Wisdom's Grave 01 - Sworn to the Night

by Craig Schaefer

  “Now what would ever make you think,” Nessa murmured, “that I have anything resembling a shred of mercy in my heart?”

  She strolled past her, leaving Savannah to die. She didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Somewhere along the line, the men’s victorious shouts had turned into howls of pain. Clinging to the edge of consciousness, Marie realized they weren’t stomping on her anymore. She groaned, forcing her head up, and stared bleary-eyed at the carnage.

  Owls swirled around the carousel like the winds of a tornado given talons and lethal intent. The last survivors of the Vandemere Lodge were swinging wildly at the birds as they dove and clawed and bit. Some men were on the ground, dead or dying, pecked bone glistening under ravaged, bloody flesh. One man stumbled past, shrieking himself hoarse. His eye sockets were ragged black pits.

  The last man fell. The last choking death rattle faded into silence.

  The owls departed, one by one or in small flocks, winging off into the dark. One took a long, slow turn around the carousel, flapping its wings in a farewell salute. They left her alone with the dead.

  Marie pushed herself to her feet. Even breathing hurt. At least she could walk. She leaned on a painted horse, then staggered to the carousel’s edge.

  Nessa emerged from the shadows. Somehow, despite it all, Marie found the strength to run to her. Nessa met her halfway. They held each other tight.

  “I’m supposed to be the one who saves you,” Marie whispered.

  Nessa pulled back, gazing at her in quiet awe, the faintest glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “You did,” Nessa told her.

  The storm broke. Light shone on the horizon, the first rays of dawn. Dawn, and the distant wail of police sirens.

  “Time for us to leave,” Nessa said. “We’re still fugitives, unfortunately, and…I don’t think we can come up with any acceptable explanation for what happened here tonight.”

  “We’re really doing this,” Marie said. “Running away.”

  “Together,” Nessa said.

  They had time for one last kiss.

  Sixty-Two

  Heavy, bare feet trod across the battlefield. They came to a stop beside the corpse of Savannah Cross.

  No. Not a corpse, even though her skin hung on her body like bloody rags. Her chest torn open, her rib cage splintered. The fingers of her left hand, stripped down to the bone, gave a tiny twitch. She stared up, with one eye and what little of a face she had left, and took deep, shuddering breaths. The last reserves of her magic wove a shimmering net around her, denying her the release of death. It wasn’t a kindness.

  Adam, the master of the Network, crouched down beside her. The big, bare-chested man furrowed his crude brow and shook his head.

  “Doctor,” he rumbled, “I send you on one tiny errand, and look what mischief you get up to.”

  His lips, too fat and wide for his face, curled into an ugly smile. Savannah’s torn mouth trembled. She was trying to speak.

  “Shh,” he said. “Save your strength. You know that the Network has no patience for failures. Still, you’ve done us great service in the past and I don’t want to seem ungrateful. So I had an idea.”

  He held up his hand. His beefy fist clenched a trio of syringes, each filled with black, bubbling tar. Savannah’s creation, pure and uncut.

  “Let’s leave it up to chance,” he said.

  Then he drove all three needles through her broken breastbone, straight into her heart. He pressed down on the plungers.

  Savannah arched her back and let out a strangled wheeze as the ink flooded her system. It glowed like black neon under her skin and raced through her veins. The pupil of her eye blew out, blossoming, driving all the color from her iris as it grew.

  “Sometimes,” Adam mused, “a taste of one’s own medicine is the best cure.”

  Her body was healing. Skin knitting itself, the new flesh mottled and gray. Ropy strands of ink congealed in the cracks of her exposed bones, resetting and adorning them like black gold.

  “And how do you feel, Dr. Cross? Still clinging to mathematical certainty? Do you remain devoted to your vision of a structured and rational universe?”

  She stared past him, fixed on some infinite plane.

  “I see…worlds,” she rasped.

