“Come on, come on. He’s coming.”
Her eyes fluttered. “Don’t let him get the staff.”
I had dropped the damned staff again. I searched frantically through the chaos of the hallway, feeling my way more with my ability-sensing than vision. Its essence flared against the dullness of the building. I grabbed it and rushed back to Hala, as plaster dust from the ceiling poured on our heads. With a thunderous sound, C-Note plunged through the ceiling in a rain of brick and mortar. As he landed awkwardly, I pushed Hala into an adjoining room.
The wall exploded behind us, and the building shuddered. The essence holding it together receded, coalescing up and out in the hall as C-Note pulled more into himself. Cracks appeared in the floor, and it canted sideways. We tumbled against the far wall. Smoke from the spreading fire poured in from the next room.
C-Note stood at the door. “Give me the staff.”
I didn’t bother answering. He wouldn’t just let us go if I gave it to him. C-Note stepped into the room. Whether from his weight or from its own overloaded stress, the floor groaned loudly. With a screech of metal, it slumped and shattered into the club below. I could hear screams as the music stopped.
I clutched Hala to my chest as we perched on a small patch of floor still clinging to the wall. Fifty feet of open space yawned below us. People scattered from the dance floor. The rumble of an explosion shuddered up from below, and the lights went out.
In the surreal silence that followed, the fire surged into the remains of the room. With my back to the wall, I could feel the building swaying with a nauseating rhythm. Hala was lying next to me, unconscious.
“This isn’t the way to die with a naked woman,” I said. I stroked her hair. She either didn’t hear me or didn’t think it was funny.
Gusts of wind pushed the smoke back. On the opposite side of the cavernous hole in the floor, C-Note hung with his arm wrapped around an exposed beam. He stretched a clawed hand toward us. The staff moved, pulling away from me. I tightened my fist, but the field around it made it slick. I gripped it with both hands. C-Note flexed his hand, and the staff wrenched itself from my grasp. It sailed across the open space to the other side, flying directly into his outstretched hand. As he closed his taloned fingers around it, the staff shimmered and morphed into the black staff he had had with him earlier.
Hala jerked her head up with a scream. C-Note pointed the staff, and she began to slide away from me. I grabbed her hands as she clawed frantically, her eyes wide with fear. We both slid toward to the edge. With a subtle flick, C-Note lifted the rod. Hala flew from my hands, her fingers raking my skin. She flailed backward through the air, screaming. She didn’t fall but careened across the gap. C-Note held out the staff. Hala’s body twisted into an ugly smear of flesh and bone. What was left of her hit the staff and she imploded, a burst of green essence that the rod sucked in.
C-Note swung himself into the exposed hallway and faced me. “You fight a pointless battle, Connor Grey. A new day dawns, and the old order passes away. I will bring order where there is only chaos.”
He lifted the staff and pointed at me. The envelope of essence on it shimmered, and Teutonic runes blazed whitely along its length. An arc of yellow essence hissed through the air and hit my ledge. It jerked away from the wall, sliding off its support rods with an ear-piercing whine. It bent under my weight. I rolled to my stomach and clutched at whatever exposed beams I could reach. The wall began to slump like wet clay. The building shook violently, and the whole front of it fell into the street.
I slid to the edge, my feet swinging out into the open space. The concrete beneath me became pliant and malleable. It welled between my fingers, locking my hands in place. Something hit me in the back, thrusting my face against the remains of the floor. The air vibrated with so much essence, my vision blurred. The ledge sagged, dropping like soft wax. I dangled in the air as the last connection to the wall stretched thinner and thinner. The concrete became a thing alive, a viscous flow that filled my mouth and my nose. It oozed around me like wet clay. I felt one final wrenching jolt as my weight finally pulled the ledge free.
I fell. Smoke and flame swirled around me as I plummeted. I tumbled four stories through the remains of the building. Just before I hit the ground, I heard a scream.
