We started up the muddy drive. Of course I knew the answer to my own question: the sorcerer summoned predators, so he was top of the hit list. At least, that’s how I saw it.
I was surprised that no one had strung police tape across the drive. I’d heard Steve call the state cops, although I was a little fuzzy on what he’d said. Still, considering what had happened, the National Guard should have been marching through.
Instead, there was only us.
I didn’t care about Yin or his people. They were assholes. I did care about that housekeeper. She’d been murdered right in front of my eyes, and there was no one but me to make that right.
But this was a problem. I was the one who needed to believe the person I was going after was a murderer or worse. I was the one who needed more than “knows magic” as a reason to kill someone.
That wasn’t the job I had come here to do. I wasn’t here to kill a murderer; I was here to kill a sorcerer. Knowing he had killed, too, made this one job easier for me. But the next time—
“Your mind is clear, right?” Annalise asked.
“Absolutely.” I forced myself to imagine the cabin and the land around it. I still wasn’t sure Merpati was being straight with us about Zahn staying there. Somehow, I didn’t think he was bedding down in the ski aisle.
I walked along the center of the path where the ground was relatively dry. All I could hear was the sound of my breathing, the wind rustling the trees, and our squelching footsteps. We were almost at the top of the drive when fat, wet snowflakes began to fall.
The BMWs and the Maybach were still in place. I kept low while I headed toward Yin’s cars, leaving Annalise to slip into the underbrush.
The snowflakes melted on contact with the cabin windows, distorting the view inside, but I wasn’t interested in the cabin. The second car had a strip of gray cloth hanging out of the trunk. I was certain it hadn’t been there when I’d passed through last night.
The key for this car was probably on one of the dead gunmen. Assuming they were still inside, there was no way I was going to search them all unless I had to. And I didn’t. I slid the ghost knife back and forth until it cut the latch. The trunk opened.
I loved my little spell.
Inside, I found empty halogen floodlight packages along with a car battery wired to an AC adapter and a three-pronged plug.
It had to be part of a carrier for the sapphire dog. The real question was simple: Where was the cage itself? I hoped Steve didn’t have it. He’d be tempted to use it, and nothing good would come of that.
Or did Issler—I had to get used to thinking of Tattoo by that name—and Zahn have it? More important, were they still here, and could we kill them in their sleep?
I backed away from the trunk. It couldn’t be closed again, so I left it up. That was a good thing, though. I was the wooden man. It was my job to draw attention to myself so Annalise could attack from behind.
I strolled back to the cars and the front of the cabin, doing my best to fake a casual calm I didn’t feel. Issler might be aiming a gun at me from one of those darkened windows, or Zahn might have sent him to fetch the lightning rod.
Or maybe they were sitting in the back office playing cards. Why didn’t I ever imagine good things?
I stepped up onto the wooden porch and tried the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. It swung inward, letting sunlight into the darkened store.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The smell had gotten worse—the door and windows had been shut for hours, letting the stink of blood, shit, and spoiling meat seep into everything. I flicked on the light switch by the door and saw that the bodies were still there. Steve had pulled camping blankets off the shelves to cover them, but no one had come to take them away.
What the hell did it take to get help in this town?
I looked around. Zahn and Issler were not napping among the dead. I went into the office. The interesting goosenecked lamp was on, which was strange, but there was no one there. I went out the back door and flicked on the porch light. Yin was covered with a heavy tarp weighted down at the edges with skis.
I shooed away the crows that were trying to get under there, and if the squawking they gave me didn’t draw enemy fire, there was no fire to be drawn.
Annalise came out of the underbrush. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I answered.
She stepped up onto the porch. “You came through the building pretty quickly. You checked the second floor, too?”
“There is no second floor,” I said.
She gave me a funny look and went into the office. “What do you call that?” She pointed at the wall.
“A wall.” If it had been anyone else, I would have thought she was joking. She gave me a funny look again, then her brow smoothed as if she’d had an idea. She went to the wall.
Whatever. The light over the desk was still on, which I still thought was strange. Something about the light was—
Wood cracked and splintered. I spun around, startled, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off me.
Annalise was standing beside a flight of wooden stairs. She pointed at the broken bottom step. Black steam fizzed out of it. “See that sigil?” I looked at it, although every time I did, I felt an unbearable urge to look away. The urge grew less and less powerful as the magic drained out of it, and I felt much less fascinated by the very ordinary desk lamp across the room. My iron gate ached.
“Oh, crap.” I rubbed my face. Issler could have shot me from that step, and I wouldn’t have seen it coming.
“These are on the roads in and out of town,” Annalise said. “No one leaves and no one comes in, and they all think it’s their own idea. Let’s go.”
I followed her up the creaking steps. She reached under her jacket and took out a green ribbon.
There was a yellow door at the top of the stairs. She pushed it open and went inside.
I followed her into a small living space. To the right was a kitchen that was little more than a dent in the wall and an open door that led to a bathroom. To the left was a chair and three mattresses on the floor. Blankets were bunched in the corner, but there were no suitcases or clothes nearby. A threadbare couch sat beneath the far window.
“Pretty spartan,” Annalise said.
