Game of Cages

by Harry Connolly

  Steam blasted off it. The floating storm sank toward the ground and passed near the door on the left side. Sparks shot out of its body onto every metal object within ten feet—door handle, hinges, nails in the wood, even the still-glowing chains.

  A wave of flame billowed up the wall. The predator struck a pair of metal trash barrels, releasing the last of its life and energy in one sudden blast. I was knocked flat near the rear wall, my ears ringing. Aside from the flickering firelight of the burning doorway, the room was dark.

  The predator was dead.

  Flames climbed the walls on either side of the door, and even the trough was on fire. I wouldn’t be getting out that way. I couldn’t see Catherine anywhere.

  I hopped up onto a table saw and cut a circular slash in the wall above it with my ghost knife. The flames had already covered both side walls and had spread to the loose pine needles and sticky pitch on the ground. The sprinklers were not going to stop this fire.

  I pushed the cut section and jumped out, running far away from the building. My scalded skin cooled quickly in the night air, and I knew that soon my wet clothes would be stealing body heat.

  But I was alive. A predator had chased me halfway down a mountain, and I had survived.

  Catherine came around the edge of the building, giving it a wide berth. We jogged toward each other.

  “Thank you!” I said.

  “No one has come out of the farmhouse,” she said, ignoring me. Her expression was blank, but her hands were trembling. “Either they’re really deep sleepers or there’s no one home. Normally, I’d suggest we knock and ask for help, but since we just burned down their barn, I think we should get the hell out of here.” She was still all business.

  “Fine.” About fifty yards away, I could see a line of streetlights. We headed for it. She took out her cellphone, scowled at it, and put it away. No reception.

  “It looked bigger,” she said.

  “It was,” I said. “While I was leading it away, I came to a power line—one that led to the mansion up on the hill, I think. It fed from that before I could stop it.”

  She didn’t respond. The closer we got to the road, the stronger the wind became. I began to shiver.

  “We need to get out of this wind,” I said.

  “Good idea,” she snapped. “Let’s chop down some trees and build a log cabin.”

  We didn’t say anything else for a while.

  On the road, we came to a sign that read WASHAWAY 2 MILES. We headed in that direction, jogging along the shoulder. The wind was strong at my back.

  The road narrowed ahead, and the wide, gently sloping area where the trees had been planted gave way to steeper ground. People lived here, although we could only see their mailboxes and driveways.

  A pair of headlights came up behind us. Catherine moved to wave the car down, but I grabbed her elbow and pulled her to the drainage ditch. We crouched behind a tree, watching.

  Two black Yukons passed. Both had red-and-white cards in the front window. They were bidders, but which ones?

  “Don’t grab at me again,” she hissed.

  We kept going, moving more carefully now. We stayed off the road when we could and hid whenever we saw a pair of headlights. After about ten minutes, a fire truck came toward us from town, lights flashing. We ducked behind a thicket of blackberries just as it rounded the curve and drove by.

  We started walking again. I was shivering and my legs were chafed from the drying mud on my pants. My ears were burning cold, and I squeezed my hands in my armpits to keep them warm. Still, I felt elated. I’d faced a predator and survived. Again.

  I wanted to thank Catherine in a way that broke through her anger, but I couldn’t see a way to do it. She made a point of staying several paces ahead of me, and she didn’t want to chat. It was too bad, but it was her choice.

  Still, there were things we had to talk about. “Hey,” I called. “We need to get our story straight.”

  She was so used to working alone that it hadn’t even occurred to her. We settled on a rough carjacking narrative. The barn fire would be a problem; there was no way to deny that we’d passed the building at the time it burned, but what should we say? Catherine wanted to claim we hadn’t seen anything, but I’d never met a cop who would be satisfied with I don’t know a thing about it.

  In the end, I convinced her to say it had been fine when we passed it, but we’d looked back and seen the flames from down the road.