16
I could hear the soft sound of a slack tide on the shore, and below that, the incessant pounding of my head. My body felt like deadweight. With an effort, I dragged my eyelids open and closed them immediately against the light. I tried again more slowly. My eyes burned and itched as I stared at a whitewashed, pitted cement wall. I wasn’t outside. The air smelled of dry stone and bacon. Someone rustled papers nearby. Closing my eyes, I rolled onto my back. I heard the sound of newspaper being folded and dropped. I didn’t move as I sensed a dwarf move toward me.
“I know you’re awake. You snore on your back, you know. I’ve been rolling you over for hours.” The voice sounded muffled. I opened my eyes. Banjo stood over me—well, barely—his thick arms crossed over his chest. He wore his characteristic black hoodie with the yellow bandana.
“You do wash those clothes, don’t you?” I asked.
He snorted. “I smell better than you do.” He turned and stepped out a door on the other side of the room. I sniffed. He had a point.
I curled up into a sitting position, every muscle in my body protesting with ache. The saliva in my mouth felt thick and pasty. Something shifted in my throat, and I coughed. Something grainy came up. I spat out what looked like sand.
Wrapped in a tangled sheet, I was sitting on a wide couch. My clothes, obviously laundered, hung neatly over the back of a chair next to me. My torso was covered with streaks of black and gray grit. I brought my hand to my chin and mouth, rubbed a dry film I found there. I had apparently been puking up dust.
The large square room had no windows, a brightly lit space laid out for entertainment. Against the far wall, a large-screen TV played one of those mood DVDs of a long stretch of southern beach, all soft white sand and glittering ocean. Two leather recliners faced the TV, one huge, the other normal size. A pool table took up space on the other end of the room. A very expensive stereo system was racked on the wall next to the door. The oversize chairs made it clear enough what lived there, and my ability sensed an essence that confirmed the who. How the hell I fell to my death and landed in Moke’s living room was probably an interesting tale.
Banjo returned with a tray and placed it on the coffee table. A water pitcher, two glasses—one with water, one with something foul—a bowl of what smelled like chicken soup and a chocolate bar. “Drink the water first,” he said. I didn’t need an invitation. I felt desiccated.
Banjo walked over to the normal-size recliner, picked up a newspaper from the floor, sat down, and leaned back. After a moment, he pulled out a pair of reading glasses. I drank the water, watching him ignore me as he read the paper. I could see the date, so unless he was behind on the news, I had fallen to my death the night before. I refilled the glass, drank it down, and refilled it. The room-temperature water tasted like the best damned thing I ever had.
I felt Moke before I saw him. He came into the room wearing the largest pair of jeans I had ever seen, a tailored button-down shirt, and an expensive cardigan sweater. His hair was washed and combed. He was still troll-ugly.
“I’m either hallucinating or in some bizarre version of hell,” I said.
Moke smiled, his yellow teeth somehow not as offensive when he was cleaned up. “Naw, it’s just our cave.”
“If this is a cave, it’s the nicest one you’ve ever had, Moke,” Banjo said without looking up.
A deep laugh chortled up from Moke. “Heh, he gets to complaining about anything. He hates to stay under the bridge. Too cold, too cold, he says.”
He stood over me, the smile still on his lips. Sitting naked except for the sheet, my head pounding like a drum set, I felt a little vulnerable. I stared up at him and sipped more water. He reached his massive
hands out and cupped my head completely. I didn’t move. I felt a short pulse of essence, an odd shifting in my head, followed by a loud pop. A trickle of sand poured out of my ears, and the sounds in the room became clearer.
Moke brushed his hands together and sat down. “How ya feel?”
“Like I fell four stories on my head.”
He nodded. “You’re fine. I worked the stone. Banjo, he gave the timing of it, he did. A good job that.” The dwarf looked at me over the tops of his glass, smiled, and went back to reading.
“I thought C-Note was melting the stone to kill me,” I said.
“Nah. He wanted the wood maid. Don’t know why. Skinny little thing, not much meat.” He gestured to the foul-smelling glass. “Drink that now. Ya need to drink.”
I picked it up. “What is it?”
Moke rumbled a laugh. “A little this, a little that. Clean the good earth from yer gut.”
