by Sara King
Imelda was dealing with angels. For over two weeks, ever since the djinni’s careful word-weaving around the fact, she had been sure of it. Two angels: One who claimed to have been ‘tossed out,’ and one who spent untold hours extracting confessions with pain and blood. Which was the true angel? Which spoke at the behest of God? How could both be God’s Chosen? Why did the wolf’s pendant still channel holy fire, if the wolf had indeed fallen? Yet why would God allow that same angel to be bitten by a wolf, in the first place? Or why would God send his messenger to dabble in the blood of demons? She groaned and rubbed her forehead, trying to sort through the possibilities.
“Let your Vater worry the details for you,” Herr Drescher said, giving her a worried look. They were en route to her Padre’s house yet again, as Imelda could not seem to stay away, and she now had standing orders from Padre Vega that, at the first sign of a bad migraine, she was to come to his home and take a nap in his recliner. “That’s his job, Inquisitorin, and you’re still recovering.”
She smiled in gratitude to the German. “What amazes me,” she said. “Is that, despite all my unreasonable demands, at odd hours of the night, you have always been willing to take me to my Padre.”
Herr Drescher frowned. “If I’d had my way, I would have flown you to his house the moment you woke up after your collapse, and left you there a few weeks to recuperate.”
“A few weeks.” Imelda snorted. “I was not that bad.”
Her pilot gave her a sideways glance. “We thought we were going to lose you, Inquisitorin,” Herr Drescher ventured, as they slipped south. His words were almost timid. “For several minutes, you had no pulse.”
Imelda made a dismissive gesture in disgust. “I needed to sleep, nothing more.”
Herr Drescher seemed to bite his lip. “I guess now is as good a time to tell you as any.” He took a deep breath and let it out fast, ruffling his big blond beard. “While you were in your coma, Zenaida…questioned…your ability to run the djinni mission. And, with the Große Inquisitor on an errand to Rome…” Hesitantly, he offered, “I made my displeasure known, but…” He shrugged. “The official orders just came in. You have some time to rest, Inquisitorin.”
Imelda felt as if the weight of the ages were pressing down on her. So that explained Jacquot’s abruptness on the phone, and the technician’s embarrassment. “She got me removed from the mission?” Could that be why she’d made no more forward progress with the case? Why all of her leads had suddenly seemed to dry up? Why Jacquot suddenly seemed to be too busy to talk to her?
Herr Drescher winced. “In all honesty, Inquisitorin, you probably did not have the authority to charter this flight, but die Schlampe can lick my Arsch.”
Imelda snorted. “Zenaida does not have the power to take that authority from me. She is a Segunda Inquisidora, not the Holy Matron, as she would like everyone to believe.”
Herr Drescher’s grin widened. “In greater honesty, I probably should’ve told you this awhile ago, but I probably shouldn’t be chartering this flight, since I got myself banned from the cockpit earlier this week.” He beamed at her as he adjusted the helicopter’s cyclic control. “Would you like to stop at a pub on the way back?”
Imelda frowned. “Zenaida grounded you? Why?” Herr Drescher was one of the Order’s best, and the knowledge left her with a sinking feeling in her gut. If Zenaida was willing to ground him for defiance—something that helicopter pilots were known for—what would she be willing to do for taking an Order helicopter against orders?
Herr Drescher merely shrugged. “I put the Frenchman in the hospital.”
Imelda blinked. “Jacquot is in the hospital?” Now that she thought about it, she did remember seeing Jacquot with a bruised face, several days ago. Then she frowned. “A simple brawl isn’t enough grounds to take a pilot’s wings. What else did you do?”
The German shrugged. “Die dumme Zimtzicke has been looking for an excuse for a couple decades now.” He made a rude gesture back in the general direction of the compound, then beamed back at Imelda. “Can’t imagine why.”
“Well, I’ve un-grounded you. Zenaida wishes to argue that, we can take it before the Grand Inquisitor. What of the rest of my team?”
Herr Drescher winced again. “As of the moment your heart stopped the second time, Inquisitorin, your team was requisitioned. Zenaida is running the hunt through the north. She’s re-directed all of the Order’s Alaskan forces at the djinni. Even pulled in the ones from the panhandle.”