“Boss, could they still be here? Could they be watching us from a corner where we can’t see them?”
“Yes,” she answered. Then she sighed. “I think they’re gone. There’s no luggage, no vehicle out front. They might come back, but—”
“What’s that?” I led her toward the kitchen. Beside the sink was a heavy tarp wrapped around something big. I peeled it back, expecting to find another body. It was just an oven.
Someone had bent the seal on the metal door so it would close over a thick black electrical cable. Light shone out through the dirty window on the oven door. An electric hum made the floorboards vibrate.
“What the hell have they done here?” Annalise asked. With one hand, she shifted the fridge to the side. It was unplugged; the heavy black cable had been plugged into that socket. Someone had put a powerful light—or several powerful lights—into the oven. I peered through the oven window, trying to see inside. It was no use. Then I remembered the halogen-lamp packages out in the car.
“The cage the sapphire dog was kept in for all those years was ringed with lights,” I said.
She knelt and peered at the gaps in the door. She didn’t have to ask the next question: Was the sapphire dog in there right now? She set her scrap lumber on the stovetop. The sigil on it twisted and writhed like an orgy of snakes. Whatever was inside, it was magic.
“Take the handle,” Annalise said. “Don’t open it until I say go.”
I stepped around her and stood by the stove but kept my hands at my sides. She reached under her jacket and took out two more green ribbons. She closed her eyes.
I wondered if Catherine had told her everything about the sapphire dog, and whether I had told Catherine everything.
Did she know it could pass through solid objects? Did she know about its tongue?
Annalise opened her eyes and nodded to me. I laid my hand on the handle. It was warm to the touch, but—
“Go!”
I yanked the door open and jumped back. The electric hum immediately stopped. The connection had been broken, but the light from inside didn’t shut off. There were no halogen lights, but the oven seemed to be full of light anyway. At the bottom, I saw the blackened silhouette of a tiny rib cage and a human skull.
This wasn’t the sapphire dog at all.
The churning light floated toward me just as Annalise threw her three green ribbons. The ribbons burst into flame—the same weird green hissing fire that I had seen her use to burn people down to their bones. I was already backing away.
The floating storm emerged from the wall of green fire, gases trailing behind it. Annalise said something, a curse, I think, and began throwing more ribbons.
Another billow of green flame struck the predator, then a brown ribbon flashed and the white-hot churning core of gasses I thought of as its face suddenly pointed the other way, moving toward the kitchen. Beams of blue light burst from a handful of thrown ribbons, some of them impaling the creature, all linking together to form a lattice. But the floating storm moved right through them, turning back to us.
Annalise’s face was grim as she reached under her vest for another ribbon. The predator was closing in on her.
The stairs were right behind me. I could have sprinted down to the back door and been out on the road in three minutes. I knew the predator couldn’t catch me out on the asphalt. But I couldn’t leave Annalise. I was her wooden man, and this predator needed to be destroyed.
The pipes leading through the roof down to the sink told me where the water tank was. But I’d missed my chance. The predator was already too far away from it to replay the water-sprinkler trick.
An old set of skis and poles stood in the corner. The poles were pitted and crooked, but they were made of aluminum. I grabbed one and ran across the room.
Annalise had stopped throwing spells at the creature. She grabbed a mattress off the floor and heaved it. The fabric was already burning when it struck the floating storm, but it had no more effect than it would on a column of smoke. Pieces of mattress fell into the corner and set fire to the wall.
I threw the aluminum pole like a spear. It flew crookedly, striking the predator at an angle. That weird red lightning played along the pole’s length as it passed through. Arcs jumped to other objects nearby, including the metal nails in the couch. The couch started burning.
The ski pole hit the floor, still sparking. The floating storm turned toward me. I backpedaled, drawing it away from Annalise as I went for the other ski pole.
Annalise picked up the burning couch and threw it. I think she was trying to kill the predator by breaking up the swirl of gases at its center, but all she managed to do was fan them out, set a new fire, and delay the thing for the few seconds it needed to pull itself back together.
I grabbed the other ski pole off the floor and, with two cuts from my ghost knife, shaved the end to a sharp point.
It was nearly on me. “Take this!” I shouted, and threw the pole through the predator. It sparked just like the other one did, shrinking the floating storm slightly. But not enough to kill it.
I backed toward the steps, the predator moving closer to me. Swirls of orange, yellow, and red curled around one another in sudden spirals and breaking wave fronts. It was like watching a half dozen small hurricanes collide in slow motion. In its own way, this thing was beautiful, too.
It passed over the burning couch, and now there was nothing between it and me. I backed down the stairs, well aware of what would happen if it got above me.
I hoped Annalise understood what I was doing.
Just as the predator moved into the stairwell, the ski pole shot through it and wedged into the wood paneling.
The floating storm froze in place. Red lightning flashed off it, draining into the wall studs. The paneling caught fire.
I bounded down the steps. The wall beside me groaned and the glass in the back door shattered. I turned away from the door and ran to the main part of the store.
