by Sara King
“Was that wise, mon Dhi’b?” ‘Aqrab was studying the mountainside carefully to avoid watching the blood dribble into the snow at her feet.
“They were elitist pricks,” his magus said, as she delicately wiped more blood from her wrists and forearms. “But no more unreasonable than any other feylord I’ve dealt with. If anything, they were nicer.”
“No,” ‘Aqrab muttered. “Killing them, mon Dhi’b. We have no way to hide that from the casual passerby.” He gestured at the blood-drenched helicopter she had left stranded on the hillside below. The crimson swath of snow seemed to cover a hundred yards in any direction.
The Fury narrowed her eyes at him. “You think you want to teach me about love, djinni? Then I will teach you about combat.” She finished wiping her face, then tossed the rag into the snow. “These fools have opened up Pandora’s box, and they are about to see what happens when a Fury goes to war.”
Imelda thrust the map away from her and held her temples as she tried to think. Her room, normally clean and tidy, was still a whirlwind of clutter from when she had arrived home from a quick trip to the pharmacy to find her room ransacked, with Zenaida the culprit, and no reason given. Imelda had filed a formal complaint, but several days later, she still hadn’t had time to clean up the mess. She knew the woman had been after the pendant, which meant that someone—probably a technician—had talked. Not for the first time, Imelda was glad she’d left the object with Padre Vega for safekeeping. Until she figured out its mysteries, the last thing she wanted was Zenaida getting her hands on it, because if she did, Imelda knew she would never see it again.
Trying to rub the pounding from her head, Imelda ducked her face to the desk and tried to concentrate on her job. She had to assume her prey were capable of a void-walk. There were just too many coincidences to believe otherwise. Yet, if that were the case, why were they running north on foot? Why not simply hop the Void to whichever corner of the world they wanted to go and simply disappear?
Maddening, this is maddening.
They had to have a goal, but what? Her research had suggested that a magus had trouble walking the Void if wounded or tired, or if the destination was unknown to the traveler. Three things, she suspected, were probably working in Imelda’s favor. And, as long as she could keep the pressure on her fugitives, she believed it could probably stay that way. But why would they be heading north? What was north but more mountains? Every shape-changing demonkin she’d ever run into had immediately headed for big cities once they had been ousted, to blend in and get lost in the wash of humanity, to take sanctuary in the awareness of the masses. Chasing their prey through crowded streets filled with police and federal agents was a hundred times more challenging for an Inquisitor than scouring the Alaskan wilderness with high-tech helicopters. Here, there was no red tape, no politics, no hoops to jump through, no precautions to take to avoid a capture from going public. There was just wilderness. Granted, it was a big wilderness, but at least there were no witnesses.
So what was their goal? A gate? A nexus? Some place to slip realms? Would a magus even need a place to slip realms? Just what sorts of things could a magus do? Once again, so many of her questions could be answered if she simply broke down and asked Zenaida, but after coming home and finding her room ripped apart, every aspect of her personal life violated, with even her underwear drawer ransacked and spread across her floor, Zenaida could rot.
Saint Gemma, but my head hurts. Imelda unconsciously reached up to touch the tiny enameled photograph of Saint Gemma, where it shared space upon her neck with the cross, and whispered a quick prayer. If the patron saint of migraines and headaches heard her plea, however, she offered no relief.
Imelda dropped her hand and closed her eyes, holding herself up with fingers splayed across her temple. She had been pushing herself too hard, she knew, too desperate to catch the djinni before he slipped from their grasp. As such, she’d been in a near-constant mental agony for the last three days, and she had trouble keeping anything down, even coffee. What was usually just a jagged, pounding fuzz at the edge of her awareness was now blotting out part of her forward vision, making it difficult to stay upright, let alone concentrate.
While it was easier to hunt them without interference in the forest, Imelda’s job was far from easy. She was trying to find two creatures that didn’t want to be found in an area three times the size of Spain, without a road system to speak of, and with the rivers rapidly freezing to the point where they were no longer passable by boat, while facing the very-real possibility that they not only had the ability to walk the Void, but every other innate trick of a magus, such as barriers that could stop bullets and the ability to render themselves invisible.
