Cloak & Ghost: Blood Ring

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “And what do you get out of this?” said Caina to Kalmythria.

  “The Revolution has failed,” spat Kalmythria. “The High Queen has triumphed utterly, and the hag can now govern both Earth and Kalvarion as she pleases. I must make what accommodation I can for my own security.”

  “I thought Elves hated necromancy,” I said. “Why are you hanging out with a necromancer?”

  Kalmythria spat upon the floor. “Necromancy is a filthy abomination and a perversion.” She shrugged. “But if a human monkey wishes to use it...well, I have no objection.”

  “I’m afraid Kalmythria and I must disagree on this point,” said Sulzer with a genial smile. “Necromancy is...marvelous. And it’s so easy. I had a little magical ability, not strong enough to force me to join the Wizard’s Legion as a young man. I had a difficult time making even the simplest of spells work. But this!” He gestured at his undead, a fond smile on his face. “Necromancy is so simple. Humans, in general, seem to have a natural talent for it. I started a year ago, and already I have progressed far. Soon I’ll be able to raise a small army.”

  “So why do you want to talk to us?” said Caina, and we both retreated another step.

  “I’m going to have to leave the US fairly soon,” said Sulzer. “When I do, I must abandon many of my properties and businesses. But it would be useful to hand them over to someone who...understands business, let’s say. Someone who might make a useful partner at some point.”

  “Someone like us?” said Caina.

  “Perhaps,” said Sulzer. “You’re not with Homeland Security or the Inquisition, I’m sure of it. Else you’d have shown up with a tactical team and maybe some men from the Wizard’s Legion. Why don’t we put down the guns and talk for a bit? Perhaps we can come to a...mutually satisfactory accommodation.”

  I glanced at Caina, and she nodded. It seemed like a good idea. If we could get Sulzer talking, maybe gain his trust, then he would give us the rope we needed to hang him. Then again, he might try to make us lower our guard so he could strike.

  “I’m not opposed to talking,” I said, “but I think the guns should stay right where they are for now, don’t you?” I took another step back, and so did Caina. We were past most of the undead, and if Sulzer woke them up and sent them after us, I would have at least a few seconds to cast a spell before they attacked. “Help inspire trust and all that.”

  “If you like,” said Sulzer, his amusement plain. “Now. How would you like to be rich? We...”

  Kalmythria went rigid, her eyes digging into me as purple fire blazed around her fingers, her lips pulling back from her white teeth in a snarl.

  “Her,” hissed Kalmythria. “Her!”

  “What?” said Sulzer. “You know her?”

  “I didn’t recognize her in the red dress,” snarled Kalmythria.

  “Yeah, it is a nice dress, isn’t it?” I said, and I started gathering power for a spell. “I really think it flatters my hips, you know?”

  “She is the Worldburner,” said Kalmythria. “She is the one who helped the accursed Morvilind work the Mage Fall.”

  Caina’s eyes widened a little. Guess she hadn’t known that, but not many people did.

  “What?” said Sulzer.

  “Use your eyes, fool,” said Kalmythria. “She is the one who killed Connor and destroyed Venomhold!”

  Sulzer squinted at me, and then his eyes went wide as he realized his mistake.

  “Shit!” he bellowed. “Arise! Arise and defend me!”

  As one, every single undead corpse in the room began to stand up. Caina started shooting at Sulzer again, but Kalmythria got her Shield spell up in time to deflect the bullets.

  But I was already casting my spell, and I thrust out my hand. A curtain of white mist rose up, cutting the room in half, and it hardened into a foot-thick wall of glittering gray ice, hard as granite. At least it started out as hard as granite. The heat and humidity would weaken it soon, and I had no doubt Kalmythria possessed the magical strength to punch through the wall. But for the moment, Sulzer, Kalmythria, and twenty-four of the undead were sealed off from us.

  Six of the creatures were on our side of the ice wall, and they leaped to their feet.