  Traffic began to flow out of town toward us. Morning was coming. My elation over our victory began to wear thin, and my morale dropped. Catherine and I stopped hiding from traffic, and eventually a battered pickup pulled up beside us.

  “What brings you folks out here?” the driver asked as she rolled down her window. She was in her sixties, with a thick head of wavy gray hair and a deep, no-nonsense voice.

  “My car was stolen,” Catherine said in a high, helpless voice. She had a personality for every occasion.

  “Out here?” She sounded skeptical. “What’d they look like?”

  “Like Chinese fellas,” Catherine answered.

  “If that don’t beat … Hold on. Lemme give you a ride into town.”

  She climbed out of the truck and grabbed a blue plastic tarp from the back. Catherine thanked her and said of course she wasn’t offended to be asked to sit on the tarp, considering how muddy she was, of course not. The driver asked me to hop in back with Chuckles, a sleepy Rottweiler. I looked Chuckles over carefully first; he wasn’t made of a blue streak and he wasn’t even a little beautiful. I decided he wasn’t Armand with a fake ID.

  The driver introduced herself as Karlene, then climbed behind the wheel and did a U-turn.

  Chuckles and I weren’t all that interested in each other. I watched the houses go by—big farmhouses with crooked foundations and peeling paint. We crossed a bridge over a narrow river, and the lots became smaller. More of the houses were decorated with Christmas lights and lawn displays. I slumped down out of the wind. Chuckles leaned against me.

  Eventually, we did another U-turn and stopped at the edge of a gravel path. Catherine opened her door, so I hopped out of the bed.

  “Chuckles keep you warm?” Karlene asked.

  “Other way around, I think.”

  “Hah! You have to watch out for him. There’s a motel way other side of town, but these people are nicer. You can shower and call the sheriff here. And I’m in a hurry, so tell them—wait a minute.” She glanced at a pickup driving down the street. “What’s Phil doing driving back into town so early? With an empty load? Anyway”—she turned back to us—“you folks take care.” She sped off.

  At the top of the path was a huge rambling farmhouse on a tiny lot. “One moment,” Catherine said. She took out her phone again and pressed the dial button. Then she held up a hand and moved far enough away that I couldn’t hear what she said. She spoke a few words, then shut the phone. I might have thought she was bad-mouthing me to the society, but her message wasn’t long enough.

  We walked onto the porch. The sign by the door said this was the SUNRISE BED AND BREAKFAST. Catherine rang the bell, and a slender woman of about fifty let us in. The warm, dry air burned my face and ears.

  The woman led us into a living room with a fire crackling in the fireplace and twinkly white lights on the mantel. Catherine told her we’d been carjacked.

  She sized up the situation quickly. “We’ve only got one room left.”

  “We’ll share, if we have to,” Catherine said with the brisk efficiency of an executive.

  “And no luggage, right?”

  “Not anymore, except for my bag.”

  “Would you like to borrow some things to wear until the stores open?”

  Catherine shook her head and looked at me. I almost said no out of habit. Then I looked down at my clothes. I wasn’t in Chino anymore. I could accept an offer of help. I said: “Yes, thank you,” but it was hard.

  She seemed to understand. “Don’t fret, hon.
Everyone needs help now and then.” She went through a door behind the counter, leaving us alone.

  Catherine turned to me. “We’re going to hole up here for a little while, but you’ll have to pay for it. They have my car, which means they know who I am and could trace my credit cards. They don’t know you, do they?”

  I took my MasterCard out of my wallet and handed it to her. My dirty hands made it sticky. “No, they don’t.”

  The owner returned from the back room with two short stacks of folded laundry. I held up my hands when she tried to give one to me. “Huh,” she said, then led me into the back.

  She explained that these were her private rooms and I wasn’t to come back here without her say-so. I told her that was fine with me, and she passed me off to a tall, heavy man with dull gray hair and a heavily weathered face. He was big enough to be a pro wrestler, if he had been thirty-five years younger and dosed with steroids.