Imelda was just about to get up and try for another cup of coffee when a loud knock came at her bedroom door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Inquisitrice.” It was Jacquot, and his voice was rushed in panic. “We just lost a helicopter at the edge of the Alaska Range.”
Imelda got up quickly—almost too quickly, since she lost her balance under the intensity of her headache—and yanked the door open to face her scout. “Where are they? I want a full—”
The look on Jacquot’s face was enough to know that she wouldn’t be getting a report. Imelda felt her throat close up and her eyes start to burn. “Which team?” she whispered, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
“Second team, Inquisitrice,” Jacquot said softly. “All dead. Torn apart.”
Second Team, she thought, listing out names in her mind. Angus, Mory, Aquila, Kate, Tanner, Elisabeth. “Six of them?” she asked, naming the dead.
Jacquot’s eyes widened as he listened, and then cleared his throat. “Not Aquila.” He hesitated. “Giuseppe, ma mie. He decided to stay out another rotation, instead of come back with Herr Drescher. The German was…provoking…him.”
Imelda took the news like a blow. “Giuseppe is…dead?” The man had been her even-tempered driver and bodyguard since she’d first earned the rank of Inquisidora.
Jacquot ducked his head. “I’m sorry, Inquisitrice. We’re sure it was the djinni, though. The fool left a swath of melted snow as he left the crash site, as plain as day going up over the mountain—”
“Do not follow it.” Anger was beginning to bubble up from within, and Imelda stepped into the hall, slamming the door shut behind her. “If they could do it once, they could do it again, and I’m not willing to risk my people like that. Gather the teams together and set up an ambush on the other side. They obviously want to cross the Range. We’ll let them do it. Until then…” She brushed past Jacquot, heading down the hall and towards the pass-coded stairs leading to the basement.
“Inquisitrice?” Jacquot asked softly, watching her.
Imelda paused to look up at him as she stopped at the basement door and entered in her code. “I’m going to go find out what we’re dealing with.” She yanked the heavy, titanium-reinforced door open and stepped onto the metal staircase.
The first thing she noticed was the smell of blood. Grimacing, Imelda yanked the door shut behind her and jogged down the stairs and into the basement.
Cages and racks filled three square acres of underground labyrinth, with those prisoners who were conscious enough to lift their heads warily following her progress with their eyes as she marched across to the far end of the hall.
The phoenix was locked into a cage barely big enough to hold her fetal form, one arm bound to the cage wall in bands of gold, an IV hanging from a rack nearby. Her other arm was similarly affixed to the opposite wall of the cage, with a small needle jutting from the top of her hand, dribbling crimson blood into a basin below. She was, thanks to the IV, unconscious.
A few yards further down the line of cages, the wereverine snarled and cursed, naked, hanging from a rack bolted into the wall. He was collared in silver, just as the phoenix wore gold, but he still shook the rack dangerously as Imelda approached.
“I am going to tear out your heart and piss in it,” the wereveri
ne snarled, in welcome. Even with the silver circling him, he still showed fur and fang. Beneath him, a basin of blood rippled, and Imelda realized that he, too, had a tiny needle taped into the top of one foot, allowing a slow drain into the basin.
Fighting down an instant of revulsion, Imelda walked right up to him, no longer willing to play games. “Your friends,” she snapped, jabbing a finger into the Third Lander’s exposed chest and holding it there while he snarled at her. “Tell me what they are and I will give you a quick death.”
The wereverine stilled and looked at her with slitted green eyes that glowed with demonic malice. “In your dreams, Sister.”
Imelda returned his scowl with flat indifference. “How long can you survive like that? A year? Two? Down the hall is a room packed with saline and intravenous lines. Zenaida can keep you alive indefinitely, producing blood. Answer my questions, and I’ll make that much, much shorter.”
