by Jenn Stark
“We’ve got some possibilities,” Simon said, “but my money’s on this place.”
He hit a few keys, and the scene on the wall changed to a nighttime shot of a building on the waterfront, lit up with lights, then the same building during the day. “It’s nearby. It was a guild house back in the day, then a house of government, then a public house, and it’s been a hotel since the postwar rebuild. This is another option.”
A second image came up, a large and serene house on the hill overlooking the River Elbe. “Not near the city center, but protected like it’s Fort Knox. It’s been for sale for a couple of years, but priced so high that no one can seriously be considering selling it. From all accounts, there’s no activity there, so I have a harder time believing it could be our guys, but it still trips my trigger.”
Another image splashed across the wall, and Armaeus sat forward. “Why that one?”
“Well, other than the fact that it’s on the same street as Casa Bertrand and it hasn’t changed ownership since the 1500s, it has the second-highest concentration of psychic energy in the entire Hamburg region. If I was a suspicious sort, I’d say you bought the house down the street way back in the day strictly to keep an eye on someone, then forgot that was what you were going to do. No one realizes that the Bertrand estate owns your home either. It’s gone through several apparent owners, all of them carefully screened, and they all check out. So…I figured something was up.”
“I purchased the house in 1852, and then the Shadow Court disappeared from my every waking thought,” Armaeus murmured.
“Pretty much,” Simon agreed.
“Which leaves us where?” Kreios asked. “From what we have determined, Interpol has received several credible tips about an unusually high level of technoceutical drugs moving through Hamburg, drugs that are causing chatter all over the globe. But they want to speak with us. They wouldn’t do that unless they needed information or assistance they could not access themselves. Their reliance on Detective Rooks has grown by the hour, only barely staying below the radar enough that he doesn’t get targeted.”
“What about operatives inside Interpol?” I asked. “They haven’t noticed him?”
“They almost certainly have noticed him, but we’ve been moving very quickly to contain any threats as they appear and so far, so good. Once he briefs us this morning, that will change. He’ll be the poster child for any recommendations or actions in the city. He’ll be on the front lines.”
I scowled. That wasn’t exactly music to my ears. “Since when is Interpol on the front lines? They’re supposed to provide guidance to local law enforcement, then law enforcement goes in and does the heavy lifting. What’s different here?”
“The psychic element,” Kreios explained. “Which Detective Rooks has already proven he can handle ably and without discernible reaction, while other members of the agency are having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. Local law enforcement in Hamburg will not be as reticent, but there are leaks in every government agency. If it isn’t already known that Brody Rooks is advising Interpol, and where he comes from, and who he knows, it will be by mid-morning. He’ll need to be protected.”
“He’ll need to be removed,” I countered. “The first sign of trouble, I want him blockaded. He’s not Connected.”
“He agreed to do the job,” Kreios pointed out.
“And he’ll do the job. But the job doesn’t require him to get blasted off this planet this time around. So let’s maybe not let that happen.” I glanced at Nikki. “When does Interpol get here?”
“They’re on the ground now. We expect them in thirty, and they’ll almost certainly have a tail.”
“Cameras all feed into here,” Simon said, tapping the machine. “All you have to do is…” He faded off, and I looked over to see Death dart forward, catching the Fool before he could hit the desk.
“Go,” Armaeus said before anyone else could speak, and Death laid her cool, pale hand against Simon’s cheek—and they disappeared.
I turned on Armaeus, who pulled Simon’s computer toward him and began typing, though the image on the wall didn’t change. “Do you have any idea why—?”
“I don’t,” he said, his voice heavy. “It’s possible there is something in the very nature of the In Between that’s still sapping his energy. It’s also possible that the monitors he put up are letting through more than simply images. Dr. Sells will need to do a full workup, but it’s safe to say we’ll not have the advantage of the Fool’s insights during the coming challenge. Which is unfortunate.”
“Not only the Fool.” Kreios lounged against the far wall. “We’re not meeting this challenge with the full Council, even those we trust.”
“There’s been no need to involve them,” Armaeus said.
“It goes deeper than that,” Kreios countered. He studied his longtime friend. “Armaeus, what is it you know about the Shadow Court that you don’t realize you know? Because all this time, you’ve been making decisions based on gut instinct, but you shouldn’t have that instinct if your memories have been completely erased. So you’re going on something that is less than knowledge, less than memory, but perhaps more than your own intuition. And we need to understand it. Who is it you don’t trust?”
Armaeus looked back at him steadily. “I don’t know. There’s no member of the Council who has betrayed us outright. But there have been times they have acted—out of bounds.”
“Like Viktor. In Memphis, when I was a kid,” I said flatly. “He was so far out of bounds, I can’t believe you kept him on the Council.” I couldn’t help but think once more of the blond man’s words in the shipyard. Who was he, and why did I feel like I’d met him before, however briefly?
Armaeus nodded. “That tendency toward a lack of boundaries is what I’ve focused on, in knowing who to trust. I feel there’s…something important about it.”
“The Magician always has a plan,” murmured Kreios.
