The Book of Lies

by Melissa McShane

  Tennyson nodded. “At least ten that we know of. I guess it could be worse. Almost everyone was at the party when they struck.”

  I didn’t want to ask the names of the dead. Time enough to mourn them when the crisis was over. “How did it happen? How could familiars even get inside?”

  “No one knows,” said Chowdhury. “The stone magi are checking the wards now, trying to reinforce them to keep any more familiars out. We have to move, Ms. Davies.”

  “Do you have a weapon?” asked Tennyson.

  “The jolter, but I’ve used it twice already, so I don’t know how much longer it will last. And this.” I hefted the bottle.

  Tennyson smiled. “Not much of a weapon.”

  “It is if you can bash their brains out with it. If they have brains. I don’t even know if they have brains!” I was feeling a little hysterical and had to close my fingers hard on the bottle to keep myself anchored to the present.

  “Whatever works, right?” said Chowdhury. He turned to the other woman, who’d been silent this whole time, and said, “You still with us?”

  She nodded slowly, a woman in a dream, and I saw puncture marks around her left wrist, black with reddish haloes. Chowdhury took her other arm and gently urged her toward the stairs. “We can’t go that way, they keep getting in,” I said.

  “We tried using the elevator and had to fight off two at once, coming through the ceiling. It’s a death trap,” Tennyson said. “The stairs are our only option.”

  Both of them whistled in shock at the shattered door and Brittany’s collapsed familiar. Where was Brittany? It was impossible to imagine her letting her familiar get away, and yet here it was. I wished I really were a fighter so I could punch her out. Stupid Nicolliens and their stupid familiars…no, that was no way to think. The Nicolliens would never have captured invaders in the first place if they’d known this could happen. They were just fighting the Long War as best they could.

  We made our way down the stairs, moving more slowly than I had alone because the silent woman was unsteady on her feet. Tennyson took the lead with her improvised bludgeon, a brass lamp from which she’d removed shade, harp, and bulb. I followed immediately behind her. Chowdhury and the woman brought up the rear, him supporting her with one hand and holding the shower rod at the ready with the other.

  “What’s her name, Mr. Chowdhury?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Chowdhury. “We found her under attack, being drained by a familiar, and she can’t speak. And you should probably call me Vijay, if we’re going to risk near-certain death together.”

  “Call me Maggie,” Tennyson said. “Now let’s get out of this place.”

  13

  We were almost to the third floor landing when we heard the chittering. It echoed in the stairwell and seemed to come from all around us. I looked up and saw a wave of bodies, four or five of them, rippling down the stairs toward us.

  “Run!” Vijay shouted, and we pounded down the stairs toward the third floor door. Maggie flung it open and held it for me.

  “Keep moving!” she said. “They’re almost on you!”

  I skidded to a stop just inside the door and brought my jolter to bear on the familiar in the lead. It gave off a burst of energy weaker than before, but the creature staggered backward into the next monster in line, knocking them both to the ground. Vijay was dragging the woman, who looked like she was fighting him. He tossed the curtain rod at me and brought the jolter up to point at her face. It pulsed even more weakly than mine had, but she sagged, unconscious, in his arms. Vijay lifted her and staggered toward the door. I fled through it seconds after he did and only a few steps ahead of our enemies. Maggie dragged the door shut and held it against the thumps and scratches as the familiars tried to get through.

  “Where now?” she shouted, pulling back with all her weight. At least one of the familiars had opposable thumbs, because it was pulling in opposition to her.

  “There’s another set of stairs at the other side of the building,” Vijay said. “We’ll have to run for it.”

  “You get moving, Vijay,” Maggie said. “You’ve got the heaviest burden. We’ll hold them off to give you a head start.”

  “Try this,” I said, snatching up the curtain rod. It was curved, not straight, and I hooked it under the latch so its far end wedged tightly into the elevator door frame. Maggie let go of the door; it bounced slightly, but didn’t open. Vijay was already halfway down the hall and accelerating. “Move!” I shouted, and Maggie and I took off after him.

