Call of the Wilde

by Jenn Stark

  Kido turned his dark eyes on me. “You even now are seeking to recruit Connecteds to your House, Madame Wilde. We would ask that you help us make those contacts too. We have gone too long without such contacts. As we can teach you how to destroy the gods, you can teach us how to rekindle our connections with our own kind. But before we can do that, we need an army of able-bodied fighters to pledge their strength to the House of Wands again. True soldiers. Meaningful strength. Now we must hide because we have no other choice. But with a company of warriors to defend us and defend humanity, our options once again will be numerous, our negotiations full of true power instead of illusions and smoke.” He turned to Rangi, who nodded his agreement, then returned his gaze to me. “It is a fair trade.”

  “And it’s one I’ll gladly make, for your commitment to support the Houses’ goals in the coming conflict, and to leave your vendetta with the Council to the side until the work at hand is done,” I said.

  Rangi grimaced. “You’re a fool if you think the Council is trustworthy,” he said quietly. “You do not know how far and deep their reach extends, nor how byzantine their strategy. You think we play the long game? Theirs is longer, theirs is eternal.”

  “I don’t care,” I said flatly. “And if you want to be a part of this war as an active, upright participant, you’re not going to care either. Because I will make good on my promise, Rangi. You’ll either be with me as an equal, or you’ll be with me as my prisoner, so much magic coursing through you that your circuits are going to be fried for the next thousand years.”

  He stiffened. “You dare not.”

  “I am the daughter of the Denounced,” I said stonily. “You have no idea what I’m willing to dare.”

  In the end, that threat seemed to carry the most weight. Another long silence ensued, then Rangi started talking again. First he told us about the fall of Atlantis and how the Houses held up the veil at the four corners of the earth, a veil woven by the Council—woven with deliberate imperfections at that. But the Houses’ magic held, and the Council’s barrier held, or held well enough, and victory was secured.

  And then came the long years to follow, the cycles of blight and growth, the devastation at the hands of Hera, and all the years after. The House of Wands had stayed true to its commitment in all ways but one. It never sought the help of its fellow Houses again. Rangi didn’t explain why, and I didn’t press him. In truth, I didn’t care. By the end of three hours, our meal long since forgotten, the Hotel Metropole’s security still safely behind their walls, we had come to an agreement.

  All we needed to do now was to make it rain.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Do I want to know where the hell you are?”

  Brody’s tight, worried voice had the surprising effect of making me smile. I looked out the window from our perch at the top of a revered old building on the edge of Jubilee Gardens, London, where the House of Swords had purchased three floors for its own personal use decades earlier. The floors had gone through several rounds of sham ownership over the years, even as the rest of the building transitioned from a seat of local government offices to various entertainment, tourist, and residential uses. We’d slipped into it without being noticed, in part due to the snarled traffic as Londoners and tourists fought to flee or at least hunker down for the incoming storm.

  Still, it was nice to be missed.

  “Secure phone?” I asked aloud, but not to Brody. To my left, Ma-Singh nodded, then returned his own gaze to the windows. Our corner position allowed us the enviable opportunity to witness the storm rushing toward us from the southwest, which matched traditional weather patterns in London, as well as the one bearing down from the north, which made absolutely no sense at all.

  “I’m in London,” I said, before Brody could snap his own response. “And we’re on speaker. Ma-Singh and Nikki are with me.”

  “London.” To my surprise, he didn’t immediately complain or ask why, just blew out a long breath. “London. That’s good. I don’t think they’d look for you there. From what I can tell, they think you’re in Mexico City.”

  “And by they you mean…?”

  “Interpol,” he said curtly. “Or, specifically, Marguerite and Roland. We’ve checked three different times if they have jurisdiction for their actions out here—directly interviewing members of law enforcement and private citizens—and the fact that we’re raising some red flags is gaining us some ground, but it’s not fast enough. I think they’ll split before we have reason to detain them, and your Blue Notice has already gone wide, despite nobody being able to explain to me what part, specifically, you had in killing a man who then ran his vehicle into you. But if you’re not in a safe house now, you might want to plan on getting there, and in a hurry.”