“Even when I don’t know I do? Not a very good plan.” Armaeus swung his gaze to me. “The Arcana Council is not made up of Connecteds who are solely good or even just, Miss Wilde. It’s made up of those who are the strongest. In a way, we are our own dead zone, creating barriers that keep our own members from straying into a role where they could damage society. By and large, that’s worked to keep us in balance, and when we’ve been breached—we’ve realized it quickly enough.”
“What if you don’t this time? What if that’s the whole point?”
Armaeus’s brows went up. “Explain.”
“I was paid a visit tonight by a man I didn’t know, a man I think I may have seen before, but—it was an illusion. A hologram. He wasn’t really there. Hell, maybe not even a hologram—maybe his image was superimposed on one of my own memories to screw with me, giving a whole new meaning to deep fake. But I couldn’t shake the idea I knew who he was.”
“Show me,” Armaeus and Kreios said at the same time. Even Nikki moved closer to me, and I reached out and touched her hand as I lifted my mental barriers enough to share the memory of earlier this evening in the shipyard. Armaeus stiffened with surprise, and Kreios started laughing. Even Nikki widened her eyes.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’ve seen him too,” she murmured. “I can’t quite remember…”
“Jarvis Fuggeren,” Kreios said, shaking his head. “That’s not the head of the Shadow Court. He’s rich, but he’s foolish, and the world is full of rich fools. He’s also not nearly Connected enough. You met him at an antique gold show last year, where—”
My eyes widened. “The guy with the Nazi gold.” I didn’t remember him as being quite the idiot that Kreios presented, but my filters were likely different from those of a man who’d been kicking around since World War I.
“Exactly so.”
Nikki’s phone pinged, and her gaze shot to it. “Look sharp, we’ve got company. Interpol has hit the building.”
Chapter Twenty
-Four
Armaeus vanished from the room in a whisper of mist. I barely had time to brace myself before the doors opened again, admitting a group of men and women, most of whose faces were set into steely masks of bureaucratic belligerence. All except Brody, in fact, whose face was set into a steely mask of long-suffering impatience.
“Thank you for meeting with us. I’m Agent Philippe Gustaf,” the head of the delegation started, a gruff, square-built man with a voice as heavy as a concrete block. “We’ve asked to meet with you regarding a series of drug trafficking tips that have been flooding into our offices, centered in Hamburg, but let me be clear. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be wasting my people’s time or yours with a personal meeting over something that could be handled via email.”
I blinked. I had no standing in this meeting and I was sitting down, but I still leaned forward. “So why are you here?”
“To meet you all, face to face, and establish protocols. It appears we will be working together closely, and I like to know who I’m working with.” He regarded me with blunt, unimpressed eyes. “Detective Rooks insists you will be ideal assets to our efforts, and, as it happened, we were already scheduled to be in the city to be briefed on the drug trafficking situation. Unfortunately, we have business elsewhere, so this meeting will be brief.”
I lifted my brows. “Elsewhere, meaning…?”
When Gustaf continued to stare at me with no indication of sharing more, Brody piped up. “There’s rumors of an attack in Paris where Connecteds are involved. Sixth arrondissement. We’ve got very few details.”
My heart skipped a beat. “The sixth is where Saint-Germain-des-Prés is located. Is that the problem?”
Gustaf grunted. “Why would you be concerned about that location? What do you know?”
“I don’t—” I began, then caught myself just in time. The truth was, I didn’t want to play this game of sit-on-my-hands with these people. I didn’t want to involve mortals at all. But that was what was required of the Council.
The Council. Not the Shadow Court. They could get things done far more easily, according to Jarvis Fuggeren.
I shook off that thought. “Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the home church of a priest who did great work protecting Connecteds who were threatened with abduction or abuse. He also rescued Connecteds who had endured terrible trials and set them up in rehabilitation centers. He died a few months ago, but his work continues there.”
Gustaf glanced at one of his men. “Under whom?”
“I don’t know. I paid them a visit when they were in the middle of an operation a few days ago, but I don’t know any of the top players.”
Gustaf shifted in his chair, and his words, when they came, were blunt. “I would like to believe you, Ms. Wilde, but I don’t. And the reason why is not what you may suspect. I do not believe you or your associates are involved with the drug trafficking network which brought us to Hamburg, but you should know that someone is going to great pains to make it look like you’re involved.”
I stiffened. Jarvis Fuggeren. I knew it as sure as I was sitting here. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“I think you understand me. With your past affiliations and current relationships, you have established a healthy network of operatives throughout Europe and Asia, and even into South America. You can move…certain items, very quickly.” He didn’t say kids, which I appreciated, but it was clear he knew a lot more about me than I preferred. “Now we have drugs moving even more quickly through Europe and Asia, and your name keeps coming up. As a blind, we know that, but it still begs the question. How would you do it? Move the drugs?”
“I wouldn’t,” I snapped. “The supply chain is where all drug operations fail eventually. There’s always a weak link.” It was the same with rescuing Connected children, though with far worse results.
