Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,93

turning something over in his mind. When he spoke, his words were slow, as if he was choosing them very carefully. “The destruction of Indianapolis. Nasty business and very visible. The Towers do not handle problems in their own house like that, and if they were all hunting you . . .” Chang paused and looked me over in such a way that I could almost hear the calculator in his head. “If they were hunting you, you would have already been dead. No, I think they lost the one thing that we can actually steal from them.”

“Chang,” I warned, trying to force the wheels in his brain to stop.

“The locations.”

My shoulders slumped and a headache started to throb in my temples. The old man was too smart for his own good. That or . . . “I pray by all that’s holy you’re not the buyer.”

Chang cackled, slapping the bench armrest on his right in his amusement. It was the first time he seemed to slip back into his usual mood. Since I had stepped into his garden, he had seemed subdued and almost melancholy. But then, no one in Low Town was in a good mood at the moment.

“You’re so funny, Gage,” he said as his laughing died down. “Do you think I don’t know where all the Towers are located?”

“How many?”

Chang’s grin became positively evil as he held up eight fingers.

I slapped my hands over my ears and hunched over, trying to shrink into the other side of the bench. “Stop, Chang! I don’t want to hear it! I’ve got enough fucking problems.” Despite having my ears covered, I could hear him laughing at me, and I deserved it. If I stopped for one minute and thought about it, really thought about it, I knew that Chang already knew the locations of the Ivory Towers. The man had his hands on every interesting artifact, treasure, and doodad that had ever been created. Of course, he knew the locations! I just didn’t want to know about him knowing.

I dropped my hands from the sides of my head and let them dangle between my legs as I stared at the ground, feeling as if I were worn down to the bone. Chang stopped laughing and grew silent beside me. He shifted on the bench and leaned forward to look at my face.

“Is that why you are here? Someone knows and you think I am buying the information?”

I sighed. “In all honesty, the thought didn’t cross my mind until a minute ago. A different problem has brought me here today.”

The old black-market seller clapped me on the back. “Gage, you can’t afford another problem.”

“No shit,” I muttered. With a grunt, I sat back against the bench and stretched out my legs in front of me. The peace of the garden was starting to seep into my soul, easing away some of the tension. I pushed aside thoughts of the Towers and their wayward secret. I suppressed worries of Reave and the havoc he could wreak on this world. Arianna’s problem was what had dragged me to Chang’s doorstep. I was focused on the Summer Court and would deal with the rest when I heard from Duff.

“What do you know about impregnating elves?” I asked.

For the first time since I had met him, Chang looked dumbfounded. His little face wrinkled up and his mouth hung slightly open as if he was struggling to formulate a good answer. I came to Chang when I needed something to undo a curse, some magical protection, or maybe just a little bit of weirdness for a tattoo. This subject was not a comfort zone for either of us.

“I’ve not made any elf pregnant!” he finally exclaimed.

A deep chuckle rolled from my chest before I could stop it. “Not accusing you,” I said with a grin. Draping my right arm over the back of the bench, I turned slightly so that I was facing him. “My latest problem is with the elves. Particularly the Summer Court, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all having this problem.”

“Are you trying to have a baby with an elf?” Chang shook his head, looking worried. “This is not a good time, Gage. Maybe you should wait.”

“What? No! No, I’m not trying to have a kid.” I jerked back from him like I had been stung. “I’ve agreed to help the Summer Court. They’re having problems reproducing.”

“Oh!” Chang laughed with a clap of his hands, looking more than a