Gods and Demons

by BR Kingsolver

  Isabella stared at me for a few moments, then turned her attention back to the mage who was attacking us.

  “You asked earlier about Abner Wilcox,” Isabella said. “That is Abner Wilcox.”

  “Why is he being so nasty?” I asked. “And who in the hell is he? I mean, besides being Abner Wilcox. What’s an Abner Wilcox?”

  The mage stood less than ten feet in front of us, and I was sure he could hear our conversation. He turned so red in the face that I was afraid he might have a stroke.

  “A mage and anthropologist,” Isabella replied. “Doctor Abner Wilcox, PhD, University of Chicago. An academic rival to Carleton Weber, the man who looted the statue from Palenque.”

  “Why are there so many professors involved with this blood-magic artifact?” I asked. “Are all you people crazy?”

  Isabella surprised me by laughing out loud. “Yes, I guess we are. Abner,” she called to him, “you’re making a fool of yourself, and if you don’t stop scaring this young lady, she’s likely to kill you the first chance she gets. Assuming I don’t get to you first. Don’t you think you should cut your losses before the police and the PCU get here?”

  He snarled at us. “This isn’t over.”

  Isabella snarled back, and he wet his pants. I almost wet my pants. The lady was spectacularly intimidating when she wanted to be.

  Doctor Abner Wilcox turned and ran. Looking around, I saw my car idling next to the curb. The valets had fled along with everyone else.

  Picking up Isabella’s duffle bag, I dissolved the ward around us and said, “Shall we go before the police and the PCU get here?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, slinging the smaller backpack over her shoulder and picking up the larger one.

  I opened the trunk, we threw her luggage inside, then jumped in the car. As we pulled away, we could hear sirens.

  We unloaded Isabella’s luggage and put it in the laundry room of my cottage, then I said, “I’ve been in this realm about seventy years, but I haven’t had much interaction with your magic users. Is this Doctor Wilcox considered to be competent?”

  Isabella laughed. “Actually, he is fairly well known, both as an academic and as a mage. I take it that you weren’t impressed.”

  “That was a pretty loud spell he used to try and break my protection, and it didn’t do anything at all. My friend Carolyn was much stronger than he is, and she didn’t go around calling herself a master magician.”

  “Really? Maybe she could help us find the statue,” Isabella said.

  “Ah, no, that isn’t possible. She died a few years ago.”

  I showed Isabella the bathroom and the laundry, which was a room off the business office. She seemed very interested in the grounds and expressed surprise at the pond, which covered almost an acre.

  “I’m rather amazed that you have such a large lake here,” Isabella said.

  “It allows me to grow aquatic plants,” I told her. “A lot of clients want koi ponds or waterfalls. I can raise my own plants instead of buying them, and I can experiment with varieties to find those that do best in this climate.”

  “Where does the water come from?” she asked.

  I chuckled. “They drained a swamp to build Washington, D.C. It didn’t take much effort to find an underground spring and redirect it to surface here. My water bills are nonexistent.”

  “I just can’t get over what you’ve got here,” Isabella said. “Right in the middle of the city.” She gestured toward one of the oak trees. “Those trees at the four corners of your property. What was here before?”

  “Vacant land. It’s not exactly in the middle of the city, more like on the edge. Or it was when I bought the place from a developer. He planned to build houses here, but he ran into money difficulties. I planted the oaks.”

  She frowned. “I would have sworn those trees were hundreds of years old. They’re huge.”

  “Elven magic,” I said and grinned at her. “They provide very solid anchors for my wards.”

  Isabella craned her neck as she looked up at the oak nearest to us. “You said you came here seventy years ago, but you bought the place fifty-six years ago.”

  “I arrived in Germany. From there, I made my way to England and Ireland, then to New York. I spoke German with an Elvish accent, and English with a German accent. In the late forties, a great many people were uprooted without papers to prove who they were. I worked and saved my money. You know, for a large city, this one is more transient than anywhere else. The government changes on a regular basis. People move away, people move in. I’ve redesigned the landscaping at one house near Rock Creek Park seven times for seven different residents.”

  “And being transient, people don’t notice how permanent you are,” Isabella said.

  “I don’t encourage close friendships. Probably the closest people to me are those who work for me.”

  “There are other Elves in the world.”

  I shrugged. “Now there are. Up until two years ago, there were very few of us. Those in Iceland and Colorado and New Zealand came from Alfheim. The Irish Elves came from Midgard. Most are noble refugees with their families and servants. I’m not of the nobility, and I have no desire to become a servant.”

  “Refugees?”

  “Yes, there is war in Alfheim, and I suppose in Midgard as well. I’ve seen war, and I don’t wish to see it again. I got excited when a lot of Elves came to this realm, but I’ve been here so long, I don’t really have much in common with them anymore.”

  That evening, I watched Isabella change—the air rippled and a jaguar stood where a woman had been a moment before. She climbed my oak as easily as I would climb the three steps to my porch. She disappeared into the foliage, her rosettes breaking up her outline and providing camouflage.

