by DD Barant
But I’m going to need a little help to do it. Luckily, I came prepared.
“The most important part of any illusion is preparation,” Azura says. “Gaining access to the battleground before the battle is worth more than a legion of troops behind you. If we have the opportunity, I intend to infiltrate Asaheurus’s headquarters before any confrontation and leave this behind.” She shows me a small, bright purple egg nestled in the middle of her palm. “This is called the Warbler’s Child. It contains a potent charm that can be activated by anyone who knows the proper incantation, which I am now going to teach you.”
“What does it do?”
Azura smiles. “It deceives the senses. It lasts no more than a minute and only on one person, but in that time you can make them see and experience almost anything. It is one of the Hidden Clan’s most potent weapons; used properly, it can convince a king that he is a pauper, a monster that he is a saint, a sane man that he is mad. We use it rarely, for illusion is at its most useful when it is perceived to be real.”
“Is this going to let us take down a sorcerer as dangerous as Ahasuerus?”
“No. But it may grant us that most elusive and powerful of all wishes: a second chance.”
The Warbler’s Child is underneath the throne. I would have preferred something more lethal, but Azura told me one of the big advantages of this particular charm is that it’s much harder to detect than something designed to kill. I whisper the incantation Azura made me memorize under my breath, and focus my will on Charlie.
Azura said I’d see the same thing that my target would, but it’s still a shock when the room abruptly transforms into a grassy meadow. You’d think I’d be getting used to these shifts in reality; what with myths, interdimensional travel, and vivid flashbacks, I seem to be spending as much time these days in unreal places as real ones.
Everybody who was here when the meadow was a throne room is still here, but not all of us look the same. I do, Azura does, the lem guards and their two prisoners haven’t changed—but Ahaseurus is now a giant rat. Kind of obvious, maybe, but I’m a little rushed.
Charlie’s a dinosaur. For real.
He glares at me suspiciously and snorts. His breath stinks of rotting flesh—tyrannosaurs ate carrion as well as their own kills. Well, Azura did say the illusion would be detailed.
Charlie’s hunched over, his gigantic, toothy head on the same level as mine. I wonder what would happen if he tried to eat me—would I get chomped by actual golem teeth, or would the scythes bite into my body? Either would be unpleasant, and being cuffed to this chair means I have exactly zero chance of getting out of the way. So I do the only thing I can, which fortunately I’m pretty good at.
“You overgrown, walking brick wall—what the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re not a dinosaur, you’re a birdbath with legs—pigeons hang RESTROOM signs around your neck while you’re sleeping. The only reptilian ancestor you can lay claim to is a gargoyle that fell off the corner of a building.”
Who knew a tyrannosaur could squint? Or that he could convey so much hostility by doing so?
“You don’t hunt quarry, you were born in a quarry. You’re a walking sidewalk, the illegitimate offspring of a rolling stone and a cement mixer. The last time you sneezed the shrapnel killed a waitress!”
He takes a step toward me on those massive, scaly legs. My minute is almost up.
Ahaseurus starts to say something, but I don’t let Charlie hear it. I want his full attention on me, and right now the only things he’s seeing and hearing are those I want him to—
No. Not just seeing and hearing. Smelling, too.
His nostrils flare as he catches the scent I introduce. Tyrannosaurs had extremely large nasal cavities, and right now he’s getting a heady whiff of delicious, decaying meat. He turns his head toward the source.
Ahaseurus isn’t just a giant rat anymore. He’s a giant dead rat.
“Forget it!” I yell. “You, you refugee from a marble factory! You don’t eat meat, you’re not even made of meat! You’re a driveway that learned how to talk!” I’m seesawing him, appealing to his animal nature on one hand and reminding him of his connection to me with the other. I don’t just need him angry, I need him defiant, and the only way to push him there is to pound on as many of his buttons as I can. “You couldn’t digest a breath mint! You send a card to Mount Rushmore every Father’s Day! And you dance like a dump truck!”