Imelda could not believe that. “All?” she demanded.
“And has requested ten times the number from Grand Inquisitors in the Lower 48 and Canada,” Herr Drescher agreed. “And she must’ve been spying on you somehow, because she’s telling everyone it’s not a wolf at all, Inquisitorin, but a fallen angel.”
Imelda felt her chest suddenly seize, remembering the angels of her dreams. “Zenaida said that? While I was asleep? Where did she get her information?” She herself hadn’t even figured out the link between the angels and the pendant for sure until speaking to the two fugitives. Then again, if someone had given her a good description of the talisman…
Jacquot. The man had a memory like a steel trap, and she had shown it to him that night beside the wolf’s body.
Herr Drescher laughed. “I’m not sure, but she has the Frenchman completely in her pocket. He wouldn’t even speak to me, after I refused to leave my vigil at your side. Spat at me, even. Just last week, the dumbass tried to tell me you were in league with Satan, and that’s why you collapsed during Mass. Fucking Frenchmen.” He frowned at her. “Why? It is an angel, isn’t it?” As if he were discussing the color of snow.
“I believe so,” Imelda said. “Though I’m still deciding whether it’s fallen or not.” The wolf had sounded rather sure that she wasn’t fallen, and then had proceeded in an egotistical, self-righteous rant that sounded more like it had come from a crude and violent princeling than a messenger of God. But then, if one was a messenger of God, able to kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians in one night, would one not be entitled to feel a bit of righteous superiority? She thought of Zenaida’s confidence, and realized, with growing unease, that it was naggingly similar to the wolf’s, though Zenaida’s threats were much more sedate…and more sinister. And, while Imelda believed that the wolf would do exactly as she threatened, given the opportunity, the woman hadn’t dwelt upon how much she would make the death hurt. That was Zenaida’s forte.
Then Imelda frowned at the German, realizing what he had said. “Jacquot spat on you?”
But Herr Drescher was giving her a long, hard look. “You think it might not be fallen? After killing an entire team of our brethren?”
“Too many things don’t add up. Zenaida—” she hesitated, unsure how much of her theories to tell the German. “Zenaida wears the same pendant I took from the wolf.” There. Let him come to his own conclusions.
For a long time, the German stared out the window at the horizon, obviously deep in thought. Then, softly, he cursed. “Damn Jacquot. The fool is just like Giuseppe, as much as I loved the Italian Wichser. He thrives on the letter of the Bible, not the spirit of it.”
Imelda frowned at him, unsure which conclusions that Herr Drescher had drawn from the information, yet unwilling to ask. “And he said I was in league with Satan? Because I collapsed in Mass?”
Herr Drescher shrugged. “Also said something about Signs and witches and you protecting the Devil, but I wasn’t really listening after I punched him in the face.”
…and you protecting the Devil. Imelda digested that in silence, returning her gaze to the snowy slopes of the Chugach Range that were even then passing beneath them. Was she? Did Zenaida simply have more information than she did? Was she linked directly to God, and had known all along? Was Imelda really just five steps behind?
…or was Zenaida simply recognizing a Sister and determining her to be a threat? And if so, why?
She sat in contemplative silence a
s the German flew her over the Chugach Mountains and to Padre Vega’s tiny retirement home. As soon as Herr Drescher lowered the helicopter to the ground, Imelda ducked out and, head down, hurried to the front door. Padre Vega’s small Volkswagen sat under a new dusting of snow in the front yard. Passing it, she climbed the steps, crossed the small porch, and knocked on the door.
Usually the Padre had the door open by the time the helicopter had touched its skids to the ground, but this time, the house remained dormant. Imelda frowned when her repeated knocks brought no response. While a helicopter of the Order was quiet, it certainly could not be missed when it settled down in one’s front yard. Trying the door, she found it locked. She went to the window and peered inside.
The house was dark. Imelda was about to turn away, thinking that her Padre had been picked up by a neighbor for a card game or theological discussion at Sleepy Dog, the cozy little coffee-house in the center of Eagle River, when she saw the mug lying at the edge of the kitchen floor, cracked in half.