  Caina reacted with quicksilver speed, putting a bullet through the forehead of one, and then another. A third swung to take aim at her, yanking a pistol from its coat, but her valikon assembled itself out of shards of silver light in her right hand. The silvery sword sliced through the undead man’s coat and dress shirt, and I heard a sizzle. Smoke rose from the gash, and the undead man collapsed to the floor, the necromantic spells on him shattered by the power of her valikon.

  There were still three creatures on their feet, and I cast my next spell. A thumb-sized sphere of fire leaped from my hand and darted forward. It struck the nearest undead man in the temple and burrowed a tunnel through his skull. The undead collapsed, and I did the same thing to the remaining two corpses.

  They fell motionless to the floor, and I ran to Caina’s side.

  “We need to get out of here,” whispered Caina, reloading her pistol.

  “No, we can take them,” I said. “Listen to me. When the wall comes down, go after Sulzer. I’ll deal with the undead and Kalmythria.”

  “How?” said Caina, frowning. “There are too many of them.”

  I smirked. “You can see through Mask spells, but they can’t. Get ready.” I started casting my spell, silver light burning around my hands, and I saw a flare of fire behind the ice wall. “Here they come.”

  The ice wall shattered beneath the force of Kalmythria’s fire, and the undead charged forward, pistols raised.

  But I had already cast the Splinter Mask spell.

  The air shivered, and ten perfect illusionary duplicates of me appeared around the undead. I just had time to note that the red dress did indeed make me look good (especially from the back) and then I sent my illusionary duplicates charging forward. Some of my duplicates fired pistols, others cast spells.

  Whatever Sulzer and Kalmythria had been expecting, it hadn’t been that, and they reacted badly. Sulzer screamed a command, and the undead started shooting at the illusionary doubles, which did no good. Caina darted forward, slashing her valikon, and I focused on Kalmythria and started another spell as I held the Splinter Mask in place.

  ###

  Caina hadn’t expected Nadia to create ten illusionary duplicates of herself, each one capable of independent action, but she seized the opportunity nonetheless. Sulzer and Kalmythria and the undead focused on the illusionary doubles, sending bullets and spells their way, and Caina charged into the chaos. She slashed at the nearest corpse, and her valikon flashed with white fire as it shattered the necromantic magic binding the creature. The undead corpse went limp at once and collapsed to the floor.

  Nadia cast the illusion spell again, and another ten duplicates of her charged into the battle. Caina could see the flows of power that maintained the illusions, saw that they were constructions of magical force and nothing more. But Sulzer and Kalmythria could not see that, and it seemed that the undead could not as well.

  Caina hurried towards Sulzer, her valikon in her right hand and her pistol in her left. She couldn’t get much force behind a single-handed blow of the valikon, but with the sword’s powers, that hardly mattered. Simply breaking the skin of the undead creatures was enough to shatter the necromantic spells, and Caina cut down ten of the creatures in rapid succession, leaving their corpses motionless upon the floor. As she did, Nadia and Kalmythria fought, spells snarling back and forth between them, sparks spraying from Nadia’s Shield spells.

  Then her path was clear to Sulzer himself.

  Caina cut down one more undead and then sprinted at the Congressman.

  But he was faster than she anticipated, and he whirled, bringing up a pistol. Caina threw herself to the side, and she saw the muzzle flash of Sulzer’s weapon. She rolled to one knee, bringing up her own gun, and started shooting. Her aim was wide, but it di
dn’t matter. Sulzer stepped back, calling magic, and worked his own Shield spell. It was smaller and more ragged than the one that Kalmythria had called, but it did the job. Caina’s bullets pinged into the Shield and deflected into the walls and the floor.

  Sulzer snarled and began another spell, ghostly green fire dancing around his fingers as he called necromantic magic, and rage pulsed through Caina. She hated necromancers, loathed them more than anything. She ran towards Sulzer, still shooting, until her gun clicked empty. Sulzer made no effort to dodge, trusting in his Shield spell to protect him from anything she might do to him.