  “I think we’re good for the time being,” I said, but something about the agents’ interest in me didn’t sit right.

  Brody hesitated. “How long do you think you’ll be there, roughly? Because there’re also some ugly rumors cropping up on the Strip about you, stuff I haven’t been able to sort out. I’d like some time to do that.”

  “Rumors like what?” My brain shot back to Jimmy’s warning. What was going on in Vegas?

  “Rumors like the kind I need to sort out before I find out if they’re bullshit or a genuine threat.” There was a wry smile in his tone now. “Not everyone loves you, you know.”

  I snorted, but my gaze traveled over the screens lit up with weather station reports. The storms were due to collide in about five hours, about an hour after nightfall. If power went out, and all indications were that it would, it would be a pretty epic weather event, the only light for miles being the raging conflagration in the sky.

  “I’ll be here least until tomorrow,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “After that, it’s anyone’s guess. You got anything more on the Mendala sisters or any of that mess?”

  Brody easily pivoted with the change in conversation topic. “Not as much as we’d like. Conversation with the parents proved useless. The girls were of age, living in the city, their contact with their parents was sporadic at best. Not because of any change in behavior or newly identified health concerns or anything like that. Just two twenty-somethings moving out and moving on. There are three other younger siblings, and they confirm the parents’ accounts, which fits with the accounts of the hotel staff where they worked. The Mendala sisters were happy, engaged, hard-working, and not into drugs. That they were caught up in a situation resulting in their death at the hands of Martin Fuego has left everyone at a loss.”

  “Martin Fuego,” I repeated. I didn’t know the name, but Brody clearly thought I did. “He’s the dead guy in the car?”

  “Yeah—sorry, I forget you aren’t tied into the drug busts around the city like Dixie is.”

  That made me lift my brows, and across the room, Nikki also turned, startled at the detective’s easy mention of his erstwhile girlfriend.

  Brody continued. “But yeah, that’s the guy. Local enforcer for a coke-and-fentanyl gang that operates closer to downtown but has a heavy influence in some of the fringe sites on the Strip. Not usually the high-end places, though, which is yet another reason why this killing isn’t adding up. We got two dead girls with no drugs in their system, taken out by a dead guy who was a thug for a gang who didn’t play in this sandbox.”

  “And the girls from XS?”

  “The one who collapsed has relapsed into a coma, still hasn’t said anything, and her buddy has tested positive for every recreational drug on the planet, it seems like, but nothing we can say is specifically targeted to Connecteds. According to Dr. Sells’s tox screen, she’s got tech drugs in her, but not in big enough doses to cause any real impact to her abilities. The girl in the coma, one Cindy Stanza, is a different story. Sells got a sample of her blood too and says she was higher than a kite on a strain she’s never seen before.”

  “Not related to the drug Gamon was peddling?”

  “Not
even close. This stuff was a euphoric combined with a hallucinogen, pretty rudimentary but in a strong enough dose—like anything—it can do some damage.”

  I nodded. “Keep me posted. Nikki too, in case we get separated.”

  “Yeah, well. Nikki, don’t get separated from Sara,” Brody retorted. Then he hung up.

  “We got company.” Nikki tried to keep her voice all business, but the smile at Brody’s order came through anyway. She pointed to the screen. “Mercault’s in the conference room with his goons. Gamon’s entering the garage with three of her generals. Rangi’s next door. His men are already in place in the Jubilee Gardens. He didn’t want to risk them if this meeting goes south.”

  “The meeting’s not going to go south.” I waved to Ma-Singh. “Take the generals to the conference room. Nikki and I will join you shortly.”

  The general narrowed his eyes at me, but he was well trained enough not to argue. He fixed Nikki with a hard stare before turning and ushering the other generals out. On the screen featuring the corridor, we watched their stiff, fast-paced stride as they marched toward the meeting with the other Houses of Magic.