She backed away from the window, her heart pounding. Returning to the door, she started pounding on it in earnest, now, a sinking slime of dread beginning to congeal in the pit of her stomach. When her Padre did not emerge, she hit it with her shoulder.
She might as well have been hitting it with a feather. Her world burst into an array of stars, and she fell to her knees with the wash of weakness that came with the impact. I am recovering from a coma, she thought. And I’m trying to break down a door? Fighting nausea, she pushed herself back to her feet and stumbled across the yard to the helicopter. The rotors were still winding down when she yanked open the pilot’s compartment.
Herr Drescher, who was busying himself with a Playboy, quickly tucked it under his seat with a sheepish grin. “Uh, yes, Inquisitorin?”
“I need you to break down the door,” she said.
The older German blinked at her, then at Padre Vega’s home, then he grabbed the supports and heaved himself out of the cockpit. “Is something wrong with dein Vater?” he asked, as he strode towards the cabin.
“Just get me inside.” Imelda’s chest was hurting so acutely that she knew she was close to crying
Herr Drescher pulled his pistol as he walked to the steps and barely paused at the front porch, smoothly kicking the door open and stepping inside.
Imelda followed on his heels, desperate to see her Padre alive and well, sleeping somewhere in a secluded corner of the house. What she found after checking every bedroom and the bathroom, however, left her throat constricting in fear. Not only was the Padre nowhere to be seen, but he had left his long black coat and his rabbit-lined hat hanging on the hooks in the entryway.
“I’ll check outside,” Herr Dresher said, leaving her in the kitchen to make circuit of the grounds.
But, with a growing pang of dread, Imelda knew her Padre wasn’t going to be outside. Two coffee-stained mugs sat upon the counter, with a third broken in half upon the tiles of the kitchen floor. The coffee pot was still on, its contents long since burned to a black film.
Numbly, Imelda went to switch it off.
“He’s not outside,” Herr Drescher said, striding back through the door. “Shall I contact the Order?”
“The Order,” Imelda whispered, “is what did this.” And, in that moment, she knew where she would find her Padre. Zenaida would settle for nothing less.
Herr Drescher gave the cracked Jefferson mug a long glance. “They finally found out he was a Seer, didn’t they?”
Imelda froze. Very slowly, she turned to look at the German, her heart hammering in her ears. “What did you say?”
Herr Drescher shrugged. “We played cards, oh, thirty years ago. He won too much. I called him on it.”
Imelda stared at her pilot. “He trusted you with that?” She felt wronged that it had taken her this long to be told.
“Nein,” Herr Drescher said solemnly. “But I saw the fear in his eyes.” He grinned. “That, and after that, he lost every game. I made the old fart play darts and pool from then on.” Sobering again, he glanced at the helicopter. Very delicately, he said, “Inquisitorin, if I may say so, your Padre lived a long, good life, and he would have no qualms with you having me fly you somewhere very far away. Like Mongolia.”
“He’s in the basement, isn’t he?” Imelda whispered.
The German hesitated. “I heard that Zenaida brought in a Seer a couple days ago, as you slept. But I didn’t know it was—”
But Imelda was already rushing for the helicopter, her heart a thundering hammer in her veins. Behind her, Herr Drescher jogged to catch up. He cleared his throat tentatively. “Inquisitorin, seeing as the two of you were so close—”
“Don’t say ‘were,’” Imelda snapped. “Take me back to Eklutna.” She would put a bullet in Zenaida’s brain for this.
Herr Drescher followed her back into the cockpit, but hesitated in starting the engine. “I am sensing, Inquisitorin, that you are about to do something stupid.”
“I’m going to free my Padre, and if Zenaida tries to stop me, she’s going to die.”
Herr Drescher stared at the consoles for a long moment before he said, “When fighting a magus, one best aims for the head.” Then he fired the engine up and the thrum of the rotors began to lift them from the earth.
Swimming up from the warmest, most comfortable sleep she’d had since she’d left her bed and blankets behind, Kaashifah yawned and rolled over.
A huge, mirror-silver serpent lay curled in a corner, watching her, the air between them awash in a dozen spells, wards, and shields, some so strong that they made the air hum.