  “Thanks to these women, these two mortal women, Dr. Cross, the Network’s investments in New York have been all but destroyed. We’ve lost years of progress, millions of dollars. Damage control is going to be a nightmare.”

  He loomed over her, leaning close.

  “I want them. You have full authority over Network resources for the duration of this operation. Find them. Capture them. Bring them to me. Don’t fail me, Doctor. You’ve been given a rare second chance. There won’t be a third.”

  * * *

  Helena tried to turn in her hospital bed. The handcuffs rattled, stopping her short. She kept forgetting she was cuffed to the side rails. Then it all came back to her, the sick realization of what she’d done, and what lay ahead for her, and she had to breathe slow until the wave of nausea passed.

  She wasn’t alone. She looked to the door, to the man with the forgettable face and the bland gray wool suit.

  “Helena Gorski.” He inclined his head. “My name is Mr. Smith, Esquire. I’ve been appointed as your attorney.”

  “I know what you are. I know who sent you.”

  He seemed almost apologetic as he approached her bed.

  “Then you know why I’m here.”

  She nodded, weak. “Tell me. My son…”

  “The Vandemere Lodge has been destroyed. They cannot harm him. Insofar as the Network goes, we see no reason to close your son’s account. He isn’t a loose end.”

  She closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome.”

  They fell into a companionable silence.

  “Well,” Helena said. “Do what you gotta do.”

  The tip of a needle bit into her arm. She felt herself convulse, heard the hospital machines shrill as she went into cardiac arrest, but there wasn’t any pain. She let go and tumbled into the darkness.

  * * *

  A desert sun rose over Nevada. Alton Roth sat behind his desk, staring at a pile of paperwork, not really reading a word. He had to come back to work eventually. There was nothing to keep him in New York. His boy was in the ground.

  Calypso leaned against Alton’s bookshelf, his arms folded. The tall, lean man gave him a discerning eye. “I smell some dangerous distractions floating around in that noggin of yours. You’ve got places to go and babies to kiss. Better focus up.”

  A sheet of paper crumpled in Roth’s trembling hand.

  “My son is dead. His murderers are out there, running loose, and you expect me to—”

  His intercom chimed.

  “Sir.” His receptionist’s tinny voice echoed from the speaker. “There’s a visitor here to see you. She says her name is Svetlana Tkachenko, from the Sunlight Bail Bond Agency? She’s not on your calendar.”

  Calypso checked his watch. “I figured you’d need a little encouragement. Don’t be a square, big daddy. Open up your heart and let her in.”

  Roth blinked. He tapped the intercom button. “Er, thank you, Norma. You can send her up to my office.”

  His visitor was a blonde goddess in black leather. Her sleek clothes hugged her curves like a second skin, and she wore her almost-ivory hair in a braid that dangled past her waistline. Her eyes were shrouded behind a pair of black Wayfarers. She gave Alton a hungry smile, her words dripping with a thick Russian accent.

  “This one is pleased to make your acquaintance, Senator Roth. It is always good to make new friends, especially in high places. This one’s mother has spoken well of you.”

  Alton looked between her and Calypso. “I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here.”

  “Get hip to this,” Calypso replied. “See, your daughter-in-law and her lady love are slated for a one-way ride to Cras
hville. I’m calling in a few favors on your behalf, so you can relax and concentrate on your work. As of about…oh, fifteen minutes ago, a contract on Vanessa and Marie went live, and it’s being circulated from New York City to the Frisco Bay.”

  “A contract?” Alton squinted at him. “You hired…what, bounty hunters? Hit men?”

  “A little of both.” Calypso nodded at the new arrival. “You can let your hair down and use your real name, baby. We’re all clued-in around here.”

  A cloud passed in front of the sun. All the light seemed to drain from the room, the window at Alton’s back going dark, as his visitor took off her sunglasses.

  Her eyes were swirling orbs of molten copper. Twin wisps of steam rose up, twining above her hair like the ghostly impression of jagged horns. Her grin grew wider, but now she had the teeth of a great white shark, the razor tips stained permanent crimson.