Letting Gustaf chew on that for a second, I turned to Brody. “So what happened? Were there any casualties?”
“First, we focus on the situation here, because there is something happening, even if it is low level,” Gustaf interrupted again. “It’s very simple. We have alerted the authorities of the likely involvement of several locations in the city with the drug trade—locations, not families, institutions, or individuals. The sites we were given by the tipsters were very high level, and we do not want law enforcement to act unless or until there is sufficient proof. In short, they will set up surveillance, nothing more.”
“Surveillance,” nodded Kreios. “Nothing more.”
“Who are these tipsters?” I asked.
“Anonymous,” Brody put in, his gaze flashing to me. “But Connected. I did some research and—you’ll probably be hearing about this yourself.”
I blinked. That could only mean that complaints were coming in to Mrs. French too, back at Justice Hall. Yet another connection to Sara Wilde, I thought. If Jarvis was behind this, he was very good. “Got it.”
“But these are only tips. Supposed eyewitness accounts of weaponized psychotropic drugs being disseminated at an alarming rate,” Gustaf continued. “Nothing has been verified. We are given to understand that you have a great deal of confidence in your ability to ferret out mental terrorists, if that’s what we’re working with here, but we will need a little more concrete information for us to move forward.”
“Like maybe the attack in Paris,” I offered.
His lips thinned. “The attack in Paris is not in Hamburg. I would suggest it has nothing to do with the buildings and families singled out here. If we’d received some addresses in Paris, tips regarding drug transactions in that city, well, that would be a different story. I’m sure you can appreciate that we are not in the habit of accusing people of crimes they have yet to commit. The tips have indicated that a great deal of money and drugs is changing hands in and around Hamburg, but all such transactions are completely hidden and in no way match the shipping schedule of potential drug-laden boats, trains, and airplanes into the city. It’s as if the contraband comes in, and, within mere minutes, a transaction is recorded in Germany, Amsterdam, beyond. It’s not possible.”
“Well, there is this thing called the internet…” I sat back, keeping my arms wide on the armrests. Gustaf was already defensive and suspicious. I didn’t need to appear like his bad attitude was contagious.
“The tips include photos,” Brody said. “Detailed descriptions of materials and packaging. The drugs are being transported to these other cities physically. We just don’t know how.”
“But you have suspicions?” I directed the question at Gustaf. This wasn’t my first fractious tango with Interpol. With their two factions of exploit-the-Connecteds versus execute-the-Connected, I needed a better sense of which party Gustaf belonged to before I divulged anything helpful.
He stared at me hard. “They just show up here and poof, they’re somewhere else. A whole lot of them, in lots of different places, with whispers of what they are and what they can do getting more elaborate by the hour.”
“That…that sounds bad,” I acknowledged. I didn’t look at the Devil, but the implication was clear. Someone was teleporting drugs…and anyone that strong needed to already be on the Council. Unless, somehow, Armaeus had missed a sorcerer that powerful for all these years. That couldn’t be right, though. Even if he’d forgotten the existence of the Shadow Court, someone would have noticed that level of individual psychic energy out there in the world. Right?
“And so we wait,” Gustaf said. “For another shipment, for a crime to be committed, for anything that is actionable. We wait and we allow law enforcement to proceed, acting only as guides, and we allow any perpetrators due process in court.”
I made a face. “If these guys are this sophisticated, they’re not going to wait around for you to take them to court.”
“And yet we are an international organization governed by international laws. We are also beholden to local law enforcement to execute according to the strategic guidance we provide. In order to ensure
that execution continues to happen, we also need to play by their rules. I’m sure you can understand the implications of going in rogue in the middle of an operation without properly notifying all the agencies involved.”
“I…” I shook my head, trying to quell my frustration. Was this guy even aware that all of his excruciatingly honorable protocols were exactly the delay the Shadow Court needed to close up shop? “Okay. So let’s recap. Besides this little meet and greet, you’re in Hamburg because you’ve received credible information about illicit and deadly drugs being shipped into and out of this city. Your response was to notify the local authorities and put them on notice that something may happen. Meanwhile, another attack in Paris, for which you have no information, has drawn your attention from Hamburg. How long until you return? And why aren’t we all going to Paris?” I really, really was chafing under the Council’s “you do you” policy when we could clearly run this operation so much better, but I knew I needed to cool it.
“Because that is not your place,” Gustaf said quellingly. “Your job is simply to do as local law enforcement directs you, and nothing more.”
I took in a deep, steadying breath. “Fair enough.”
While Gustaf continued with his instructions, Nikki kept tapping on Simon’s keyboard. Though the Fool was effectively out of harm’s way in Dr. Sells’s care, I could tell by the flow of information sliding across her screen that Simon was not exactly taking it easy in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately, Gustaf claimed my attention once again.
“Detective Rooks has filled us in on your activities since you were last in our system, Ms. Wilde. We do not wish to be at cross-purposes with either you or your organization. We are all here to work together. I am simply trying to understand how we may best do that while keeping you safe. You are all civilians.”
I nearly bit my tongue off, but managed a smile. “That’s certainly true.”