The wereverine’s anger cracked and his eyes flickered too-quickly to the phoenix, then back again, and for a moment, she saw fear, there. Obviously summoning more courage than he had, he said, “You can go fuck yoursel—”
“I despise this place,” Imelda interrupted, more vehemently than she had intended. At the wereverine’s startled look, she nonetheless blundered on, “You want death? I’ll give it to you. Both of you. Happily. Just answer my damn questions. Why does a woman carrying the curse of the Third Lands have the capability of a magus? It is mutually-exclusive.”
The wereverine chuckled at her then. “There’s your answer, bitch.”
She frowned at him, thinking he was just being difficult, but she saw the sincerity in his eyes, the wariness. Carefully, she said, “What is the wolf?”
“Hell if I know,” the wereverine growled. “Not a fucking wolf. That’s for sure. Couple times I got a whiff…smells like a fucking angel.”
Imelda started to get the tingles of dread prickling her back like icewater, remembering the apparition by the wolf’s side. Mutally-exclusive. The Pact of the Realms. Instinctively afraid to pry much deeper, she quickly changed tactics. “Why do they head to the north?” Imelda demanded. “What is there for them in the north?”
He gave her a vicious grin. “Oh, about a couple hundred dragons.”
Furious that he was toying with her, Imelda slammed her finger back into his breastbone. “I just lost six men to that beast! You will tell me what I want to know, or I will rip out Zenaida’s child’s-play and show you real pain.”
“Wish I could, Sister,” he said lazily. “But that would spoil the surprise.” Feral insanity showed in his slitted eyes, and for a moment, Imelda wondered if the Third Lander was in charge.
Then she realized the intelligence in the glowing gaze and she hesitated. “You’re an ancient.”
“Old enough to know you ain’t a fucking Sister,” he snarled. “What, is the whole fucking Inquisition filled with hypocrites nowadays?”
Imelda frowned. “Hypocrites?”
He wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something rank. “That Zenaida bitch. She’s a—”
“She’s sorry she’s late,” Zenaida’s silky voice interrupted, as the beautiful blonde Segunda Inquisidora strode up to join them, clad in red and black, her flat stomach showing in a very un-holy way, displayed proudly above the gold-and-turquoise belt that she never seemed to take off.
As Zenaida spoke, she pulled ebony doeskin gloves from her hands and tucked them into her belt, revealing red-lacquered nails that were obviously meant to compliment the red tanktop. She smiled at Imelda, though her ageless face contained no amusement. “You were given specific orders not to come down here without an escort, Inquisidora. You are too…new…at this, and this place is much too hazardous for a neophyte to wander alone.” There was a dangerous gleam in her steel-gray eyes, however, and Imelda got the distinct feeling she was being threatened.
Imelda frowned at the way the wereverine had fallen into a cold silence. If she had thought she’d seen hatred in his eyes before, now she saw loathing. Loathing…and fear. Slowly, she turned to face Zenaida…
…and froze when she saw the pendant hanging at the woman’s neck.
A winged sword.
“How did you…” Imelda began, frowning. Then she realized the lines were much too new, the silver much less worn than the one she had given her Padre. It was the difference between an artifact unearthed in the basement of a Klondike Gold Rush homestead, and one dug out of a Paleolithic cave.
That was where she had seen it before, she realized, stunned. Around Zenaida’s neck, where there should have been a cross.
Zenaida’s smile cracked, and for an instant, Imelda saw a hint of something terrifying before it was hidden. “How did I what, Imelda?”
Imelda swallowed down the tinglings of dread that were even then uncurling from deep within her stomach. “How did you justify entering my room like a petty thief?” she said, straightening with the indignance she had been feeling, ever since returning to Eklutna and finding that Zenaida had torn her room apart. “Jacquot said you ‘cleaned’ it for me when I was out, and now I can’t even find my migraine medication.” A magus, her mind screamed, adding up the facts. Zenaida is a magus.
“I never moved your medicine,” Zenaida said. The blonde woman was smiling, but every inner alarm that Imelda had was going off, loud enough that she was getting goosebumps. Zenaida’s voice held an undertone that set her instincts afire when the woman said, “A technician told me you had him test a pendant for traces of djinni magic. I merely wanted to see this ghostly apparition for myself, as you have assured me it did not exist.”