The illusion abruptly ends. Charlie still stands between Ahaseurus and me, my scythes clenched in his fists. He turns to me and raises one over his head.
It comes down, hard and fast. The tip of the scythe impacts the keyhole of the handcuffs with enough force to break off the tip, but the lock pops open.
I yank the chain free of the ring, jump to my feet, and catch the scythe Charlie tosses me. He uses the other one on the nearest lem, who’s spraying gray-tinted sand all over the floor before he can even raise his sword.
I don’t waste time with thanks, or even another snappy one-liner. I just dive and roll, straight at my target.
Chassinda.
Ahaseurus tries to stop me, but whatever spell or enchantment he tosses my way doesn’t connect. I’m moving fast and he’s rattled; he’s not used to people challenging him on his own turf.
I come out of the shoulder roll and slam into Chassinda, knocking her over. She doesn’t react at all; I may as well have knocked over a mannequin. I grab her body around the waist as we fall, twisting so that she lands on top, her body shielding me. An instant later I have the edge of the scythe pressed against her throat.
“No!” Ahaseurus shouts.
Charlie ignores him. Didn’t catch what he did to the other lem, but both guards are now sprawled, unmoving, on the floor. Charlie’s already moving toward the door; he knows we can’t afford to let reinforcements arrive.
But right now, at this very second, we have the upper hand.
Because I know where the Balancer gem is.
“Let her go,” Ahaseurus says, his voice low and cold.
“No.” I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I can make myself do it. I shift my weight, but Chassinda puts up about as much resistance as a rag doll—or maybe I should say voodoo doll. Charlie’s guarding the door, but nobody’s crashed through it yet.
“This is laughable,” Ahaseurus says with a sneer. “You seek to use your own corpse as a hostage? You must have lost your mind.”
“This isn’t me. But whoever she is, whoever she was, you’ve tormented her long enough. I’m going to end this.”
“Go ahead. And when you’re done, I will destroy you and your friends. Slowly.”
“No, you won’t. You’re focusing your worldwide spell through the Balancer—but you needed a safe place to keep the gem while it’s doing its work, didn’t you? I’m no magician, but if you’re casting a zombie-based spell it makes sense to have a zombie hold on to your focus—and who better than the zombie that’s always at your side?”
He glares at me, but there’s fear in it now. “Give an item of such power to one who means nothing? She owns nothing, not even the clothes I choose to dress her in. Search her and see for yourself.”
“Oh, she won’t be wearing it on a necklace or anything else visible and easy to steal. It’s inside her, isn’t it, you bastard? Dead flesh that doesn’t decay makes an ideal hiding place. So what happens if I cut off her head?”
He stares at me stonily but says nothing.
“It ends the enchantment,” a voice whispers hoarsely. Azura, barely conscious but fighting to raise her head. “Kill her … kill the spell.”
“You can’t,” Ahaseurus growls. “She’s already dead.”
“Yeah? Then cutting off her head will make her a whole lot deader, won’t it?”
“Do it and you will never see your home again,” he says. “Your real home.”
Oh, crap.
“I can see I’ve underestimated you,” he says. “But I can admit when I’ve made a mist
ake. I have an offer for you, Jace. I think you’re going to want to hear it.”
I don’t say a word. I don’t trust myself to.
“I’ll return you to your world, no less than a day from when you left it. You’ll have your life back—your career, your friends, your family. All this can be no more than a bad dream.”
“Sure. Until you show up in the middle of the night and yank me back here again.”
“I understand you’re reluctant to trust me. But as you pointed out before, there are an infinite number of yous available as replacements. Why should I bother with something poisonous when there are so many more ripe apples on the tree?”
“You want to know what the first thing is they teach a professional hostage negotiator? Don’t compare your subject to a piece of toxic fruit.”