  Nikki’s eyes were on me. “What are you planning, dollface?”

  “Simon,” I said. Three of the monitors switched their view, and the Fool of the Arcana Council came up. He wore a skullcap of bright purple and a contrasting long-sleeved yellow top with DayGlo-orange fingerless gloves, and a pen was clenched in his teeth as he stared at a monitor other than the one where the camera was mounted. He typed furiously for another few seconds, then pulled the pen free and jotted another note on an unseen surface, and glanced toward me.

  “You really know how to show a guy a good time.” He grinned. “How you holding up?”

  That made Nikki stare at me even harder, but I didn’t bother to explain. She’d hear it all shortly from Rangi. The Myrmidon had laid out the process of cordoning off the gods in no uncertain terms, and there was no way I was going to be able to trust the fledgling alliance of the Houses unless I handled the most unsavory part.

  “Good,” I said. “What do you have on this Blue Notice of Interpol? What’s their specific interest?”

  “Basically it’s a notice in search of a crime, at this point. Our two favorite agents are convinced you’re a terror threat.”

  “Terror?” That surprised me. “Terrorizing who?”

  “Local citizens wherever you’re located, apparently. Like I said, not a lot of meat in the justification box. But these two have had a nose for such things in the past, so they’re getting further with it than they would ordinarily. The fact that you’re the head of a shadow organization with possible ties to the drug trade makes it easy for everyone who might otherwise raise an objection to look the other way.”

  He drew in a deep breath. “Since both you and Nikki are here, though, there’s something you should know.” His gaze flipped first to Nikki, then back to me. “I know why Interpol is so up in your grill. That drive you gave me to look through made it all pretty clear.”

  To her credit, Nikki figured it out before I did, her entire body stiffening. “No,” she said. “No. She didn’t. I can’t believe it.”

  “She did.” Simon tapped a few keys, glanced back to the camera. “I’m sending you the decrypted files now. Basically it’s a laundry list of everything Sara’s done since Dixie met her, everything she’s witnessed, heard of, or maybe even made up, delivered on a platter to Roland and Marguerite under the auspices of building her own relationship with them. In short, she’s totally ratted you out.”

  I stared at him. “Dixie?” I managed, struggling to parse out the betrayal and how deep it could possibly go. The immediate answer was: deep. Really, really deep. “That’s what Interpol is basing their interest on?”

  “Interest is putting it mildly. The Blue Notice has gone out everywhere Interpol has contacts, so worldwide. So far, it’s information only, but the language is a little incendiary. I’m thinking they’re angling to bump you up to Red Notice status at their earliest opportunity.”

  “So they won’t move right away?”

  Simon made a face. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Not really the best way, though. Based on the chatter we’re monitoring, local cops there in London are already wired for sound with this storm coming in. They’re convinced someone is wielding a weather weapon, especially as the secondary fronts continue to degrade, but this London storm is only building. You combine that with your mug shot, if you get seen on the ground, it could get complicated in a hurry.”

  “Noted.” I paused. I couldn’t focus on Dixie or her betrayal. Not yet, anyway. I had to handle the immediate crisis first. “It’s coming here, isn’t it, Simon?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. The Hermit and Armaeus have identified two major tears. The first opened around the North Pole, and whatever came through wasn’t a god, but it was probably made by one. That’s your storm. It started as a loose electrical disturbance but eventually became a full-on front heading south along the coast of Greenland. The other storms were butterfly effects, and the one over the Atlantic was the closest and strongest, so it got recruited. Second rift is right over the London Eye, for obvious reasons.”

  Nikki frowned. “The gods have something against Ferris wheels?”

  I grimaced. The four-hundred-plus-foot-high ride was no longer circling on the banks of the Thames next to us, the winds already high enough to merit the structure to be shut down for the day. There were still far too many people in the gardens, though.