  His surprise was total when her valikon plunged through his Shield and sank into his chest.

  Sulzer let out a strangled groan, his eyes going wide. Caina ripped her valikon free, slashed it across his throat, and kicked him in the stomach. Sulzer toppled over, wheezing, choking on his own lifeblood.

  Caina looked up just in time to see the flow of power swirl around Kalmythria, saw it gather into a killing blast of elemental lightning. She didn’t have enough time to attack or dodge, and likely the spell would follow her if she ran.

  She started to attack anyway, and then a spike of ice the size of Caina’s leg slammed into Kalmythria’s chest. The ice spike hurled the Archon backward, her golden eyes popping wide with surprise. She hit the wall and slumped to the floor, dead, the shard of ice jutting from her chest.

  Caina looked around for another enemy, but all the undead had collapsed when she had killed Sulzer. The remaining illusionary duplicates of Nadia vanished, and the real Nadia Moran walked forward, breathing hard, a bit of sweat staining the neckline of her red dress.

  “Thanks,” said Caina. “She would have had me. That’s twice now you saved my life.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Nadia. “I really don’t like Archons.”

  ###

  I looked over the corpses and cast the spell to sense the presence of magic. It was a wasted effort – the necromantic spell on the undead had ended when Caina had killed Sulzer. Kalmythria was dead as well. A Dark One could heal a remarkable amount of injury in its host, but Kalmythria’s Dark One wasn’t strong enough to heal the total destruction of her heart. The Dark One had been banished back to the Void, and Kalmythria was dead.

  “What now?” I said, looking at Sulzer’s corpse. The High Queen hadn’t wanted me to kill him, but she had also said she would understand if he happened to get killed in the process. I really hoped that she had meant it because I was going to have to explain his death to her.

  “Now we need to get Homeland Security in here,” said Caina, crossing to one of the windows. She pulled aside the blackout curtain and looked at the street. “And the easiest way to do that is to start a fire.”

  I frowned. “You want to burn down the building? What would that accomplish? It would destroy all the evidence.”

  Caina shook her head. “No, we’ll pull the fire alarm. When everyone is fleeing the building, we’ll make an anonymous call to Homeland Security that we saw some orcish mercenaries hiding out on the top floor of the building. They’ll storm up here and see Kalmythria and the book, and they’ll draw their own conclusions.” She smashed the window with the hilt of her valikon. “But to make the report of fire realistic, we’ll need an actual fire. You want to set...let's see...that dumpster on fire?”

  I looked out the window. I could see into the alley where I had chased Caina on the night we had met, and I saw the club’s dumpster. It was full to overflowing and setting it on fire with a spell would be easy. It also shouldn’t threaten any of the surrounding buildings.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, and I cast the fireball spell. The sphere of fire hurtled downward and landed amid the overflowing trash, and at once it caught flame.

  “All right,” said Caina. “Let’s go pull the fire alarm and make some phone calls.”

  ###

  A half-hour later, Caina stood with Nadia on the roof of the parking ramp, watching the display outside the Cattleman’s Pride.

  They had pulled the fire alarm, and the patrons and employees of the club had evacuated themselves with remarkable speed and orderliness. Likely they remembered the chaos of the Rebel attack two months ago. As that happened, Nadia made an anonymous phone call to Homeland Security, claiming to have seen orcish mercenaries hiding in the top floor of the Cattleman’s Pride.

  “Here they come,” said Nadia.

  A pair of fire trucks had pulled up to the curb, lights flashing, and the firemen dealt with the dumpster. But four Homeland Security vans screeched to a halt in front of the club, and heavily armed and armored officers began to emerge from the vehicles. Caina had seen Homeland Security in operation enough to know that they would do a floor by floor sweep to check for any orcish mercenaries and Archons.

  “They’re going to be in for a nasty surprise once they find Sulzer,” said Caina.