He chuckles. “But you are poisonous—lethal, in fact. And I have no more desire to die at your hands than you have to die at mine. So here’s my offer: I will not only return you to your world, I’ll seal that world off forever. I won’t be able to return to it, or bother you, ever again. You’ll be safe—at least from me.”
“You’re lying.”
“He isn’t,” a voice croaks.
Not Azura this time. Tair.
“Shut up,” Cassius hisses.
Tair’s reverted to human form. I can see just how injured he is now; cuts cover most of his body, his one leg is at an angle that means his kneecap has been smashed, and his face is so bruised he can barely speak. He does anyway. “S’true, Jace.” It comes out more like ss-droo, Jaysh. “I’ll make sure he does it. Go. Be safe.”
That shakes me a little. Tair never does anything he isn’t ultimately going to benefit from, but this is one helluva gamble. If it pays off, he might wind up going from being the disgraced lieutenant of a Judas to the new right-hand man of Emperor Ahaseurus—but the sorcerer could just as easily kill Tair as being untrustworthy once he gets what he’s after.
But I still don’t know if Ahaseurus is telling the truth. Or what I should do if he is.
“Jace,” Cassius says. “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying.”
“Azura,” I say. “Please. Is he telling the truth?”
Azura lifts her head with an effort, meets my eyes. This is a woman whose entire life is based on deception, on weaving illusions that let her trick people and steal their secrets. I have no idea why I’m asking her to verify what is probably the single most important fact I’ll ever have to question.
Slowly, she nods.
“Your friends can go free as well,” Ahaseurus says. “They can stand at your side as I send you across the dimensional divide, to ensure no betrayal. Leave this world and all it’s done to you to those who belong here.”
And then, for the first time, Chassinda moves.
It’s nothing violent. She doesn’t try to break free or disarm me. She just lifts one arm, very slowly, to her face. I don’t try to stop her.
She grabs the white veil that conceals everything but her eyes and pulls it off. In the position I’m in I can’t see her face, but I can see the pain and sorrow in Azura’s.
I keep my scythes highly polished, and silver makes a pretty good mirror. I move the blade away from her throat and angle it so it shows me what everyone else in the room can see.
Her lips are sewn shut. The holes where the thread goes through have pulled wider over time; her owner has kept her in good repair, but everything shows wear and tear eventually, even the underdead.
It’s not her mouth that horrifies me the most, though. It’s her eyes. They aren’t blank anymore. Every bit of feeling left in her soul is trying to rise up, to communicate, through those eyes. They’re actually trembling with effort.
And I know what they’re trying to say.
Kill me.
TWENTY-ONE
Things happen very fast after that.
I shove Chassinda forward at the same time I cock my arm back.
The lem soldiers we were expecting finally crash through the door at the front of the room.
Ahasuerus chants the first two syllables of something that will no doubt rain nasty magic death on my head. He doesn’t have the time to finish.
I bring the scythe around in a tight, fast strike. It takes Chassinda’s head off cleanly. There’s no blood. White light bursts from the wound instead.
Cassius leaps at Ahaseurus. His arms are still bound, but a pire’s legs are just as strong as the rest of his body. He slams into the sorcerer, interrupting his spell and smashing the throne to pieces; apparently they just don’t build ’em like they used to.
The mayhem at the back of the room stops as abruptly as it started. Charlie’s facing down a horde of lems that suddenly look more confused than hostile.
I vault over Chassinda’s body, trying to get to Ahaseurus. I have to take him out of commission before he can recover—
Too late.
Cassius comes hurtling back the way he came, and I narrowly miss being his second target.
A slit appears in midair, between me and Ahaseurus. Aristotle Stoker steps through it, the Midnight Sword in his hand. Looks like we aren’t the only ones with a backup plan in place.
I’m not clear on everything the sword can do, but I know it can affect time. I’m not entirely surprised when everything seems to slow to a crawl.
And then Stoker kills every one of my allies.
It’s exactly like one of those nightmares where you’re running from something terrible and your legs feel like they’re mired in quicksand. I can see what’s happening, but I’m stuck in slow motion.
