The Shadow Court

by Jenn Stark

  “To kill him?” I asked, aghast.

  “To collect him, I thought. Then I realized who he was. I knew his position in the world and what work he still had to do. He didn’t die that night, not entirely. But something powerful had been taken from him, and losing it broke him.”

  She turned to Armaeus. “I think you can guess what it was.”

  “Alchemy,” Armaeus murmured. “He’d finally done it. He’d discovered how to change lead into gold. And with a secret that important, there was only one place I’d put it. Which neatly solves another mystery, one that has vexed me for centuries, only I never realized the connection.”

  Death nodded. “I think so too. You stole the alchemical formula from John Dee…and then you stashed it somewhere you promptly banned yourself from accessing again. A place of this world, but not in it, where even angels feared to tread.”

  “The In Between,” Armaeus murmured.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Nikki spoke first, bringing up her hands. “I mean, I get why Dee would be upset about losing the secret to alchemy. The philosopher’s stone was the holy grail of every scientist back then. Let alone all the money you could make by selling a recipe for turning lead into gold. But why would you care enough about that to bury the knowledge from everyone, even yourself, Armaeus? It’s not like you have a yen for walking around in solid-gold kicks.”

  “Agreed,” Simon said, his face alight with interest as he leaned forward, tapping furiously on his laptop. “What I got on 1571 and Dee is next to nothing. He went to France like Death said, to the duchy of Lorraine. Nobody knows why, not even my cross-referenced sources.” He shook his head in disgust. “Record keeping in the fifteen hundreds seriously sucked, for the, ah, record.”

  “Do you know why he went?” Armaeus asked Death, who shook her head.

  “I didn’t know he’d returned from there until far later. He became quite ill after my visit to him and recovered only after several weeks. That period of rest is probably what saved his mind from cracking completely, but he never returned to Lorraine after that. It’s as if he’d forgotten why he’d gone, what he’d learned there, and what was important about it.” She narrowed her eyes at Armaeus. “You still don’t remember any of this?”

  “I don’t.” Armaeus didn’t look stricken, exactly, but he also didn’t look happy. “With the snippet of the tattoo that Miss Wilde sent, my memory fired, and the knowledge of the existence of the Shadow Court came shortly after, if not all the details. I still don’t have all the details.”

  “Or any memory of Sara either?” Kreios drawled, the interruption surprising me.

  Armaeus glanced at him but didn’t respond. “The location of the lost chapter of the Zohar was made partially by deduction, much like Dee’s, but the moment I stepped foot in El Call, I felt that memory firing as well. But this…” He shook his head. “I have no recollection at all of wresting Dee’s discovery from him.”

  Once again, the Devil intervened. “But you know why you would.”

  This comment earned him a sharper look from Armaeus. “Yes, of course. Lead into gold was the shorthand that the common person could understand. A precious metal derived from a common lump of lead? There was immediate and obvious value there. But the true impact of the transmutation of substances was far more powerful than that. Dee, like most alchemists, sought to understand the spirit of things, what made them up, long before the discovery of the building blocks of matter. By identifying what their components were—the energy that made them what they were—he sought to then change that energy to operate at a different, higher vibration. Alchemy. Gold wasn’t even the highest level. It merely was the most practical target to shoot for.”

  “And he did it,” I said. “Dee figured it out.”

  “So it would seem. But for me to intervene so clumsily, shattering the man’s mind in the process…” Armaeus let his words trail off, but there was no doubting his concern. And it felt wrong to me too, the same way watching him dangle a priest from the ramparts of the Sagrada Familia felt wrong. Who was this man who was willing to do such things? Was reclaiming these portions of his memories really something that was going to help Armaeus? His eyes were shifting even as I watched, regaining their cast of flat black malevolence, though no one seemed to notice it but me.

  He looked to Simon. “As Death so ably indicated, there’s only one likely location where I would have put this secret. The In Between. I’ve been barred entry to it since the fifteen hundreds by my own hand, at least in the British Isles. Are there any entry points in London near Mortlake? I doubt there’s anything left of Dee’s home there, not the original building, anyway.”

  “That would be negative, but…” Simon’s brows lifted. “Dee was born in the Tower Ward. There’s a portal below All Hallows by the Tower church, if that makes any sense as an entry point for you?”

  Death tucked her hands into her jeans pockets and rocked up onto her toes, simmering with energy. “It would make sense, yes. It would be very strategic, in fact. Dee would be drawn to wherever you stashed his lost memories, but he wouldn’t know why. If you entered the In Between at the site of a church in his home ward, then he would assign his sense of nostalgia and loss to the church, perhaps to his family, but not to any mental lapse he experienced at another’s hands.”

  “So that’s where we need to go,” the Magician said.

  “If I may interject.” The Devil made a show of looking at his nails as he spoke, but his voice was uncharacteristically hard. “There was a reason for the forgetting of these arcane bits of history. And the reintroduction of the first has hardly proven ideal. You’ve changed, Armaeus. You don’t even know how much. You are undoubtedly weaker for the experience, for all that you have gained in knowledge.”