  “That’s the point,” said Nadia. “We should probably get the hell out of here before one of them has the bright idea to check the parking ramp.”

  “Agreed,” said Caina.

  They returned to the car, and Caina drove away, Nadia riding in the passenger seat.

  “Where should I drop you off?” said Caina.

  “Back at the House of Agabyzus,” said Nadia. “I can get a cab home from there.” Likely she did not want to give Caina her home address. “Then I’ll have to report to my boss.”

  “Thanks for your help,” said Caina. “I would have been killed a couple of times if you hadn’t been there.”

  “Well,” said Nadia with a sigh. “Thanks for not killing me when you had the chance. I wouldn’t have enjoyed that.” She hesitated and then scribbled a note on a piece of paper. “My phone number. If you run into trouble again.”

  “Thank you, Nadia,” said Caina, taking the paper.

  A few moments later, they reached the House of Agabyzus, now closed for the night, and Caina pulled over so Nadia could get out.

  “Be seeing you around,” said Nadia.

  Caina said farewell and drove off, heading for the Ghost Securities facility in Queens.

  “Yes,” she said to herself. “Maybe sooner than you think.”

  ***

  Chapter 10: Royal Business

  I got back to Riordan’s condo without incident and fell asleep, tired out by the fight against Sulzer and Kalmythria. The Archon woman had been strong and skilled, and it had taken all my concentration to defeat her.

  But in the end, I had been stronger, and Caina had distracted her at a critical moment, and that had been that.

  I had strange nightmares, ones where I fought endless waves of undead in the Eternity Crucible, and when I woke up at about 9 AM, I was glad to be awake.

  It was time to get to work. I braced myself and called the number that that High Queen had given me, and I spoke with Exeter. I gave him a detailed report about what had happened, and he took it down without comment. When I had finished, he thanked me for my efforts and said that he would be in touch soon.

  Huh. I expected more. Oh well.

  I heard nothing more for two days. I occupied myself by exercising, sightseeing around New York, and talking with Russell on the phone. My brother was going to take the two and a half million dollars he had earned for helping to defeat Nicholas Connor by starting his own business. I offered what advice I could. It was either going to be a spectacular success or a massive failure, but I suspected Russell was going to be a serial entrepreneur.

  Kind of like Sulzer, come to think of it, but not corrupt.

  Then on the morning of the third day after Sulzer’s death, the news blew up.

  TREASONOUS CONGRESSMAN screamed the news reports. According to the official story, Congressman Joseph Sulzer had been secretly allied with the Rebel terrorists and funneled money to them and then had taken in Archon renegades after the Rebel defeat. Sulzer and his Archon ally had fallen out and killed each other, and now Homeland Security was seizing all of Sulzer’s assets and invest
igating his associates and companies. Congress was falling all over itself to denounce Sulzer, and there were countless stern editorials about how America’s wealthier classes needed to watch themselves carefully, lest they fall into treason as Sulzer had done.

  For the official story, it contained a surprising amount of the truth.

  But I knew firsthand that the true story never got reported in the news.

  To amuse myself, I scanned the UK news sites, looking for hints of what Riordan and the Shadow Hunters had been doing. The only thing even remotely anomalous was a report of a gas explosion in Manchester, a gas explosion that happened to catch a group of Shadowlands creatures that had been preying upon the people of the city.

  Gas explosion. Sure.

  The day before Riordan was due to arrive at the airport, I got another call from Exeter.

  “The High Queen wishes to speak with you again, Mrs. MacCormac,” he said. “At the same location as before.”

  It was ten in the morning, and I headed for Bryant Park. The heat had faded somewhat, and I wrapped my pea coat tight around me as I walked. I spotted the bus parked in its previous spot as before, the same black SUVs on either side, and a troop of scowling Royal Guards kept pedestrians away. The Royal Guards had traded their silver armor for the long blue coats favored by Elven commoners, and no doubt the passing traffic thought the bus belonged to an Elven noble.