  I sighed and went inside the cottage, poured myself a glass of wine, took a long, hot bath, and went to bed.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, I dropped Isabella off at a rental car agency, then went out to a prospective client’s house in Fairfax County. It was a newly-built home with a lot of dirt, and judging from the size of the place, the client had a lot of money. I spent the morning brainstorming ideas with the lady of the house and told her I would email her some mockups in a couple of days.

  I stopped by a café for lunch and planned on going by the new client in Chevy Chase for final approval of the plans and mockups I’d done for her. That’s when my phone rang, and all of my plans for the day went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

  “Kellana!” Abbie Collins, one of the girls who worked for me, practically screamed in my ear. “Someone stole Sam!”

  “Quieter,” I said. “What do you mean, ‘someone stole Sam’?” Samantha Watson, or simply Sam, also worked for me. The two women and three men formed a crew that had gone out to Bethesda that morning to do routine maintenance at two office complexes.

  “They kidnapped her! Josh tried to stop them, and they beat him up.” Abbie was clearly upset and half crying.

  “Where are you?”

  “Milton Corporation.”

  “Has anyone called the cops?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Tommy is calling them. I think Josh needs to go to the hospital. Oh, my God, Kellana, he’s bleeding! They beat the holy shit out of him. Why? Why did they do that?”

  “Abbie, try to stay calm. What did the men who kidnapped Sam look like?”

  “Big guys. Business suits. They were driving the weirdest car. A black Mercedes with a pink interior.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to think. And then it hit me. Sam had been so proud when she showed up at work with green hair a few days before. The same shade of green as mine. She was also tall, though not nearly as tall as I was, and naturally blonde and fair skinned.

  “We’ll find her, Abbie. You guys take care of Josh and cooperate with the police, okay? I have to make some calls.”

  I hung up and called Isabella. As soon as she answered, I said, “Those damned Werewolves that were stalkin
g me kidnapped one of my employees and beat up another one. I need to have a little talk with a guy named Harold Vance, and I need some backup.”

  “Who’s Harold Vance?”

  “He’s a Werewolf syndicate bigwig.”

  “Crap. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  “At the nursery.”

  I called Maurine and Ed to let them know what had happened. Maurine said she’d take care of Josh and the hospital. I sent Ed to Milton to take care of the rest of the crew. Then I stopped by the Georgetown house to change clothes and add a few wolfsbane paintballs to my arsenal.

  Isabella was waiting for me when I pulled into the nursery. We left the car and took one of the service trucks. If I had to run into anything, I wanted solid steel bumpers, not the plastic things on my Honda.

  “Why do you think they kidnapped her?” Isabella asked as I negotiated traffic on our way to the Beltway.

  “She dyed her hair green.”

  “Oh. Obviously not the correct fashion decision.”

  “No, but she couldn’t have known it would make her a target, and I didn’t even think about it. I was just happy when punk rockers started using colors in the eighties, and I could stop dying my hair.”

  “So, where are we going?”

  I was still thinking about that. Vance owned a number of businesses and was reputed to run them all from a strip joint in Largo, outside of the District near the football stadium. His home was closer, an estate-sized place in north Silver Spring.

  “How much do you know about Werewolves?” I asked Isabella. “Would a Were be at his strip club business in the middle of the day, or at his home, frisking around the swimming pool with his harem?”

  “Interesting question. Which one is closer?”

  “His home.”

  She shrugged. “Let’s go there first. If he isn’t there, then we haven’t lost any time. Do you know where it is?”

  I grinned. “I have a contract to do the grounds maintenance. I probably won’t after today, but I know the setup like the back of my hand.”

  While we drove, I filled Isabella in. Vance’s place covered about two and a half acres, surrounded by a ten-foot brick wall. About an acre was covered in forest, the rest was mostly lawn. The area around DC was overrun with deer, and Vance had a gate in the back wall that he usually left open to encourage the deer to come inside the wall, where he and his pack usually ate them.

  “Is ten feet too high for you?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Not at all. You?”

  “Not a problem.”

  I parked down the road from Vance’s front gate, which was open. I could see a couple of men through the window of a small gatehouse just inside the wall. I didn’t intend to go through the gate, though.

  Isabella watched me load my two paintball guns and strap on my sword.

  “What’s in the paintballs?” she asked.

  “A sleepy-gas spell in the red ones. The silver ones are a wolfsbane potion. Lethal to humans as well as wolves if they ingest it. The potion is geared toward Werewolves, though.”

  For the first time, I wondered if Isabella could be harmed. Common wisdom was that Gods and Archdemons were immortal. “Can you be killed?”

  “I don’t know. I assume so,” she answered with a lopsided grin, “but no one has managed it yet. I definitely bleed and hurt, and I wouldn’t want to try your little potion. But if we can talk the locals into shifting instead of using guns, then I’ll be just fine.”

  The way she said, ‘just fine’, made me shiver a little, and I remembered the Weres in the alley the night we met.

  We walked up to the wall, about fifty yards from the road. I hopped up on top of the wall and looked around. A jaguar landed next to me but stayed only a few seconds before leaping to the ground below.