  “Which is why it’s a good thing you’re in charge of the Council, along with the Emperor.” Armaeus smiled, all teeth. “I need time to assimilate this knowledge and understand its importance.”

  “You do need time. Unfortunately, time is no longer a commodity we have to spare. The Shadow Court has made itself known, and we have very little information on it—by we, I mean you. That is the subject you should concern yourself with, not the transmutation of lead into gold or its allegorical equal, no matter how enticing that may seem.”

  “You don’t understand,” Armaeus countered. “The one begets the other.”

  “I would have thought that, yes, except your acquisition of the lost chapter of the Book of Radiance has yielded knowledge only of a very esoteric nature, knowledge currently constrained to one person…you. What it didn’t yield was any additional intelligence about the Shadow Court. And it should have. Arguably, when you set this mechanism in motion in 1478, you believed you were at the start of a long-ranging plan.”

  “A plan that requires the return of all my memories.”

  “But not all your memories were eradicated by you. The knowledge of the Shadow Court was wiped clean through the efforts of Justice Strand. That means two things—one, that she knew the mechanism by which your memories could be erased, along with the memories of everyone else touched by the Shadow Court—that is powerful knowledge. Two, she knew you’d successfully employed that mechanism before.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “His point is that the answers you’re seeking may not only lie in the In Between,” Death interjected. “They may lie much closer to home, in the library of Justice Hall. Interestingly enough, no Council member in this room other than Justice herself can enter her own hall, by the hand of no less than Abigail Strand. And not one of us sought to argue this point.”

  “Well, all you need—” Something on Simon’s screen interrupted him, and he squinted down at his laptop. “Yo, that’s weird,” he muttered, lifting his hand to type.

  “Has there been any movement from the Shadow Court or any word from Brody over at Interpol about their actions?” I asked as Simon leaned closer to t
he table. “If not, I have no problem hitting the library stacks to find…uh, whatever it is you think I should find.”

  “That’s a waste of time,” Armaeus said, his voice clipped as he turned to me. “You’re the key. You should go with me into the labyrinth of the In Between to locate what I hid in 1571. I have no gaps in my memory other than in 1571 and 1478.”

  “Not true,” Kreios drawled. “You have a very large Shadow Court-sized hole that we have yet to fill. To answer your question, Sara, Brody has seen no indication of increased activity by the Shadow Court. They are as silent as they were before their attack on you two days ago. It is as if they’re waiting. But oh, I wonder what they might be waiting for?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell us your supposition on that score,” Armaeus commented drily.

  Kreios grinned. “It would be my absolute pleasure. My supposition is that they’re waiting for you to gain the second of two known memory lapses so that you’re both very powerful and very compromised at the same time. Then, if they’re smart, they’ll attack you and leverage the arcane knowledge you’ve collected for themselves.”

  “They’re not strong enough to do that.”

  “Since we know very little about them, it’s a bit premature for you to make that assertion,” Kreios countered. “My question is, why are you not more concerned about them? Why is the pursuit of the missing pieces of your memory, specifically the pieces not related to the Shadow Court, your primary concern? This isn’t about the acquisition of lost knowledge. It’s about confronting a very real enemy to the Council and to Connecteds at large.”

  “What you’re not seeing is the fact that the arcane knowledge that I’m collecting might solve the Shadow Court problem.”

  “And I could accept that if we knew what the problem was. Although we suspect we know the nature of what you hid in the In Between, we don’t know it for a certainty. Our attention must be diverted to the Shadow Court. You know this to be true.”

  Watching the two of them argue was one of the more surreal experiences of my recent memory, and my recent memory was chock-full of surreal experiences. Armaeus and Kreios had always been staunch friends and absolute supporters of each other. For Kreios to confront the Magician and essentially shut down his treasure hunt was striking and more than a little alarming. For the Magician to glare at his long-time best friend like he was going to blast his head off his shoulders was downright frightening. I was used to dissension in the Council, but not between these two.

  “Uh, guys?” Simon looked up from his laptop. “We’ve got incoming.”

  The Hierophant straightened. “Incoming what?”

  “That’s the thing, I have no idea. If I wasn’t looking for it, I probably wouldn’t even notice what’s happening. But of course, I am looking. And it looks like we’re being surrounded by shadows crawling along the city streets.”

  “Shadows?” Michael asked sharply. “You mean like demons? Or wraiths?”

  “No, like legitimate shadows,” Simon says. “We’ve got a ring about a mile wide, but they are closing in too fast to be walking and too slow to be driving. I don’t know what we’re looking at here unless it’s an attack by scooters, and that’s not showing up on any of the cameras.”

  “Let me see that,” the Magician said. We all crowded around the laptop. Sure enough, a pattern of incoming energy was making a net around our small hotel, and that net was getting tighter. On the street cams, the energy showed up as almost human. A person would be caught in motion, then sort of wink out. Then the same person would reappear a quarter mile away from his last location with only a blur in between.

  I made a face. “We’re going to be attacked by Sonic the Hedgehog?”