  “Not the Eye itself,” I said. “The energy beneath it. The energy that made this plot of land so ideal first for government buildings and then an entertainment district, most of it now caught beneath the Jubilee Gardens. There’s a confluence of ley lines here…and you can see the Eye from space. As far as a triangulation point goes, it’s a pretty good one.”

  “Yeah, they don’t even have to get that close. Just pull the energy from the earth, add the energy from the storm, surge through the weak point, and—you’ve got a problem.” Simon began typing again. “We don’t know who’s summoning the big bads is the only thing. But we might not ever, according to Armaeus. We won’t be able to get a fix on their location until all the crazy starts, and at that point, we’ll be a little busy.”

  I nodded. As soon as we’d reached London, Rangi and I had realized how impossible it would be to prevent someone from putting up a call to the gods. We had to focus on the bigger target of closing the veil if we wanted to make any real headway.

  “And who’s lining up at the queue besides Llyr and Mom? Anyone we know?”

  Simon grimaced. “The Hermit’s itching to put a smackdown on Llyr, but he can’t get anywhere close right now. Armaeus doesn’t want to risk Lilith leveraging some weakness we may not know about. That said, there are apparently at least a half-dozen other entities that have been awakened with the original rift and the passage of the electrical storm so close to the veil, and no, we can’t see any of them clearly yet, but we will if and when they come through.”

  “We can’t let that happen. We’re going to have to hold the thing together.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Simon didn’t sound convinced, and I didn’t blame him. Mercault was a mercenary not a magician, and Gamon was half-crazed. Rangi had his hatred of the gods going for him, but his hatred of the Council ran a close second. I could only hope that once they all saw the truth of what was coming through the veil, they’d be shocked into action for long enough to do what needed to be done.

  “What’s the state of the Council?” I pressed.

  He brightened. “Armaeus’s plan is working. We got the Hierophant out of his Tower long enough to get the information the Magician needed about the House of Wands, and so far, Michael has hung around in plain sight. As we speak, Eshe, Viktor, and Nikolai are all petitioning Hera for information on how to supplement their own abilities, and they fully believe that resecuring the veil will help with that. Armaeus and
Kreios are working on the transport logistics to get most of them to London now. We’ll be on-site when the magic starts to happen, but not much before. He doesn’t want anyone to get distracted.”

  “Fair enough.” Now Nikki was staring at me openly. This was also part of Rangi’s suggested plan that he’d explained to me but no one else. I’d debated on not letting Nikki know until it happened, but this business with Interpol had me looking over my shoulder. I needed to keep all my bases covered, which meant Nikki needed to know everything I did.

  Almost everything, anyway. “We’ll see you there?”

  He winked at me from the monitor. “Not if we see you first.”

  The screens went dead, and Nikki picked up her phone, stashing it in her pocket. She tossed a second one to me. I caught it. It was new.

  “Keep it on you,” she said. We moved into the hallway, and she drew close to me. “Anything else you need to let me in on before we start the dog and pony?”

  “I need you to keep me on point when the storm hits. Don’t let me stop until the veil holds. I may not actually be able to see what’s happening, based on where I’ll be standing.” Not quite the truth, but close enough. “You’ll have to be my eyes and ears.”

  “Of course,” Nikki said staunchly, then we were through the door to meet with the first joint assembly of the Houses of Magic since the fall of Atlantis.

  And it was chaos.

  In the room was a table of four equal sides, three of which were not so much occupied as dominated by perhaps the motliest look of Defenders of the Planet in the history of…ever.

  Mercault would have looked resplendent in his perfectly tailored dove-gray suit with matching cravat over a snowy white shirt, but his round face was pale and damp with sweat. He clasped and unclasped his hands nervously as he stared from Gamon to Rangi, clearly trying to decide which one to support.

  Rangi and Gamon had no concern for anyone but each other, which struck me as immediately suspicious, since they’d met only five minutes earlier. And yet as usual, Rangi was more than happy to hold forth with his opinions on Gamon.