  She left, shutting the door behind her. The man examined the side of my face for a moment, then began to unbutton my jacket. I tried to help, but my hands stuck to the fabric. They were still covered with pine pitch.

  “We’ll get them clean in a second.” He sounded like someone’s grandfather. He got my jacket off and I lathered up my hands. The mud rinsed right off but not the pitch. “It’s all right,” he said. He splashed a little bath oil on my hands, and that worked.

  I looked at my face in the mirror. “Shit,” I said. “He hit me pretty hard, didn’t he?”

  “I guess so,” Wrestler said. “But it’s no excuse for that kind of language.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You can take a shower in your room. Take the clothes—heck, you can keep them. They don’t fit me anymore.” He led me back into the living room.

  The woman returned with a receipt on a little black tray. I signed it and kept my copy. The place cost less than I had expected but more than I wanted to give up.

  Wrestler handed us keys. “Your room is upstairs on the right. Breakfast is served until eleven. Checkout’s eleven, too. If you need anything, just ask Nadia or me.”

  “Thanks.”

  He left. Catherine suggested I get a shower first, then come back down to meet her. I accepted.

  The room was pretty, with floral prints on the bedcovers and little wooden picture frames on the night table. The lampshades were edged with lace and the floor covered by a throw rug woven out of rags. Nadia and Pro Wrestler took pride in this place, but I would never feel comfortable here.

  My shower was quick and hot. Pro Wrestler’s clothes were a little too roomy, but the pants had a belt, so I was fine with it. There was even a cotton sweater in the stack. I wouldn’t have to put on my muddy flannel jacket again. After I rubbed the pitch off them, I transferred my wallet, keys, and ghost knife to the new clothes. Unfortunately, in all the excitement I’d lost my toothbrush.

  When I returned to the living room, Catherine was sitting by the fire, a little plate with a half-eaten bagel beside her. “All yours,” I said.

  “Ray,” she said. “Give me your key.”

  Was she kicking me out in the street? “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to take a shower and change. I can’t do that knowing you have a key.”

  I nodded and gave her the key. She took it carefully so our fingers wouldn’t touch.

  “Thank you. Don’t come upstairs.”

  I took her spot by the fire. It felt nice to sit. I’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours, and the last few had been way too exciting.

  The next thing I knew, someone was gently pushing my shoulder to wake me. I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep.

  “Hey there, son,” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to talk to you about last night.”

  I sat up straight and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “How long have I been out?”

  “I’m told it’s been about three hours.” I rubbed at my eyes again and got a good look at him.

  He was wearing a wool cap and a red plaid hunter’s jacket. He was small, a little older than Pro Wrestler, and he had a genial face that seemed used to smiling.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No,” he said and laughed a little. “Washaway is too small to have a police force, and the county sheriff has his hands full, apparently. My name is Steve Cardinal. I’m part of the neighborhood watch around here.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Not idle gossip,” he said, holding his hands up. “If there’s a criminal loose in town, we have an email list we need to notify so what happened to you won’t happen to anyone else. I’m not an officer of the court, just a citizen, but anything you tell us could be helpful.”

  What the hell. I told him the story Catherine and I had cooked up: We came upon a big BMW by the side of the road. When we slowed to ask if they needed help, they pointed guns at us and ordered us out of the car. One of them slugged me.

  While the two men were arguing in a foreign language, Catherine and I ran for it. They didn’t shoot at us or anything. We ran through a big iron gate, hoping to find a house. Instead, we saw another BMW and more men. We couldn’t go back, so we went cross-country.

  We followed a trail to a tree farm. No one answered at the house, so we went to the road and walked into town.

  It sounded fishy to me, but I told it straight, my voice flat from exhaustion. Cardinal asked what the men looked like, but he didn’t ask any cop questions, like Did anyone see you? or What time was that?