  “All hell will hound them,” she said, “all the way to their doom. But you may rest assured that this one will have the honor of the kill. Nyx does not fail.”

  Sixty-Three

  Tony had spent plenty of time in interview rooms. Usually, though, he was the one asking the questions.

  “And your last point of contact with your partner was…?” his interrogator asked.

  The hospital had cut him loose with a sling for his arm, a prescription for Tylenol 3, and an appointment at a rehab clinic. IAB had been on his heels ever since, trying to get to the bottom of his shoot-out with Helena. This time, though, the questions were coming from a higher authority. Special Agent Harmony Black had requested a few minutes of his time. The tone of her voice made it clear that refusal wasn’t an option.

  “As I said, I called her the night a warrant was issued for her arrest, asking her to turn herself in. This was done with the knowledge and approval of my captain—you know, I’m really feeling like I should have my union rep in here.”

  From the other side of the table, Harmony’s eyes bored a hole right through him.

  “You aren’t being accused of anything, Detective Fisher. We’re just trying to get the facts straight. Now, did Marie or Vanessa ever mention being in contact with a man named Daniel Faust?”

  Tony shook his head. “I only met Mrs. Roth once, and no. I don’t know who that is.”

  She opened an unlabeled folder and showed him a photograph. He knew the picture. The canvas in Vanessa’s workroom, the sketch of her and Marie—her in a cape of starry darkness, Marie dressed like a knight from one of her fantasy novels—in a tender embrace. Agent Black tapped the bottom of the sketch where three women, their forms indistinct and faceless, danced ecstatically around a bonfire.

  “Do you know who these women are?”

  “Answer something for me,” Tony said. “We’ve got a zoo full of mutilated bodies, and from the ones they managed to put back together, it looks like the vics were some of the most elite moneymen and financiers in New York City. Old money, new money, all kinds of money.”

  “Correct,” she said.

  “Then why isn’t it on every TV station? I checked the paper this morning. Nobody is reporting on what happened up there. I called the medical examiner, asking what his ruling is gonna be. He got ten shades of nervous and said he’s not supposed to talk about the Vandemere Zoo. He said if I was smart, I wouldn’t either.”

  Harmony stared at him across the table, silent for a moment. Appraising him.

  “You should take his advice,” she said.

  He looked in her eyes.

  “Agent Black…you’re not really an FBI agent, are you?”

  “Can I be blunt with you, Detective?”

  “That’s how I like it.”

  “Sometimes,” she said, “people make a wrong turn in life. They open a door that should have stayed closed. They hear a secret that should have stayed unspoken. And by no fault of their own, they find themselves in over their head, in a world they are not remotely prepared to face. I believe your partner made a wrong turn. Now, dealing with situations like this is my job. Sometimes I’m able to save people. To bring them back from that other world.”

  “And when you can’t?” Tony asked.

  “The best thing you can do right now,” she said, “is put everything that happened, and everything you may or may not have seen, out of your mind entirely. I’ve spoken with your internal-affairs department. Following a cursory psychological evaluation, you should have your badge and your gun back by the end of the week. Desk duty, until your arm heals, but you’ll be fully reinstated.”

  “Sounds like there’s an unspoken price tag on that gift. Something along the lines of ‘if you shut up and play nice.’”

  Harmony pushed her chair back and closed her folder. She tucked it under her arm as she stood.

  “If you heard it,” she told him, “I don’t need to say it.”

  * * *

  Tony’s next stop was Marie’s apartment. Janine met him at the door, heavy bags under her eyes. She pulled him into a gentle hug, careful of his sling, and waved him inside.

  “Just put on coffee, want some?” she asked. “I’ve been living on coffee since…since it all happened. Any news?”

  “Nothing. Marie’s in the wind and I’m getting stonewalled.”

  Janine trudged over to the kitchenette. She rummaged in the cupboard, bringing down two mismatched mugs. She frowned over her shoulder at him.

  “Stonewalled? Doesn’t everybody want to find her?”