Stoker isn’t.
He moves from target to target, not hesitating. He plunges the sword into Cassius’s chest, Azura’s throat, Tair’s eye. He cuts Charlie in half. None of them react as the blade passes through them, and neither blood or sand spills onto the floor.
When he’s done he whirls around and rejoins Ahaseurus at the front of the room. I have a frozen instant to wonder why he didn’t use the sword on me, and then time returns to normal.
I wait for bodies to topple to the floor. Nothing happens.
“Stop,” Stoker says. “Or your friends will die.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Didn’t I just see them all die?
Then I get it. “You didn’t kill them now. You killed them in the future, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. You’re going to let Ahasuerus and me leave—or at some point, not too long from now, all your friends will simply drop dead.”
“You’re bluffing. That sword used to belong to a thrope, it doesn’t have any silver in it. Which means it won’t affect Cassius or Tair—”
“It doesn’t have any silver in it now. But it did once, long ago—and I can return it to that state whenever I want.”
Have I mentioned how much I hate time travel? He’s saying he can kill any of the people he just stabbed by projecting a version of the sword that existed in the past—and was made of silver—into their bodies in the future. Assassination on a timer. Except—
Another slit appears in thin air, and my gun drops out of it. I catch it with my free hand and aim it at Stoker’s head.
“You know,” I say, “I’m starting to warm up to this whole time-travel idea.”
Stoker’s eyes flicker to the Midnight Sword and back to me. He’s a bright guy, and understands immediately. His reaction is to grin. “So at some point in the future, you manage to take the sword from me, and then use it to rearm yourself in the past. I assume that since only one portal opened, you managed to destroy or lock away the sword immediately afterward. Smart.”
“No, just good planning. I’m making a note to repay my future self with a bottle of tequila and a massage from a bodybuilder named Sven.”
Standoff. I could kill either the sorcerer or the terrorist before either of them can blink—even Stoker’s fast-forward trick with the sword won’t work if all I have to do is twitch. I doubt he can do it twice in a row, anyway; most powerful magic needs
some downtime to recharge.
I can do it. I can kill Stoker with a single shot, and capture Ahaseurus. Then I find wherever it is they’ve stashed my gun, use the sword to send it back in time, and lock up the sword afterward so nobody can use it again, ever—
The sword disappears from Stoker’s hand.
“I’ve sent it through time,” Stoker says. “Kill me, and it will obey my last order, to reappear and kill your friends. Let us go, and I promise I’ll never use it.”
The weird thing is, I believe him.
But it doesn’t change the decision I have to make.
My contract is with the government. Even with Cassius dead, it will still stand. And if I hand them a live Ahaseurus and a dead Stoker, I’m pretty sure they’ll live up to their end of the bargain. I can go home.
And all it will cost will be the lives of four people I care about. Well, three and a half, anyway.
I stare at Stoker for a long, long time.
“If you break your word,” I say evenly, “I will make sure you live the rest of your very long life chained up in a Yakuza blood farm, paralyzed from the neck down. You understand me?”
“I do,” he says. “Better than you think.”
He nods at Ahaseurus. The sorcerer closes his eyes, raises his hands, and begins to mutter. He and Stoker both grow transparent, then disappear altogether.
“Outstanding,” Tair says. “Yeah, I’m sure we can trust the word of a psychopathic, serial-killing terrorist. Good call.”
Yeah. I guess we’ll see.
* * *
Tom Omicron was on his way to Washington to negotiate terms of surrender with the president—that’s how close Ahaseurus was to succeeding. When his plane touches down he’s arrested instead, and taken into custody by the same lems that were supposed to greet him as an honor guard. He’ll plead that he was under Ahaseurus’s mystic control the entire time, of course, but Gretch and her team are putting together a fairly extensive case for his collusion beforehand. As so often happens at the end of a case, it’s in the hands of the lawyers now.