by Karen Chance
To the Irin, those were pure gold.
No, not gold, John thought darkly. More like vintage wines that they could sip in private, like the connoisseurs they thought they were. And then insert themselves inside them, to walk on worlds long dead, to meet people now returned to dust, and to experience things far beyond the scope of any one lifetime. It was their version of time travel, the movies, and interactive VR all in one, allowing them to live many lives through the bits of soul they stole. And then used up like they were nothing!
“Then where is he?” the dhampir glanced around. “We’re the only ones here!”
John didn’t understand what she was talking about. There were plenty of people here. Including the mages, who had just gotten reinforcements.
They’d been using cloaking spells—good ones if he’d failed to notice them. But this was the Flesh Market, where slaves of every type and variety were bought and sold, and the one place in the Shadowland where illusion was proscribed. Most of the city thrived on it, pulling images out of visitors’ minds to craft surroundings that they would be comfortable with. There was no other way for all of the hugely varied creatures who came here to interact, since half of them weren’t even corporeal and the rest had little in common except that they shared a dimension. But commerce had to go on nonetheless, so illusion was used to bridge the gap.
Except here. Buyers at the Flesh Market wanted to be sure that they knew what they were getting, so in these streets, reality reigned. It could be a little . . . disturbing.
John caught sight of a passing Camazotz, its tattered, bat-like wings trailing an elongated, emaciated body. It would have looked something like a man if it hadn’t been far too tall, and covered in patchy black fur that managed to highlight instead of conceal the corpse pale skin below. And if not for the foot-long talons at the end of each wing, scratching over the road like fingers scrabbling at the inside of a coffin.
John felt his skin prickle, and he wasn’t even in the creature’s path. The mages were, yet they merely drew back slightly, to allow it to pass. Curious; most humans who ventured here were not so comfortable with the kind of things that prowled these streets. But then, they didn’t come in groups of thirty or more, entirely blocking John’s way forward.
“Mage!”
The scene slurred and bled once more, leaving John blinking and disoriented. Or maybe that was down to the dhampir. Who was shaking him again.
“What the—”
“Look!” she pointed at something in front of the next wagon over. Or, to be more precise, at the lack of something.
The Flesh Market dealt in living creatures of all kinds: slaves, yes, but also beasts of burden and even pets. If it was living, and you intended for it to stay that way after purchase, it was sold here. Which usually meant that the place was a deafening cacophony—especially this section.
Larger, more expensive, and more exotic merchandise was kept in warehouses just off the square. The wagons dealt in smaller stuff, with the various plazas each having a specialty. This was the bird quarter, and normally a person could barely hear himself think for the caws, screeches, and ululations that filled the air. Just a moment ago, it had been its usual, boisterous self, which John hadn’t noticed because he’d expected it. But suddenly, it was dead quiet.
And possibly dead in other ways, he thought, getting closer to the merchant that the dhampir was pointing at.
He could have picked up a lantern—there were several hanging off a nearby cart—to help him see, but he didn’t need it. The merchant was already lit up, courtesy of the bennu bird perched on one leather gloved hand. Golden light spilled out everywhere, its gold and crimson feathers seemingly carved out of pure flame, and vivid sparks dotted the air all around it.
That wasn’t unusual: bennu-birds were a type of phoenix and it was clearly in the midst of a transformation. But whereas it normally went up in a wild blaze that took perhaps a second, this one . . . was just standing there. Like the merchant, who wasn’t moving, his mouth open in a comical expression halfway through a spiel. And the woman shopper, who was rearing back from the sparks, the glow highlighting her shocked expression. And the flames, which were not only not exploding, they weren’t moving at all.
“What’s happening?” John asked, staring at a sight few ever got to see in detail.
“I’m not sure,” the dhampir said, her eyes scanning the market, where everyone else was likewise frozen in place.
Well, almost everyone.
For a moment, John wondered if Cassie had somehow managed to invade his brain. Windblown lanterns were suspended in the air, caught halfway through a swing. The tattered edge of an awning remained fluttered out on the breeze. And one of the feral ligels, cat-like creatures that came down from the mountains, was paused in the midst of a leap at a cage of small, yellow birds.
John had only ever encountered frozen time in one of Cassie’s spells, but hers didn’t have exceptions. Unlike the square, he realized. Where at least half of the human magic workers remained mobile, darting here and there amongst the statue-like crowd.
One paused for a second in front of the fountain, where moonlight on the water created a brilliant backdrop. John could see him rip the cloak off a nearby shopper, only to stumble back in alarm at the very non-human face revealed. But he recovered in a moment, and moved away, still searching.
“What did you come here to do?” the dhampir asked, her eyes also on the mage.
I don’t know, John started to say, but something else came out instead. “Archaeus.”
“What?”
“The oldest of the Goremish slaving syndicate. I think . . . I wanted to talk to him—”
Illusions were proscribed in the market, but not magic itself. Especially fey magic, which no one knew here anyway. John used an old fey trick to make a few dozen copies of himself and to send them sprinting here, there and everywhere, causing the mages to scatter and run. And in some cases, to crash into each other trying to catch him.