Zenaida is a magus, her mind babbled in rising terror, …and something else.
“So you entered my room,” Imelda snapped, keeping her unease hidden behind a smooth façade of indignance. “Broke the lock. Like a common burglar.”
Zenaida showed not a hint of remorse, her voice silky-smooth when she said, “You lied to me.”
Masking her growing unease, Imelda narrowed her eyes and stepped toward the blonde woman, until she was looking down at her. “While you may believe differently,” she said softly, “I do not answer to you, Inquisidora. If you have a request to be made of me, you may make it through Jacquot. If I hear of you rummaging through my personal quarters again, I will personally put my gun to your head and blow your filth-ridden brains across the compound. If it were up to me, you would join those beasts on the rack.” She swiveled on heel, her heart hammering in her chest.
As she was walking away, Zenaida casually said, “I heard you lost an entire team to a wolf today, Imelda. All brutally murdered, their blood spread across an acre of land, the two feylords in the helicopter released. I wonder if the Holy Patron knows.”
Imelda hesitated, her back still to Zenaida, then silently took the stairs out of the basement.
Jacquot was waiting for her at the top. “I’m sorry, ma mie,” he said, wincing. “I saw her coming, but I could not reasonably come down to warn you…”
“Tell Herr Drescher he’s going to fly me to my Padre,” she said, stalking toward the helo pad.
Jacquot winced. “Herr Drescher and Giuseppe were…close…ma mie. He is in mourning.”
The world in flames! “Then you will take me to my Padre,” Imelda said, without slowing, but changing her goal to the garage.
Jacquot bowed. “I’ll just go change into something less blac—”
“Now,” Imelda snapped. “If the police want to stop us because you are dressed in black, just shoot them. I am running out of time.”
Jacquot hesitated, indecision on his face, then nodded once. “I will grab extra magazines, Inquisitrice.” He turned toward the armory.
“Just go to the car or I will leave without you.” And she, being an Inquisidora, had never taken the time to learn how to drive in this wretched country. As such, used to the well-kept roads of Spain, she had about as much chance of getting to her destination alive as she did careening down an ice-laden hill and meet
ing her end in a ball of fire.
Jacquot hesitated just long enough to realize that she was serious, then bowed low and ran ahead of her to the garage. He had the SUV running and the garage door opened by the time she slammed the door of the back seat shut behind her. He skidded out of the garage and up the winding drive, spraying frozen gravel into the alders as he spun out onto the main road.
While normally Imelda would have commented on his reckless driving, now she wished he could drive faster. She watched the scraggly Alaskan forest rush by her window and pulled her bottle of migraine medicine from her pocket. Shaking twice the usual dosage of little white tablets into her palm, she popped them into her mouth and swallowed without water.
“Headaches, ma mie?” Jacquot asked, looking at her worriedly through the rearview mirror.
Imelda—who didn’t speak of her migraines to any of her team, yet somehow, either by snooping or by Zenaida’s rumors, they had found out anyway—waved off his concern. She watched the scenery pass as Jacquot pulled over the overpass and onto the Glenn Highway, headed south. Zenaida’s possession of a talisman similar to that of the wolf set her nerves afire, but it was the wereverine’s words that were most bothering her.
“Hell if I know,” the wereverine had growled. “Not a fucking wolf. That’s for sure. Couple times I got a whiff…smells like a fucking angel.” She had thought he had just been mocking her faith. After all, perhaps someone had told him of her encounter. Perhaps he was capitalizing on her own bewilderment, and was trying to jab a wedge of uncertainty into her confidence.
Yet, she had seen the fear in his eyes. He had wanted her to kill him. Him and the phoenix both. He had been cooperating, at least until Zenaida showed herself.
Mutually exclusive. An angel.
Something began to nag at the back corners of her mind, and Zenaida’s heart began to pound with the thought. What if…angels…were actually a form of upper-tiered First Landers? What if their appearances, in the Bible, was spawned by something…older?