Kaashifah’s yawn caught in a choking gasp. So that was why it had been so damn warm. They had spent the night in a dragon’s den—she’d just been too exhausted to notice the subtle fluxes of power. Kaashifah carefully looked past the creature, sat up, yawned again, stretched, and glanced over at the piles of food, the hairs of her back prickling as the beast continued to observe them.
Heart pounding, she pretended to crawl over to the food and feed herself in an attempt to buy time. They had slept in a dragon’s den. Uninvited. It looked like a young dragon, but still… This was not going to go well.
Right on cue, the dragon said, I know you saw me, cockroach. You call that subterfuge? That was a piss-poor attempt.
Kaashifah flinched. She knew the djinni hadn’t heard. Dragons were notorious for their command of telepathy, and it had been addressed specifically to her.
What, are you trying to pretend I’m just a fly on the wall while you continue to violate my cave with your simian secretions?
Tightening her shoulders unhappily, Kaashifah said, “‘Aqrab, we have attracted the attention of a dragon.”
“Oh?” the djinni said, nervously glancing out the door. “Where is it?”
“Right here, Fourthlander,” the dragon snarled, dropping his invisibility and snapping out his wings in an awesome unfurling, taking up the entire cavern in a gesture that made the djinni scream and shift realms.
Kaashifah sighed and turned to watch the dragon unfold. It was young, probably only three to four hundred years old, most likely about thirty feet from nose to tail, with massive silver wings that, when stretched out, would easily envelop those of a small Bush plane. Its horns, talons, and teeth were all a darker color of quicksilver, almost black, and it had bright, frost-blue eyes that glittered like gemstones around a diamond-shaped iris.
Its scales, however, were its most beautiful asset. Each scale, from the tiny ones around his eyes and snout, to the huge plates upon his chest, looked like liquid silver, reflecting her own image back at her.
“All right, cockroach,” the dragon rumbled down at her, lowering his head ominously until they were but inches apart. “What are you, and why are you in my cave?”
“I suffer from the bite of a wolf,” Kaashifah said. She was pretty sure that the dragon wasn’t old enough to remember her debt. “I am owed blood-debt by your kinsmen, and I come to get the Third L
ander removed.”
The dragon laughed. “You? A cockroach? Blood-debt?!” He snorted and chuckled some more, as if he found the idea particularly funny. “What could a mudborn do for a dragon?”
Kaashifah narrowed her eyes. “Who said I was a mudborn?”
The dragon’s laughs choked off in a scowl. After a long silence, the dragon licked its jaws with a red-black tongue and sniffed. “What are you?”
Kaashifah lifted her head in challenge. “Remove the wolf and find out.”
The dragon flared its scales along its neck in aggravation. “How about I kill you and ask the djinni, instead?” He glanced to a spot of empty air near the cave entrance. “And don’t try to leave. I’m not done with you. We have bargains to be made, djinni.” He turned back to Kaashifah. “Now, where were we? Ah, that’s right…” He peeled his lips from his gleaming black-silver teeth and bunched his neck to lunge at her.
Kaashifah sighed. “I am owed blood-debt,” she insisted. “Close your fool mouth, child.”
The dragon’s ice-blue eyes narrowed, but he closed his mouth. “Blood-debt by who?”
Kaashifah thought for a moment.
“Ha!” the dragon snapped. “I knew you were lyin—”
She held up a hand and started counting fingers. “Kassynian, Ostoria, Essylss, Rothorak, Trellyn,” she held up another hand, “Wyst, Storrinas, Klavellinath, Toriga, Dorssaanthi,” she reset her first hand, “Pernigyn—”
“Enough,” the dragon muttered. His wings drooped and he looked somewhat deflated.
Kaashifah dropped her hands and gave the serpent a flat look. “Basically every dragon who was clutching in the canyons of the Büyük Selçuklu Devleti—I’m sorry, the Great Seljuq Empire—when the wolves crossed into present-day Turkey to flee the exterminations in Europe.” She gave him a patronizing smile. “I apologize. I forget that you probably never had the fortune of being there.” She had found, long ago, that the best way to deal with young dragons was to let them know you were older, wilier, and had a thousand times more experience, and let them draw their own conclusions from there.