  We outpaced him after a few strides, running all-out past blank white doors, the light sconces and floral arrangements blurring as we flew past. Behind us, the improvised barrier squealed and then made a popping noise, and the sound of the familiars scrabbling after us became louder. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Three monstrous bodies snuffled around like dogs on the scent of pheasants. One lifted its head and howled, and I stumbled and nearly fell in terror.

  Maggie and I rounded a corner and found the door to the stairs. Maggie had her hand on it when I grabbed her and pulled her away, saying, “Do you smell that?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Paint thinner,” she whispered. We checked the hall, but it was bare of anything that might provide cover and nothing moved. Maggie gestured with her jolter, and I took it to mean I should cover her. This is just like Die Hard, I thought madly, and brought up my weapon to shoot anything that might try to take her head off.

  Maggie flung the door open. Something shrieked, and a dark form flew through the opening. I squeezed off a shot with the jolter, which buzzed in protest. Maggie ducked, and the familiar went sailing over her head to hit the opposite wall with a thud. Maggie darted through the doorway with her jolter out, looking everywhere for enemies. “All clear,” she said as Vijay came trotting around the corner with his burden.

  “We have to run,” he said. “No trying to fight them. Just run.”

  I thought that was good advice. We ran.

  We made it as far as the mezzanine door before they caught us. Vijay, helpless with the woman in his arms, backed against the door, shouting, “Open the door, let me out!”

  Maggie swung at one of the monsters, a catlike creature with dirty gold fur and eyes the size of my fist. It dodged her swing and struck at her. “Helena, help him!”

  I grabbed the door latch and pulled, ducking a blow by one of the other familiars with a shell like a turtle’s and a million tiny cilia-like arms. “Go, go, go!”

  Vijay sprinted for safety. “Maggie, we have to run!” I shouted.

  “Get yourself to—ah!” The catlike thing fastened itself to her upper arm. The lamp slipped from her fingers. Maggie’s eyes closed, and she screamed, the most agonized sound I’d ever heard a human being make.

  I picked up the lamp and slammed it against the creature again and again, but Maggie began convulsing, and half the time I hit her by mistake. The turtle-thing’s million arms tickled my leg, and a numb, pleasant sensation flooded over me.

  “No,” I said, “no, Maggie, come on.”

  Maggie went limp, her mouth slack and blackened.

  “Maggie,” I whispered. I tore myself away from the turtle-thing and staggered through the door, skipping in my euphoria. The mezzanine was a wreck, the carpets shredded, big chunks taken out of the corners where walls met, lamps dangling by electrical wires. I willed my body to move faster, to regain its equilibrium. The smell of paint thinner drifted past, and I gasped for clear air.

  Ahead, the doors of Kilimanjaro opened, and a handful of people rushed toward me. “Keep running!” one of them shouted, and I put my head down and ran as fast as I could. Behind me I heard familiars squealing with pain, and it felt good, like justice for poor Maggie. I stumbled through the door and went to my knees, panting heavily. Hands helped me stand even though what I wanted was to lie on the ugly gray Berber carpet and pretend all of this was a nightmare.

  “Helena, you’ve been bitten,” Diane said.

 
; “It wasn’t much of a bite. I’ll be fine if I can just sit down for a minute.”

  Someone found me one of the stacking chairs and I sat, leaning far over with my head between my knees and breathing heavily. I heard a door slam shut and what sounded like chairs being slid in front of it. When I felt I wasn’t going to pass out, I sat up and said, “Is everyone here?”

  “Thirteen are confirmed dead, including Ms. Tennyson,” said Nimisha. Her hair was disheveled and her clothes were stained with something green and sticky. “We cannot account for twenty more custodians. Who knows how many of the hotel staff are alive.”

  “I called one of the hunting teams and Judy Rasmussen,” I said. “They know we need help.”

  Nimisha and Diane exchanged glances. “We are in contact with some of the teams,” Nimisha said. “They are outside. Unfortunately, so are the police and emergency medical assistance. They cannot be allowed to see the extent of the damage.”

  “So the teams are keeping them out? How did they manage that?”