  “We’re not going to be attacked at all.” To my surprise, it was the Devil who spoke again, his eyes unfocused. “They don’t know how many members of the Arcana Council are here, and having so many of us together could turn out very well for us or very poorly, but either way, we’re not the only considerations. Should our assailants reach us, we put the other guests of this hotel at risk. We have to leave. Now.”

  “Leave?” Armaeus turned on him. “There could be vital information to get if we took one of them.”

  “Not a problem,” Simon said. “I can make this place so sticky with bugs, they won’t be able to get out without something of ours on something of theirs. We can track them.”

  “Works for me.” I nodded, stepping up next to Nikki. “Where should we meet? It’s got to be somewhere I know.”

  “Justice Hall,” Kreios said. “We need to learn what Abigail knew. Simon, how long do you need to stay to keep them on the scent here?”

  “Not long at all,” he said, his head close to his laptop again, fingers flying over the keys. “I’ve got tech I can leave behind that I’m charging with enough of an electrical feed to psychically blow the doors off this place—though no actual doors, I promise. It’ll short out about two minutes after we’re gone. Right around the time they’re scaling the walls.”

  “Do it.” Kreios turned to us. “Go.”

  “Gone.” Nikki saluted and slung her arm around me, the two of us crackling instantly out of the posh sitting area of the hotel and reappearing moments later in the decidedly lower-level reception room of Justice Hall. One by one, the Council members appeared—first the Hierophant, then the Devil, then Death…

  And then nothing.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked sharply, looking at Kreios. “I can understand Simon not wanting to show up in the middle of all of us, since he teleports commando, but where’s Armaeus?”

  Kreios looked at Death, who rolled her eyes. “He can’t enter the In Between,” she said. “He knows that. Not even with Simon to guide the way. The Magician was the one who fashioned the locks that bar him. They’re unbreakable.”

  “That was before he gained the ability to talk to angels, though, isn’t it?” Kreios asked. “What if he’s already struck up a conversation to ask them to help him gain entry?”

  Death stiffened. “By the light—”

  She winked out, leaving the Hierophant staring after her with a curious look in his eye.

  I fixed him with a look of my own. “Were those people possessed by demons? Is that why they moved so quickly?” Michael would know. Of all the Council members, the Archangel had a deep and abiding understanding of the demons of this world. But Michael shook his head.

  “No. You were more correct before. They are humans with the capacity for super speed, and as we saw, there was quite a number of them. The amount of culling of the Connected population to find that particular trait would take some time, unless it was a trait that was introduced at a genetic level.”

  I curled my lip. “You mean like they’ve been bred for it? Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “With an organization as old as we believe the Shadow Court to be? Breeding for traits such as extreme speed could be done easily enough. But more likely it’s a combination of genetic disposition and technoceutical augmentation. A potent combination and one more useful in creating a net such as the one we saw in London—and that you encountered in Paris.”

  “Technological augmentation…” I shook my head. Technoceuticals kept popping up with this group. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “How did they even know where to find us?” I asked. “Did one of us have a tracker?”

  “No,” Kreios said. “Simon set up a perimeter veil to keep that from happening. More likely they were able to detect the energy spike of so many high-powered Connecteds in one place, much as we were able to track them.”

  “Which means their tech is ever so close to our own. That’s not a good thing,” I said. “How is it they’ve stayed so far below the radar that we didn’t even follow the line of technology—whether they’re using it to augment psychic skills, nullify them, or simply track them?”

  “A very good question. One that I’m hoping you can discover before it�
��s too late.”

  My brand-new Council burner phone chirped in my pocket, and I grabbed it. The incoming number was international, so I stabbed the phone to connect the call. “Yes?”

  “Sara, thank God,” Brody said. “Where are you? Please don’t tell me London.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was the faintest rustle of noise, almost like the sound of wings being unfurled, and I glanced up to see our numbers had dropped again. Now only Kreios, Nikki, and I remained in Justice Hall. The Hierophant had left the building.

  “I’m putting you on speaker,” I told Brody. “I’ve got Nikki and Kreios with me, and we’re in Vegas. Armaeus and Simon are still in London, though.” Ish.

  “I figured that,” Brody said. “Near the palace, I assume?”

  I shot a glance at Nikki, and she nodded, clearly having paid more attention to our surroundings than I had. “Up until a short while ago. What happened?”

  “A lot. We just got word of a known mercenary squad hitting the neighborhood hard, and a small, extremely fancy hotel had a suite set on fire. Authorities are on their way. The entire building is in the process of evacuation, casualties still unknown. I assume that was you.”

  “That was. Tell me about the squad.”

  “That’s where it gets interesting. These guys have been on Interpol’s radar for about a year now, but they’ve never hit to kill. Their game is to infiltrate offices, private residences, hotel rooms if someone is traveling with the goods, make their hit, and take what they want. They’re masked, they’re fast, and they leave any victims intact with all the usual warnings not to tell anyone or they’ll come back and finish the job. Most people agree happily enough, but word still made it to the authorities well after the fact, mostly to validate insurance claims for the products that weren’t illegal.”