There was a sudden, deafening blast from above. Hot air struck me from behind, followed a bare instant later by pieces of broken wood. I sprawled forward onto the trembling floor, feeling something huge and heavy land on my back. For a moment, I thought the terrible pressure of it wouldn’t stop until my back was broken.
For once, I wasn’t afraid. I pulled my knees under me and struggled to my feet, gratified that I still could. Firelight shone from behind me. I staggered toward the door but tripped over one of Yin’s men.
My balance was shot and my ears were ringing. I stood anyway and looked back at the office. A section of the wall was missing, and everything was on fire. I could see fire upstairs through holes in the floor. I stripped off my jacket, but it wasn’t burning.
The floating storm did not come through the doorway after me. I breathed a heavy sigh and leaned against a rack of winter coats. I needed to get out of this building, but for the moment, I didn’t trust myself to cross the room without help. My head was still swimming and my skin felt scalded. I tried moving my arms and back—my ribs hurt, but I didn’t think anything had been broken. Lucky.
Another explosion shattered the windows. This one sounded different from the one in the stairwell, but my ears were still ringing. I saw a sudden flare of light and stumbled toward the office.
I couldn’t enter, but I could see into the backyard through a gap in the wall. Annalise was out there, and she was on fire. Another explosion struck the ground at her feet, and she was thrown back into the bushes. The cabin rattled with the blast.
The floating storm didn’t attack like that. I ran to a side window.
Issler stood in the falling snowflakes. He held something that looked like a massive, two-handed revolver. As I reached for my ghost knife I heard him shoot it—foof!—and another blast of firelight erupted from the back of the house. He was smiling.
He didn’t see me as he started toward the backyard. I threw my ghost knife at him.
The spell didn’t go where I wanted it to go. It had never missed before, but it turned away from him just as I had turned away from the stairs in the office.
At the last moment, I willed it toward his weapon instead.
The ghost knife cut through the top of the barrel just before he squeezed the trigger. The gun burst apart in his hands, fire flashing over his face and neck. He screamed.
I turned and staggered toward the front door. Firelight shone down at me from the ceiling. The cabin groaned as if it was about to collapse. I yanked the door inward, feeling it scrape against the floor, and sprinted into the yard. The men inside would be getting a Viking funeral soon.
I reached for my ghost knife again. It was almost too far, but it came.
I held it ready to throw as I came around the barbecue pit, but it wasn’t necessary. About fifteen feet away, Issler was kneeling in the dirt, squealing and grunting from the pain. With one hand he smeared mud into his left eye, and with his other he dug inside his mouth. I could hear meat sizzling.
I wondered if the ghost knife could hit him if I held it in my hand rather than throwing it. There was only one way to find out. I started toward him.
Suddenly, the shadows around us slid across the ground. The floating storm came over the top of the cabin and moved down toward Issler. It was small—no larger than a cantaloupe—but if it fed, it would get bigger.
I still had the gun in my pocket, but it was useless. I pressed my ghost knife to my lips. I didn’t know what would happen to me if it was destroyed inside the floating storm, but I might have to chance it.
The only thing nearby was the barbecue pit and the stainless steel gas grill. I cut through the gas hose and dragged the tank out of the bottom. I couldn’t tell if it was full or empty, and at the moment I di
dn’t care. It was metal and it was handy.
But I was too slow. The floating storm was already directly above Issler and moving downward.
The tank snagged on something. I tugged and twisted it, trying to tear it free. It wouldn’t come.
The floating storm was close enough to Issler that he could have reached up and touched it.
Red lightning never struck. The predator floated above him, swaying back and forth as though trying to find a way in. Maybe it was having the same trouble my ghost knife had had.
I shook the tank, making a horrendously loud noise but finally freeing it. The predator floated toward me.
I swung the tank once in a wide-armed circle and heaved it. It struck the floating storm dead center. I wished the propane had blown up like a bomb, but that didn’t happen. I had to be satisfied with a couple of sparks and a slight delay in the chase.
Damn. Annalise was nowhere in sight, and I had no one to help me. For all I knew, she was dead in the bushes back there.
But that didn’t mean I was out of ideas. Getting inside one of the cars out front would protect me from real lightning, and now seemed like a good time to try it against magic. I didn’t know what I’d do after that, but maybe I’d have a chance for my head to stop spinning.
I ran to the front of the building. The firelight was bright and the heat was raw against the side of my face. Wood cracked and crashed somewhere nearby, followed by a roar of flame. The front wall of the cabin trembled and leaned toward me.
“Ray!”
That was Annalise’s voice. I stopped and looked for her, letting the predator get uncomfortably close. I saw her silhouette waving at me from the far side of the cabin.
I angled back toward her and the heat. The little floating storm followed at about shoulder height. I could have sworn that it was having trouble staying in the air.
The wind changed, choking me with a gust of black smoke. I gave a wide berth to the porch, even though the fire hadn’t reached there. The flames were flickering along the outside of the wall, slowly spreading downward.
I rounded the corner with tears streaming down my face and nearly ran headlong into Annalise. I dodged to the side as she stepped forward, and I could only catch a glimpse of the thing she was holding over her head as she tipped it over and slammed it onto the ground.
Game of Cages Page 26