“And how did the earth get into me?”
“Like I says, I worked the stone. Made ya a nice slurry to slow ya down, keep ya from crackin’ yer head. Then I wrapped ya in earth and pulled ya down below. Spelled earth gets in all nooks and crannies. Ya gonna die if ya don’t drink that.”
“Maybe I should go to Avalon Memorial.”
Moke shrugged and laughed again. “Ya could. They never get the sulfur right. Burn ya gut, they will. Burn for years.”
I looked at the yellow-tinged liquid. If Moke were going to kill me, he would have by now. I took a deep breath and downed it. It felt hot going down, but not burning. I drank more water.
“Why did you save me?”
Moke grinned wider. “Banjo sees many times, many days to come. The ones ya die, not so good for me.”
I looked over at the dwarf. Now I understood the sharp pains I had at Carnage. “He was scrying.”
Moke smiled. “Banjo best far-seer scryer ya ever meet, I says. He picked time. I grabbed ya.”
My chest tightened. He said building collapse. “How many died?’
Moke shrugged, a great shifting of the hunch on his back. “No one died that I know. Lots hurt, though. Yer gun cop friend screamed his head off that the building was on fire. Banjo started a fight, too, and everyone run like crazy. Stupid TruKnights. It was kinda funny to watch, though.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. You take your chances in the Tangle, but the building would still be standing if I hadn’t gone in. I looked at Banjo. “Thank you. Sorry I thought you were a traitor.”
He didn’t look up. “Cops aren’t the only ones who work undercover, you know.”
I pulled the sheet up around me and slid back against the wall surveying the room. Moke watched me. He cocked his head at the TV. “Pretty, no? The night is beauty, but light is, too. I like TV. Better life here.”
I smiled. I bet he liked game shows. “You were right, Moke. C-Note’s trouble.”
Moke nodded. “C-Note thinks yer dead now. He’s not very good troll. Didn’t even know I was there.”
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
Moke stood. “Give it an hour. The bathroom’s right out that door. Ya can take a bath if you wanna. Banjo don’t like smells, so’s he keeps sweet stuff in there.” He turned to Banjo. “I’m gonna go up and sleep, ’kay?”
“Do not bring any cats back.” Banjo looked at him sternly.
Moke laughed again. “I said ya could cook them next time.”
He went to the door. “Moke?” He turned. “I’m sorry about Croda.”
A wistful expression came over his face, his long, twisted nose almost quivering. “I knowed Croda a long time. She was a fine-looking woman, that one. Ya know, us trolls and ogres and giants are all the same. People of the Berg. We’s not like those crazy elveses and flittery kinds. The bones of the earth are all one. Croda was a strong woman.” He sighed and pounded his chest with a nod. “I still feel her strength. Her heart’s gone, but she died brave.” He strode away.
“Wipe your feet when you come back,” Banjo yelled. He settled back against the recliner and focused on his newspaper again, a pen poised in his hand. “What’s a seven-letter word for ‘mask’?”
The potion took that moment to demonstrate its effect. I ran for the bathroom. After a half hour, I could see why Moke recommended waiting. I finally showered, the water sluicing trails of grime off me and onto the glass tile floor. Reaching up to turn the shower faucet off made me smile at the strangeness of standing in an oversize shower room. When I dressed, I went back into the living room to find Banjo asleep in front of the TV.
I shook him. “Sorry, got to go.”
He frowned and shifted himself out of the recliner. He led me past the bathroom where a long hall ran on for several dozen feet with a series of closed doors. I could smell Moke more strongly. Banjo didn’t go any farther than the second door, which led to a stark utility tunnel.
“So, what likely potential future did you see me in?” I asked to the back and top of his head.
He didn’t turn. “I get paid good money for answers like that.”
“But it’s good, right?”
He didn’t answer right away. We turned a corner and began ascending a flight of stone stairs. Every so often another hallway would branch off, or the stairs would split in different directions. “I wasn’t looking for your future. Moke asked me to do a little looky at C-Note. All I know is, with you dead, business didn’t look good for us. With you not dead, it looked fifty-fifty.”