  “Some seriously weird stuff is going on here. And I’ve pretty much been told by everyone from my captain to the feds that I should pipe down and forget I ever knew her.” He took a deep breath. “I’m calling bullshit on that. I’m still suspended for the time being, and seeing as I’ve got plenty of time on my hands…well, I’m going after her myself.”

  Coffee splashed over the lip of Janine’s mug. She turned to face him.

  “Going after her?”

  “She’s my partner.” Tony shrugged. “I know her better than anybody, except maybe you. So I’m gonna work the case. Marie is in trouble. More trouble than anybody can handle on their own. She needs my help.”

  “Our help.” She set the coffeepot down, looking wide awake now. “Give me ten minutes, I’ll pack a bag.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “You said it yourself, Tony. We’re her best friends. I can help. I want to help. Let me come with you.”

  “You aren’t a police officer,” he said.

  “And this week, you aren’t either. In fact, I have seniority here.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

  “You’re on suspension. I, on the other hand, am a veteran employee of the New York Public Library System. Which makes me a higher-ranking civil servant than you at the moment.”

  “Not sure that’s going to help us.” He shook his head. For the first time since the night Marie vanished, he had to smile a little. “But yeah. Sure, what the hell. Let’s do this.”

  “I’m useful!” She disappeared into her bedroom, calling out over her shoulder. “And you don’t have a weapon right now, so clearly I have to be the muscle on this team. I’m packing my stun gun.”

  “You…do know civilians aren’t allowed to own those, right?”

  She poked her head out of the bedroom.

  “Something you ought to know about me by now, Tony. I’m a dangerous woman. I do crimes.”

  “Probably something you should keep to yourself.”

  She disappeared again. “I’m also bringing my road-trip mix! I hope you like Journey.”

  Tony sighed. He wandered over to the doorway of Marie’s bedroom. He looked to her open dresser drawer. The suitcase, half-packed and abandoned. His gaze drifted to the print on the wall. He took in the image of the knight in green armor, standing alone with her lance as she prepared to battle the shadowy behemoth on the horizon.

  Partner, he thought, I don’t know what you got yourself into, but it sure looks like you’ve picked one hell of a fight. We’r
e coming. And when you need us, we’ll be there. That’s a promise.

  * * *

  Scottie Pierce paced his momentary home, an eight-by-eight holding cell. The cops had flooded the zoo, blocking every way out, and some local yokel caught him trying to staunch his bleeding in one of the old public toilets. He told them he was a victim. He’d lost three fingers, for Christ’s sake. They told him they needed to take him into custody until they got everything sorted out.

  He stood by the bars, looking up the short, empty hallway. “Better be calling my lawyer,” he shouted for the fifth time in the last hour.

  He wanted to get everything sorted out, too. No idea what had happened out there, but apparently his tactical retreat had saved his life. He was the sole survivor of the Vandemere Lodge.

  Just without his good hand. The stumps of his fingers, swaddled in gauze, stung almost as much as his wounded pride.

  The lights flickered. Then they died.

  “Hey,” he called out. He shook the door to his cell, making the bars clank. “Hey, you got a power outage back here—”

  The words died in his throat as a pale gray glow lit the cell at his back. He turned slowly.

  A woman in luminous rags crouched before him. Ashen bandages wrapped around her face like a mummy. Her hands were talons, mottled and gray with black, curving nails. They clutched at the air as she writhed from side to side. Her movements were sinuous. Chaotic. Organic. A dance with no steps and no music.

  “Scottie,” Savannah whispered. Her spine made clicking sounds as she rose to her full height, like dice rattling in a wooden box. “How nice to see you again.”

  He pressed his back to the bars.

  “Dr. Cross? I…I thought you were dead.”

  “I’m going on a hunt, Scottie.” Her arms swayed at her sides, the dangling shawls like the wings of a plague-stricken bird. “I want you to come, Scottie. I’m changing my methodology.”

  She edged closer to him. Her foot bones clicked.