It would have been amusing another time, but John didn’t pause to enjoy the laugh. It wouldn’t take them long to discover that they’d been duped, and he couldn’t do that trick two times in a row. He pulled the hood up on his cloak and hurried forward.
The Goremish elder was where he always was, propped out front of a building that, ironically, looked vaguely like a Neoclassical church. A brief sweep of cracked stone steps led up to a broad portico, where sturdy pillars framed the dark well of a doorway, through which roars, caws and more human-sounding cries could be heard. It was off-putting, but not as much as its proprietor, who had always reminded John of an obese garden slug. Glistening layers of gray-white fat oozed off the sides of an overstrained stool next to a counting table, where several sets of small, pale arms were pawing over the day’s take.
Until he caught sight of John, that is. And the bloated, vaguely human face broke out in an obsequious grin that didn’t quite hide the vicious satisfaction in the eyes. “My lord. You honor us with your—”
“Inside,” John snapped, glancing over his shoulder.
“Of course, of course,” the demon waved a gelatinous appendage, and several of his bully boys, who had been lounging around the porch, suddenly straightened up and headed down the steps to bar the way behind them.
John might be universally loathed by the demon high council, but his father was rich and the Goremish dealt with anyone with money, anyone at all.
Even a half demon who had repeatedly tried to get them shut down.
The heavy doors closed behind them, cutting off most of the light, except for one small, high set, window. It let in a flood of slightly less dark from outside, highlighting iron barred cages with dirty straw on the floor. This week’s specials were mostly tattered, bedraggled and missing a lot of feathers.
Which wouldn’t have been good under any circumstances, but fully a third of the eyes staring back at him were sentient.
John looked away, before his blood pressure became even
more out of control than it already was. He tried to clear the disgust off his face before turning toward the filthy slaver, who had obviously had time to rearrange his features, too. Because the satisfied smirk was gone, and he looked humble and eager to please, bowing so low that his forehead almost touched the ground.
“And how can the Goremish be of service to the house of the Incubi?”
John scowled. “I found something.”
Chapter Thirty
S omeone slapped John, although it felt more like a belt from a prize fighter. He would have protested—forcefully—but it actually seemed to help. The world righted itself, leaving him looking at the market from atop the slaver’s front porch.
“Concentrate!” the dhampir told him. “You keep dropping into memory!”
“This isn’t a memory,” John said blearily, while fighting off the undertow trying to drag him back in. He hated the Flesh Market and all it represented. He never came here, especially after a certain incident centuries ago. All this was some trick by the damned Irin.
But the dhampir wasn’t listening. Instead, she had a hand on his shoulder, as if to hold him in place. While the other—
“Get off me!” John yelled, shoving at her, which did exactly fuck all. She hung on like a limpet, grabbing his skull hard enough that it felt like she’d made dents in it. And poking mental fingers even deeper, pushing against his consciousness. “Get out of my head!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she snapped, her voice finally containing some emotion. “We’re inside your head, trapped in a memory—”
“Bollocks! I told you, it’s not a—”
“It is.” Her eyes stared into his, unfocused but strangely intense. They were back to brown, but a ring of fire still circled the irises. “You have a mental block in part of your brain, one of long standing. That’s why you can’t remember this properly. But something has weakened it recently, letting pieces through, but not enough. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” John repeated. Because that had sounded ominous.
“I can try something,” she said, both hands on his head now, her fingers digging into his flesh. Although that wasn’t the problem. The problem was—
“Auggghhh!”
John screamed, as the red-hot poker he’d felt at HQ returned and brought friends. He staggered back against the side of the building, his body spasming, his vision darkening, while a thousand lines of pain radiated outward. For a moment, he literally thought that his head was going to burst apart in sections, like an overripe orange, and splatter against the road.
“It didn’t work,” the dhampir said, watching him with a small frown on her face. “Would you like to try again?”
“Goddamn it, woman! No! Don’t touch me!”
John concentrated on breathing for a minute while she just stood there, looking at him. It wasn’t a particularly hostile look, more curious, as if she’d never seen anything quite like him. Ditto, John thought savagely.
“I do not know what powers the Irin possess,” she finally said. “But I have never heard of any way to direct a memory from without.”
John tried to concentrate. It didn’t work. “What?”
“If the Irin was behind this, he should be in here with us,” she explained patiently. “But he is not.”
“Meaning?”
“That he isn’t responsible. One of us must have done this. Therefore, it is up to us to find a way out.”
“Then bloody well get on with it!” John said, gingerly feeling around his skull for the divots he fully expected to find there.
“I can’t. I didn’t bring us here.”
“Well, I damned well didn’t! So, it looks like your theory is shite, doesn’t it?”
He would have said more, but he caught sight of a party of mages heading across the market. They were shoving the stationary crowd out of their path, knocking over buyers and merchandise alike, and stumbling into things because they were too focused on their objective to pay attention. Which would have been fine, except that their objective was him.
