say that?”

  Acting on instinct, I reached in my pocket and pulled out the charm from the Fox-sister. “I don’t know. I don’t know how. But you’re screwing me over.”

  “Ho, you’ve completed a conjuring already? By yourself? Banished it afterwards too, from the looks of it.” Assad peered at the charm in my hand. “A norigae. The peninsula always had such an interesting cast.”

  Laughter bubbled to my throat, dyed with hysteria and panic. Assad’s visage was growing leaner, less… human and more of what he already had been: A predator. Fear gripped my heart in the same way that the Fox-sister’s presence had. Helpless horror climbed from my toes to my hands, tangling itself all the way through.

  “What did you do?”

  “I,” He gestured to himself with one hand, “did nothing. However, certain Table members were there when Miru presented her conditions. It’s not too farfetched to say they remembered it and surmised when I might try to make contact.”

  His other hand reached into his pockets and brought out a ruby ring. Most likely a toe ring.

  “The bounty.” I gasped, lifting up the norigae.

  “I must admit,” Paris held up the toe, “You are turning out a tad more competent than I’m comfortable with.”

  I noticed that his hand with the toe flinched every time I moved the norigae. I was bluffing, I had no idea what it did, much less how to use it. He didn’t need to know that. Whatever kept him occupied.

  “So your plan was to lure me here, put me in a situation where I’m in danger, and save me? To what end?”

  “Owe your life to me.” Assad smiled. “Debts and obligations, my dear Jain Shin Hallow.” He reached out with his other hand. “It’s not too late, young man. I have pledged not to hurt you, which is only one step away from extending my protection.”

  I saw Abigail looking at me, pools of purple filling her eyes and the manacle of gray-smoke around her neck. She was bound to him. I saw that now. It must have happened in much the same way that he was trying to do to now.

  Her eyes flickered towards the door, then to the staircase at the back. She mouthed, Run.

  Everything happened at once.

  I heard the sound of the warehouse door being slammed open and footsteps running in.

  Assad raising his ruby ring to his lips, barbed tongue flickering out.

  Abigail running with her keyrings jingling behind her.

  Me, completing the circle of blood I’d been drawing with my shoes while pretending to scuff my nosebleed out.

  I tore off one of the coins from the Norigae and hoped to god this worked.

  “Yeou-nui, Yeou-nui, Fox-Sister!” I chanted, wiping more blood from my nose and splattering it inside the circle with one of the coins.

  Nothing happened.

  Then the lights went off.

  And chaos erupted everywhere.