Moke dealt drugs. He made money on other people’s needs, sure, but that didn’t always mean the same thing as trading on addictions. Whatever his dietary habits or his line of work, I wasn’t going to complain that keeping me alive kept him in business. I was willing to cut him some slack. This time, at least.
The great oxymoron of scrying is its unpredictability. Dwarves were good at it, though druids would debate that. Seeing into the future had complications and ramifications. You never see exactly what will happen, but what could happen, based on certain circumstances. The most you could do with a particular vision was to make a choice to try to set it in motion. But the moment you made that choice, new permutations arose that did not necessarily lead where you’d hoped. For that reason, it was nearly impossible for the scryer to see his or her own future. “What did you see?”
He shrugged over his shoulder. “It wasn’t about you. I only figured out you were the wild card at Carnage by what was going on around you. There was something odd about you in the visions. They slipped around you like they didn’t know you were there. Never saw anything like that.”
That gave me a cold feeling. Several months earlier, Briallen had done a scry and failed to see anything. A disaster almost occurred. Whatever was dancing around in my head liked to keep its secrets when it came to me and the future.
Banjo stopped on a wide landing and pointed up another long flight of stairs, dimly lit. “This is as far as I’m going. I have to start dinner; otherwise, he’s going to eat something that’s bad for him. Up there, through the door, and you’re out. It closes behind you. Make sure you’re on the other side when it does, ’cause I’m only priming it for one opening, and if I have to come let you out again, I ain’t gonna be happy.”
I nodded. Angry dwarves are almost as bad as angry trolls. “Thanks. I don’t plan on hanging around.”
He tapped his forehead and bowed. “Nice working with you.”
I went up, and he went down. At the top of the flight, I came to a standard wooden door that opened into a small vestibule. I could feel a warding spell snap into place as soon as the door closed behind me. I opened another door opposite the first and found myself standing under a flight of brownstone stairs, daylight streaming in from the sides. I stepped out from under the steps onto the sidewalk in front of a boarded-up building.
A prickling sensation swept over me. I held up my hand to see fine swirls of earth-toned particles radiating essence. I rubbed the back of my hand, feeling a resistance layered over the skin. I allowed my se
nsing abilities to open to check it out. I didn’t have much experience with stonework, but I recognized silica and calcium embedded into my hands. I pushed my body essence at it, and the layer moved. I pushed harder, and a fine layer of dust rippled up on my hands. Moke’s spell had wrapped me in stone at Carnage, and I could see how it worked now by attracting stone particles to bond with my own essence.
I recognized Fargo Street, just south of the Tangle. It wasn’t a long walk from my apartment. As I started up the street, Joe appeared so close to my face with his sword drawn that I jumped. His fierce look quickly turned to relief. “Where the hell were you?” he asked.
“I went underground. Literally.”
He narrowed his eyes and hovered in close. “Are you okay? You’ve got troll essence all over you.”
I nodded. “It’s a long story.”
He looked up and down the street like he expected a horde of Visigoths to charge at him. Seeing none, he sheathed the sword.
Where are you? Burst into my mind so sharply I stumbled. “Tell Meryl I’m fine, Joe. Is she okay?”
He paused a moment. “She says you owe her a new pair of Doc Martens.”
I smiled. Whether she realized it or not, I could tell she was concerned enough to be upset. “Tell her I said ‘deal.’ Where did you go last night, Joe?”
Joe looped and dipped around me as I walked. “I couldn’t get in. They had awesome security on that place. Tell me what happened.”
He circled around me as I gave him the rundown, peering at passersby with suspicion. His head whipped around to face me as I got to the end of the story. “You took a shower in a troll’s bathroom?”
“Uh, Joe, did you miss what I said? I met a drys, almost died, and found out C-Note is going to attack the Guild.”
He nodded. “No, I heard that. How bad did it smell?”
“What?”
“The bathroom.”
I decided not to argue. “Actually, it didn’t. It was very clean.”
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