  Then he asked me why we were hiding along the side of the road when cars passed. I guessed we’d been seen sooner than I’d thought. I told him that we were afraid the guys in the BMWs would come back. In fact, one of the first cars we hid from was a BMW headed toward town.

  He didn’t like that, but he forced himself to smile. I gave him a description of the car. He said he’d ask folks to keep their eyes open.

  I wanted to ask about the fire, but curiosity is dangerous. Instead, I told him I was glad and let my eyelids sag. He took the hint.

  On his way to the door, I heard Nadia speak to him in a low, urgent tone. I couldn’t make out what she said, but he did his best to reassure her before he left.

  Nadia had a note for me from Catherine. She was going to sleep until at least eleven, and I shouldn’t bother her until then. The clock said it was only 10:45, which meant there would still be breakfast. I piled three scones and a mealy apple onto a tiny plate and carried a full coffee back to my chair by the fire.

  Once my belly was full, I got restless. I couldn’t stop thinking one thing: Where was the sapphire dog?

  We had taken on the floating storm, and now I was ready for the main event. I also needed to figure out what, if anything, to do about Tattoo, Frail, and the Old Man. They had killed someone to summon a predator, and that memory brought back clean, welcome anger. Someone needed to do something about that group, and I wanted it to be me.

  I did my best not to think about Regina, Ursula, Biker, and Kripke. They complicated things and I wanted simplicity. I grabbed another coffee and went to wake Catherine. We needed a strategy session.

  She answered the door on the second knock. She had changed into a pair of dark jeans and a black sweatshirt, which fit too well to be charity like mine. Her eyes were red. She’d been asleep, too.

  I felt awkward. “Can we talk about what we do next?”

  She stepped back to let me in.

  Catherine walked to the far side of the bed and started stuffing things into her bag. Her head hung down to hide her face, and her shoulders were hunched. She zipped the bag closed with a sudden, angry swipe of her arm. Then she wiped her face with her hand and sat by the window. She wouldn’t look at me.

  I guessed we weren’t going to jump into bed and celebrate last night’s victory.

  “I’m leaving now,” she said.

  I sat across from her. “We haven’t found the predator yet.”

  “I don’t find predators. I don’t kill them, either. I don
’t fight sorcerers and I don’t face down gunmen. I’m an investigator. My job is to confirm that something bad is going on, then contact the society. I give them enough information to get started, and I get out of their way. I shouldn’t even have gotten this damn job.”

  “You already sent the photos of the license plates?”

  “Yes. Even though most of those cars were rented, they’ll still be able to trace them. Pictures of the people would have been better, but that didn’t happen. Now we have a predator on the loose and a sorcerer summoning more. We need a peer to handle this. Maybe more than one.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Annalise was a peer. “Is Annalise coming?”

  Catherine gave me a careful look. “I don’t know who they’ll send.”

  My whole body grew warm. I wanted Annalise here with me. I needed her. She had power and she didn’t falter. Everything was simple for her. She would have dummy-slapped Ursula into next week, and I would have never even heard of a floating storm.

  Catherine said: “You should leave, too.”

  “What? Why?”

  “For a lot of reasons. You’re not trained for this. You have that one spell in your pocket and whatever is all over those tattoos of yours, but that’s it. Hell, we don’t even know what we’re facing.”

  “Regina Wilbur said it was a sapphire dog.”

  “She did?” Catherine seemed startled. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because a predator was trying to kill us,” I answered, which didn’t make a damn bit of sense. I should have told her everything in case she made it but I didn’t.

  Damn. She had asked me what I’d found out, and I’d answered Stuff. She was right. I wasn’t trained for this. “I should have, though. I’m sorry.”

  “Anything else?”

  I took a deep breath and told her everything that happened after we’d split up. When I finished, I asked her: “What’s a sapphire dog?”

  “I heard about one once. A … friend of mine said it was a beautiful creature that destroyed anyone who saw it. That’s all I know.”

  “Isn’t there a book or website or something? Shouldn’t there be a database or an encyclopedia with pictures and—”