by DD Barant
“Yeah,” I say. Not sure how to respond, but the redneck in one of the other cells does it for me.
“Hey! That was pretty damn good! Tell us another one!”
“Sorry,” Silverado says. “That’s the only one I know. Think I’ll get me some shuteye now, if you don’t mind. Revolutions always tire me out.”
“Aww, come on! I already read the damn magazine they brought me, or leastways all the interesting parts—hey, I bet you know some good lem jokes, don’tcha? Or knock-knocks?”
He goes on for a while, but Silverado ignores him. Me, I lie down on my bunk and think about what I just heard.
Seems pretty clear to me that the hungry spirit in the story is a dinosaur. That’s interesting, because while most lems are animated by the life force of a domesticated animal like a cow or a horse, enforcement lems—the ones who work for the military or the police—are powered by predators. Charlie, though, is a special case; his metaphysical engine is the spirit of a Tyrannosaurus rex, distilled by animist magic from crude oil. Black Pools of the Underworld, indeed.
But what does it mean?
Silverado said he’d tracked Tair until he joined Silver Blue’s band of mercenaries. The last time I’d seen Tair he’d had a powerful mystic artifact in his possession, a gem called the Balancer that had been bonded to a blade known as the Midnight Sword; apparently they were Tair’s ticket into Blue’s inner circle. Silverado didn’t mention either one—not unless he’d made some sort of veiled reference to them in his story. Is that what the stone tooth represents? It’s both a cutting implement and a rock, as well as being a magical focus …
That’s about as far as I get, because that’s when they bring Azura in.
SEVEN
A more accurate statement is that they carry Azura in.
At first I think she’s still knocked out from whatever was in that blowgun dart, but she’s a little more banged up than the last time I saw her: nasty bruise starting to form on her forehead, ugly gash on one arm. I hope it wasn’t from a thrope claw.
The lem carrying her is Caleb Epsilon, the one Zayin left behind to “guard the perimeter.” He puts her in the cell across from mine.
“Caleb,” I say. “This is ridiculous. You’ve got to let me out of here—I’m your commanding officer, goddamn it!”
“I’m in a different army now,” Caleb says, meeting my furious stare calmly. He walks away without looking back.
Great. I have to admit, until this moment I was entertaining certain hopes about Azura showing up—probably disguised as a lem—and breaking me out of here. Well, she showed up all right, but it doesn’t do me much good when the cavalry arrives unconscious and slung over the backs of their own horses.
I hear a groan, and see Azura twitch.
“Hey!” I call. “Wake up! You’re going to be late for the school bus!”
“Don’ wanna go to school,” she mutters, then opens her eyes and lifts her head groggily. “Jace?”
“Present. How’s your head?”
She sits up slowly, wincing as she looks around. “Sore. I see my clever plan worked.”
“If you mean getting knocked out and locked up, yeah, it’s really chugging right along. Can’t wait till we get to the part where we’re stuffed in a sack and beaten with tire irons.”
She sits on her bunk with her head in her hands for a moment. I almost feel sorry for her—whatever our differences, she’s just trying to do her job, same as me. She’s been blasted, beaten, drugged, and imprisoned; I wouldn’t blame her for having a good cry right about now—
She lifts her head and turns to look at me.
And grins.
“Your problem,” she says, “is that you’re oversensitive to sarcasm.”
“What?”
She gets to her feet—no, she springs to her feet. “When I said my clever plan worked, I was being factual. Are you ready to go, or would you like to use the facilities first?”
“What?”
She walks over to the door, squints at the lock, then sighs. “I was hoping for a challenge. Oh, well.”
She tugs on her hair, and a tuft comes off in her hand. She rolls it between her fingers, whispers a few words, and suddenly it’s a little piece of tightly braided wire. She inserts it into the lock.