  “Not the teams,” Diane said. “It’s worse than that. We sent the stone magi, the ones providing the wards for the building, to strengthen them. They found—how much do you know about wards?”

  “A little, from what Silas wrote. That they have to be replaced every so often, more or less often depending on how much use they see.”

  “So you know that wards have to have their frequencies altered to allow familiars to pass through with their masters?”

  “Yes. Oh. Oh, no.”

  Diane nodded. “No one thought to re-key the wards to prohibit familiars passing through. The stone magi are trying to fix that, but they keep getting attacked. Their temporary solution, to make the wards completely impassable physically or magically, keeps new familiars from coming through, but it also makes it impossible for us to leave—or for aid to get through. We have no idea what the police make of all that.”

  “So we really are trapped here.”

  “For now. If they can’t fix the problem, maybe they can shut the wards down entirely. It can’t be more dangerous than what’s going on now. And at least the hunting teams would be able to reach us.”

  “Wait. Where are all the magi from Campbell Security? Ewan Campbell was supposed to be here.”

  Nimisha looked particularly sour. “With the wards as strong as they are, no one thought it a problem to pull our security off to help the hunting teams in the city. We are helpless.”

  Her words, so final and certain, filled me with fear. I shook the feeling off. “They know we’re in need. They’ll figure something out.” But if they couldn’t get through the wards, it might not make a difference.

  A thump shook one of the doors, and a mob of people rushed to reinforce the improvised barricade of chairs and tables in front of it. “Soon may not be soon enough,” said Nimisha.

  “And Claude and Iakkhos…” Diane said.

  “What’s wrong with Claude and Iakkhos?”

  “Come with me,” Diane said.

  She led me across the room to a spot where people lay very still on the floor. Carlos knelt beside Elisabeta, holding her hand. “She will be well,” he told me when I rushed to kneel at his side. “She needs her magic restored, that is all. No, my dear heart, do not speak,” he told Elisabeta. “You will be well.”

  “Helena,” Diane said, pointing, and I went to crouch beside Claude, whose normally bright eyes looked dull and feverish. “He held off three familiars while helping a dozen people to safety,” she said. “Some people just don’t know how not to be a hero.”

  Claude smiled, the faintest tug on the corners of his mouth. “I am grateful today not to be a magus,” he whispered, so quietly I had to lean over to hear the words sigh out of his mouth. “If the pain of being partly drained is anything like the Damerel rites, I think I chose my path wisely.”

  “You’re going to be fine,” I said, though I wasn’t at all sure this was the case. He looked shrunken the way Harry Keller had, though not to the same degree. But if Harry could recover, and Judy swore he would, I had to believe Claude and Elisabeta would pull through as well.

  “Where’s Iakkhos?” I asked.

  Diane shook her head. “He had a heart attack when the first familiars appeared. Our resident bone magus did his best, but…Iakkhos is a hundred and two, and there’s only so much magic can do about that.”

  Iakkhos had been isolated from the rest, with a barrier of chairs surrounding him. He looked like he was sleeping, so I didn’t disturb him. “What happens if he…” I said.

  “The Board will find a replacement,” Diane said.

  That was when I realized what had been bothering me. “Why aren’t there any Board members here?”

  “No one knows where they are. We sent people to Annapurna, but the room is empty.”

  “The entire Board of Neutralities is missing?”

  Diane shushed me. “We’re trying not to talk about it. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

  “Can’t someone at least call them?”

  “Nobody here has their personal numbers. And their assistants aren’t picking up.”

  I chewed my lip briefly in thought. “I dropped my phone.”

  “Do you have an idea?”

  “Give me yours.”

  I called Judy, grateful that hers was one of five numbers I actually had memorized, along with Malcolm, Viv, my parents, and Bill’s Pizzeria down the street. The phone rang, and rang, and finally she picked up. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Helena. I borrowed someone’s phone because mine broke. What’s going on?”

  “Helena! There are teams at the hotel now, trying to break through the wards to get inside.”

  “I know. And the police are here. Why can’t the hunting teams break through the wards?”