“They’re not really here,” the dhampir said, as John moved forward, preparing to jump off the porch. “They can’t see us.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, because she hadn’t sounded sure. And because one of the mages was staring right at him.
And then doing more than staring.
A fireball boiled through the middle of a nearby wagon, turning it to ash before slamming into John’s hastily re-erected shields. It sending him hurtling back against the building, because he hadn’t been braced well enough to absorb the shock. Or to keep his shield from wavering at the worst possible time.
It popped when his back struck the wall and he lunged to the side, but not fast enough. A tongue of magical fire caught his left arm, cooking it in an instant, leaving it a blackened, useless mass that resembled charcoal more than human flesh. And like charcoal, it shattered into a dozen pieces when he hit the ground, causing John’s scream to turn to a screech in his throat.
The rest of him slammed down, his now missing arm failing to break his fall, his face smashing into the stone floor of the portico. But he didn’t stay there. His body was fire, his arm a smoking void, his stomach heaving with the vomit that etched his throat, yet still he moved.
Because staying put was death.
He felt himself falling and realized that he’d rolled off the porch, smacking into the ground with a jolt. But not as much of one as might have been, because the Goremish compound was on the edge of the square, set on its own plot of land. The plaza’s stones didn’t extend this far, so it was dirt that broke his fall.
And any added bruises were lost in the blaze of agony he already felt.
He crawled under a haze of spell-fire, his stump of an arm smoking but not bleeding, because the flames that had destroyed it had also cauterized it. He should have been unconscious from the shock, nonetheless, but he wasn’t. So, he made for the only cover available, while a battle raged all around him.
But not at him, not anymore, he didn’t know why. And then he realized why, catching sight through watering eyes of the crazy dhampir. Who was taking on an entire dark mage battalion by herself!
In spite of everything, John just stared. He was right out in the open, with no concealment unless you counted fire and smoke, because the low stone wall he’d been heading for had just exploded. Jagged edged rocks rained down all around him, yet he barely noticed.
What the hell did she think she was doing?
It didn’t look like the mages had any idea, either, but they weren’t enjoying it.
A whirlwind of activity tore through the nearest group, so fast that it was barely a blur. John couldn’t tell if they were shielded; didn’t know if it mattered if they were shielded. All he saw was bodies go flying and not get up again, taken out by what may as well have been a force of nature.
And then things got weird.
The dhampir paused long enough for John to see her raise a hand. At the same time, a mass of laundry decided to jump off a line and flap into the air as if a flock of birds had taken flight. One that split down the middle, half heading for the main mass of mages, and the other for a group that had just run into the square.
And did their best to suffocate the lot of them.
Sheets wrapped up bodies like mummies in a tomb; shirts and trousers, some with too many arms or legs for a human, flew at heads, engulfing them like overly friendly octopuses; scarves coiled around hands, preventing spells from being cast; and belts and stockings garroted throats. Some of the mages were jerked to the ground, as if the ends of the fabric were held in a giant’s hands. Others went the other way, with one of them lifted into the air by the makeshift noose around his neck, leaving his feet kicking uselessly underneath him.
The crazy campaign wouldn’t last, of course, since her weapons were just clothes, and once the element of surprise wore off, they’d be easily disposed of. But it didn’t matter. Because their function wasn’t attack,
John realized blearily, it was distraction.
And the dhampir didn’t need long.
The men she’d cut down were either dead or giving a good impression of it, leaving their weapons at her disposal. She used them, although not as John would have expected. The whole lot, including one of the corpses, suddenly levitated off the ground and into the air, where they paused for a second to get orientated.
And then rocketed at the biggest group of mages just ahead, who’d been stupid enough to stay bunched together.
Some of those near the edges managed to throw themselves to the side, but most took a direct hit from what could only be described as a fuck ton of magical devices, all at once. Seemed to be her M.O., John thought, whilst covering his head with his arm. And hoping against hope that what remained of the wall would shield him from the spillover, because he could no longer concentrate well enough to raise any protection for himself.
He needn’t have worried.
The next moment, the dhampir was grabbing him off the ground, was throwing him over her shoulder, and was sprinting forward, before launching them both into the gaping mouth of an alley.
John slammed back against the alley wall, panting and trying to do it quietly. Archaeus had failed him, saying that he’d need to see the creature John had found in that cave in order to identify it, despite supposedly knowing every lifeform imaginable. But before John could arrange anything, the mages had found them.
Fortunately, his pursuers had made enough enemies trashing the market that John had acquired some unlikely allies. The local merchants’ bully boys had joined the fray, tall, solid, thick necked demons with studded collars and leather vambraces, and clubs the size of small trees. One of which caught a mage in the midsection, slamming him a dozen yards backward.
People ducked, the mage—who had been shielded—rattled around an alley like a ping pong ball, and John shook his head in disbelief. Were the men mad? Did they have any idea what happened when you trashed a market in hell?