“That’s an electric lock, controlled from a master panel,” I point out. “You’re dealing with more than just pins and tumblers—”
The lock clicks loudly and she pulls the door open. “I know what I’m dealing with, thank you. No matter how sophisticated, a lock has to obey certain principles in order to do its job. Just like me.”
She’s about to start on my lock when I say, “Hold it. Free the lem in the last cell, first. You might be a whiz at getting out of cells, but as soon as a guard glances at a security camera we’re going to be dealing with some very annoyed sandbags. We’ll need backup to get out of here in one piece.”
She hesitates— “A lem? But—”
“You know your job, I know mine. We don’t have time to argue!”
And she doesn’t—she sprints over to Silverado’s cell instead. As she starts to work, the redneck calls out, “Hey! Don’t forget about me, sweetcheeks!”
“I’m sure you’re next on her list,” I hiss. “Now be quiet!”
She gets Silverado’s door open—just as the one at the end of the corridor clangs open, too.
“Stop! Go back to your cells!” the guard shouts. He’s already got his bow in his hands, drawing back the bowstring. The arrowhead is a three-bladed razor designed to rotate in flight; it won’t just punch into flesh, it’ll bore a hole through it two inches wide.
Azura doesn’t pause. She runs toward the guard—then stops in front of my cell and bends down to the lock. She’s completely exposed.
I yank one of my scythes out of its holster, stick my arm through the bars, and throw it to Silverado. He grabs it out of the air as casually as if I’d just tossed him a beer—then staggers back as the arrow hits him full in the chest.
The noise it makes is loud, closer to a gunshot than an arrow striking home—but that’s what happens when metal meets metal at those speeds. It puts a nasty dent in his chest, but doesn’t penetrate. He throws the eskrima stick before the guard can nock another shaft.
Saying that lems are good at throwing things is like saying water’s good at being wet. When Silverado was known as the Quicksilver Kid, he supposedly had the fastest and most accurate arm in the world; that was a long time ago, but it seems he’s kept in practice. The stick whips past almost too fast to see, and hits directly between the guard’s eyes. There’s an explosion of sand and the guard drops to the floor with a boneless thump.
The lock chunks open and I shove the door aside. “Okay, we’re out. Now what—we fight our way past every lem in the place?”
“No, now I escort my two very important prisoners to see the Mantle High Command,” Azura says. She’s already pulling off the guard’s uniform.
Silverado strides up, moving with a clockwork precision. “Forgive me for saying so, Miss, but you don’t exactly look like a lem guard.”
“Give her a minute,” I say.
Azura finishes pulling on the guard’s pants, then does a little pirouette—and when she finishes her spin, she’s a dead ringer for our jailer. She grabs his bow off the floor to complete the illusion.
“Hey!” the redneck says. I can see him now, his face pressed up against the bars of his cell: a short, potbellied guy with a scraggly beard and what I assume is a pathetic attempt at a mullet—short sparse hair on top, long greasy hair down the sides. “You gonna take us, too?”
“I hate to say it,” I tell him, “but you’re probably safer here than outside. Sit tight and we’ll be back once we’ve got this whole mess sorted out—”
“Well, what if I don’t want to sit tight?” the redneck says. “You better take me with you or maybe I’ll just holler my lungs out that there’s a jailbreak goin’ on—”
I st
ep up to the cell and lean in close. “You don’t want to do that. And you know why not?”
“ ’Cause it’ll get you put right back in that cell?”
I meet his eyes and smile while slipping one arm—the one holding an eskrima stick—through the bars at waist level. He smiles back, with bad teeth.
“No,” I say. I snap the scythe out behind his back and bring it up quickly, so his neck is trapped between the cutting edge of the blade and the bars. I pull just hard enough to let him know he shouldn’t move. “Because I’d hate to have you get killed while trying to escape. Right?”
He sees what’s in my eyes, starts to nod, then thinks better of it. “Y-yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Stay here, keep your mouth shut, and you’ll be fine.”
I take the scythe away, close it, then slip it back in its holster. Silverado drags the unconscious lem into my cell and locks him in.