  “That’s a question a lot of people would like the answer to,” Judy said sourly. “Somebody turned the Grandison into a death trap and filled it with familiars. I’ve been trying to call you for the last half hour.”

  “Like I said, my phone broke.”

  “This is what happens when you don’t have a good sturdy—”

  “Could we save the lecture on phone cases for later, please? I need Mr. Ragsdale’s personal number. I know your father has it.”

  “Why Ragsdale? Isn’t he in there with you?”

  “We lost contact with the Board. I’m trying to reach them to see if they are in danger. Can you just give me the number?”

  “Hold on.” There was the sound of running footsteps, then a door opened. Judy breathlessly rattled off a number. “Are you safe?”

  “As safe as anywhere is, here,” I said. “I’ll call you back in a bit.”

  I hung up and quickly dialed Ragsdale’s number before I could forget it. It rang once, then Ragsdale said, “Yes?”

  “Mr. Ragsdale, it’s Helena Davies,” I said. Beside me, Diane went limp with relief and beckoned to Nimisha to join us. “Are you all right?”

  “Everything’s fine here,” he said. “No need to worry.”

  I hesitated. His voice sounded strange, maybe a little too far away. “Where are you? Everyone else is gathered in Kilimanjaro, and we—”

  “We’re in one of the suites. Is something wrong?”

  “You haven’t seen any familiars? They’ve invaded the hotel and are killing people.”

  There was a long pause. “Familiars?” he finally said. “No, we haven’t seen anything like that. You’re not exaggerating, are you?”

  “Of course not! I’ve been attacked three or four times, Mr. Ragsdale. I wouldn’t exaggerate that, would I?”

  “You’re well?” Now he sounded more like himself, and concerned for my welfare.

  “No lasting damage. Are you sure you don’t want us to come for you? If the familiars break through—”

  “We’re not afraid of familiars.” A strange emphasis on familiars. “Did you call for the hunting teams to return?”

  “We did. They’re having trouble getting
through the wards.”

  “Are they.” That sounded almost sarcastic, and I was so confused I wasn’t sure what to say first. “I’m sorry now that we allowed the Campbell Security forces to leave, but it seemed like a better long-term strategy to have them fight off the familiars before they got to this hotel…anyway, I apologize.”

  “Thanks. Um. Mr. Ragsdale, are you all right? You sound a bit strange.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, perfectly fine. Barricade the doors and wait for the magi to arrive.”

  “Mr. Ragsdale, we need the Board’s presence! People are dying down here!”

  “If the hotel is as swarmed with familiars as you say, our attempting to join you will only result in more death. I’m sorry, Ms. Davies, but we simply can’t help you.”

  He hung up before I could say anything else. I swore loudly and handed Diane her phone. “That was weird. He didn’t sound at all like himself. Not that I know him very well.”

  “So they’re safe?”

  “And not coming to join us. I don’t know, it’s probably sensible that they don’t, but I can’t help feeling we could really use their authority. What if people start to panic?”

  A commotion at one of the barricaded doors drew our attention. Nimisha said, “Someone else is coming in.”

  It was a man dressed in Board colors, navy suit and maroon tie, and he looked exhausted. “We’re unable to reach the wards to turn them off,” he shouted over the noise of everyone clamoring for news. “There are too many familiars in the way.”

  “Then we should go with you,” a woman shouted back. “We’re all in this together.”

  “Absolutely not,” the magus said. “Your lives are too important to risk.”

  “Helena, what do you say?” Diane said.

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because with the Board absent and Claude incapacitated, you’re the ranking Neutrality.”

  “That’s true,” someone nearby said. “Ms. Davies, you should take charge.”

  “But I—” Everyone was looking at me now. I wished I hadn’t been so quick to claim I was uninjured. Then I was angry at myself. I might not be a leader, but I certainly was no coward. I swallowed, and straightened my spine. “Our lives will be forfeit if we don’t help,” I said. “The hunting teams are here now, and all they need is for us to let them in. I say anyone who wants to volunteer to help is welcome.”