“Move it,” Azura growls in a much deeper voice, gesturing with her bow. I sigh, and let her march us down the corridor.
* * *
Hard as it is to believe, nobody’s missed the guard yet. We go out the door at the end of the corridor, past the guard’s post, and out into the main area of the station without being stopped.
I’m a little nervous. There aren’t that many lems in here—they’re probably out helping secure the rest of the city—but there are enough to take the three of us down pretty damn fast. As long as we can just get out of here without being noticed—
“Hey,” Azura calls out. She’s trying to get the attention of one of the lems at a workstation, tapping away at a keyboard.
He looks up. “Yeah?”
“These two were brought in with weapons.”
Shut up shut up shut up I think as loudly as I can.
“So?” the desk jockey says.
“So I’m supposed to bring them with me when I do the transfer,” Azura says. “But nobody seems to know where they are.”
Now the lem looks a little suspicious. Great. “They weren’t signed in to evidence?”
“You’d think so, but—you mind checking for me?”
“Just a second.” He taps a few keys, studies the screen, then says, “Well, they’re down there now. Want them sent up?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“Nah.” He taps a few more keys. “Knives and some kind of metal device, right?”
“Right.”
“Just hang on.” He picks up a phone. Azura pulls two sets of iron manacles off her belt and chains Silverado and me to a heavy steel bar jutting from the wall while the other lem talks to someone in evidence.
During this ordeal—every second of which lasts a geologic era—Lem-Azura manages to look bored and slightly sleepy. Silverado stays impassive the whole time, but from my prior encounters with him I know that’s pretty much how he always looks.
Fortunately, the desk jockey doesn’t seem inclined to make small talk and goes back to work. A few minutes later another lem with two large plastic evidence bags and a clipboard shows up. He hands the bags to Azura and tells her to sign the release form. She does so, then picks her bow back up and asks the lem to unlock us from the wall.
“Can’t be too careful,” she says, training the bow and a notched arrow at us. “Wouldn’t want ’em to rabbit on me.”
We make it outside. “Now what?” I ask. “You just going to march us down the street?”
“My car’s in the impound lot,” says Silverado. “Get us in there and I’ll take care of the rest.”
The impound lot’s around the back of the building, and we just walk right through the open gate. I’ve been locked up for nearly a full day; it’s just after dark now, the lot illuminated by harsh security lights. Silverado spots his vehicle—a dusty black Mustang—in the back corner. He digs a spare key out of the wheel well and hands it to Azura. With a uniformed officer at the wheel, nobody tries to stop us from driving away, either.
“If they weren’t so short-staffed that never would have worked,” I say from the backseat.
Azura shrugs, her features shifting back to her regular look. “Hey, we need every asset we can get. Silverado got back the Seven Teeth of the Moon and you got your Booger-Hawk thing.”
“Ruger. Super. Redhawk,” I growl. “And how’d you know about Silverado’s knives, anyway?”
“It was on the evidence form, along with his name. Impressive—even I’ve heard of them. The knives, I mean. Can they really cut through any spell?”
“I always thought so,” says Silverado. “But it’s startin’ to look like I may have to rethink that a mite…”
He grabs the wheel, wrenching the car over to the side of the road, while stomping on Azura’s foot and slamming on the brakes.
“What?” I say. “What’s going on?”
“You are,” Silverado says. “Without me.” He pulls the keys out of the ignition with one hand—and a knife out of his bandolier with the other. “Get out.”
“Look, I understand you like to work alone,” I say. “But we all have a much better chance of surviving this if we work together—”
“Maybe that’s true for you two. Not for me.” He pokes Azura in the arm with the point of the blade. “Go on now.”
Azura’s studying him intently. “Let’s go, Jace,” she says abruptly. She opens the door and gets out without another word.
I’m a little more stubborn. “I want an explanation first.”
“Can’t do that. You get that, Special Agent Valchek? I cannot give you one. What I can give you is eleven inches of enchanted silver across that pretty little jugular of yours, and I expect I may just have to. Real shame, too—bloodstains are a bitch to get out of upholstery.”
I get out of the car.
He roars away, tires screeching and smoking on the asphalt. “Well, damn,” I say. “I haven’t been dumped like this since my ninth-grade prom.”
“He didn’t trust himself. Whatever’s got lems in revolt, it’s more than just political. He’s resisted so far—probably with the help of those knives—but he doesn’t know how long that’ll last. My guess is he’s hoping to break through the barricades, get himself out of range of whatever magic’s being worked.”
“He said he couldn’t give me an explanation. The way he put it, it sounded as if he literally didn’t have a choice.” Then I remember the tale Silverado spun, and it starts to make a little more sense. “He was trying to tell me something while we were locked up. At the time I thought he was being careful because he thought somebody else was listening—but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he couldn’t just come right out and tell me. Is that possible?”
“A secrecy component to a spell? Sure. But there are always ways around such things. Stories want to be told, you know. That’s why they created people … now, let’s get off the street before we get picked up by a lem patrol.”
We duck down a side street that seems completely deserted. The front door of every house stands wide open; Azura ducks into the nearest one, motioning me to follow.
“Everyone’s gone,” I say.
“Evacuated? Or rounded up and imprisoned like we were?”
“They wouldn’t have the facilities. Not unless they’re digging a really, really big grave somewhere.”
“Or a bonfire,” Azura says.
The idea’s almost too grim to contemplate—except this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve run across a situation like this. At the end of World War II, the Allies made a deal with an Elder God: the ability for pires to procreate on their own, in return for six million human souls. The victims were burned alive, the whole thing covered up by blaming a virulent plague.
That was how far pires were willing to go to be able to bear their own children. Would lems do the same?
I pick up the phone in the living room. No dial tone. My own phone died a watery death, but maybe the person who lived here left without grabbing their cell.
“What are you looking for?” Azura asks as I stride from room to r
oom.
“A cell phone. I’ve got to get in touch with my boss, let him know what’s going on.”
To my surprise, she nods emphatically. “Yes. We need reinforcements—I’m sorry to tell you this, but it seems your team is now either compromised or dead.” She looks grim. “And we’ve lost the element of surprise. Asher will have surrounded himself with an army of golems by now.”
“He’s not the only one with an army,” I say.
* * *
We have to search four houses before we get lucky and find a mobile phone sitting upright in its charger. I just hope the lems haven’t taken out all the cell phone towers …
Not yet, it seems. My call goes through, someone picking up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Cassius?”
“Jace. Are you still in Vegas?”
I can’t believe how relieved I am to hear his voice. “Yeah. On a real hot streak as far as luck goes, too.”
“What’s your situation?”
I fill him in as quickly and concisely as I can. “What’s it look like from where you are?”
“Much the same. I’ll fill you in when I get there.” The phone goes dead in my hand—and I hear the screech of tires sliding to a halt outside.
Sure enough, Cassius walks through the door a second later. I half expect Azura to zap him with something, but she just studies him coolly.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurt. My relief’s vanished—it was based on the idea that the person I was talking to was far away, completely safe, and able to call down vengeance in the form of fighter jets and National Guard units.
“I flew in to oversee your operation personally,” he says. “I was in my hotel room when the revolt started. I’ve managed to avoid being captured, but lem battalions have forcibly evacuated all thropes and pires to the city limits.”
“Yeah, we figured that out for ourselves,” I say, sinking onto a nearby couch. “Not the humans, though—those they’re rounding up and incarcerating, ‘for their own good.’ ”
“Which means we’re not very good, at all,” says Azura.
Cassius’s attention has been on me, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t noticed Azura; Cassius notices everything. He turns to her, gives her one of his professional but guarded smiles, and says, “That depends on how you look at it. You’ve proven quite adept at destroying a carefully planned operation all by yourself.”