  A number of people and wolves lounged around the pool in the back of the house fifty yards away. Several children and puppies splashed in the water. I didn’t see Vance, but I did see his wife lying on a lawn chair in a bikini. For a brief moment, I wondered if Werewolves got skin cancer.

  I took my bow out of my bag, slung the quiver over my shoulder and pulled an arrow from it. I wanted to get their attention, but not hurt anyone. I finally found a target, drew and loosed. The arrow made a satisfyingly loud ‘thunk’ as its head buried itself in the beer cooler.

  All sound ceased. Everyone looked around, trying to figure out where the arrow came from. Then one of the kids shouted and pointed at me.

  My second arrow broke a glass sitting on a table next to Vance’s wife. Things got very quiet again.

  “I’m looking for Harold Vance,” I yelled. “He kidnapped one of my employees, and I want her back. Tell him I’m out here.”

  Several of the wolves started in my direction, and I saw several of the people begin to shift. One man pulled a pistol from a shoulder holster. My third arrow hit him below the collarbone just inside the point of his shoulder. The pistol clattered onto the ground.

  Everyone was staring at me, but about that time the first wolf realized that a large cat was standing in his way. He barked. Isabella roared. All the children started crying, and all the puppies either hid under something or ran in the opposite direction. The adult wolves froze.

  “Where is Harold Vance?” I shouted.

  “He’s not here,” his wife shouted back.

  My fourth arrow impaled the cushion of the chair between her legs. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  She stared at the arrow quivering in front of her. Her mouth worked, but only a croak and an incoherent whimper emerged.

  “He’s at the club,” a man called.

  “Tell him to stay right there,” I said. “And tell him if he hurts the girl, I’m coming back here when I finish with him.” Isabella leaped to the top of the wall, turned, and let out another roar.

  We jumped down from the wall and sprinted toward the pickup. I felt a faint sense of regret that I hadn’t recovered my arrows. It took almost a day to make each one.

  When we reached the truck, Isabella changed to her human form, then opened the door and jumped in. I started the engine and whipped a U-turn.

  “They’ll be waiting for us,” Isabella said.

  “And if Vance has any sense, Samantha will be waiting for us outside his club,” I said, then sighed. “Probably not. A lot of the Weres and Vampires were born here. Their ancestors crossed through the veils centuries ago, and their children have no sense of history.”

  Her brow furrowed and she gave me a searching look. “I’m not sure I get your point.”

  “Until a couple of thousand years ago, Elves used the realms near Earth—among them Transvyl and Were—as sport-hunting grounds. We’ve become a bit more civilized since then, but people who grew up in those realms would be far less likely to piss off an Elf.”

  Humans inhabited almost all the realms. I had grown up with them in Midgard, so I knew their limitations and their strengths. But the Weres and Vampires I had met tended to look at Humans as prey which was a dangerous assumption. Humans and Elves looked alike and could interbreed, so often non-Humans thought of us as a type of Human, and therefore a type of prey. That kind of thinking often proved fatal.

  I parked four blocks from Vance’s club, The Wolves’ Den, and we took to the shadows. I was surprised at Isabella’s dexterity and flexibility. She was at least a foot shorter than I was, but she outweighed me. She also kept up with me when I scaled a building, leaped from roof to roof, crossed a highway, and slipped through a grove of trees. From the shelter of the trees, we peered across the road to the club sitting at one end of a small strip mall. Next to the strip club was a liquor store, then a sex shop with a peep show, and then a gas station with a convenience store.

  “I don’t see a green-haired girl standing out front,” Isabella said.

  “Yeah. So much for wishful thinking.”

  “So, what’s plan B?”

  “I walk in and get her,” I said. “You wait outside, and if it soun
ds like things are going badly, shift and come in after us.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not.” I turned toward her. “Look, Isabella, they want me because of my association with you. It makes absolutely no sense for you to go in there.”

  “Yes, but they were willing to kidnap you, and now you’re just going to walk in?”

  I smiled. “I can’t cast a glamour on you, but it’s something any Elf can do to themselves.”

  The light went on, and a smile grew on her face.

  Donning a glamour that gave me Ed’s appearance, I crossed the road. As I pulled the door open, I looked back and saw Isabella trot across the road, angling to the side of the club. When I stepped inside, I released the glamour and shrunk down to my smaller size. Hugging the shadows, I inched my way around the room.

  A dancer with a bored look on her face strutted around on the stage accompanied by loud rock music. Fewer than twenty customers sat around a room that could hold two hundred. A bouncer sat at a table about twenty feet inside the room. He turned toward the door when it opened, but not seeing anyone, he turned back to watch the dancer. Beyond him, a bartender wiped the bar with a towel. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, watching the dancer and not what he was doing.

  I wasn’t much of a judge for such things, but I decided the girl on the stage was probably pretty. She had long legs and large breasts.

  The whole club smelled like the Mercedes—like dog.

  The building was two stories, but there wasn’t any staircase that I could see. Edging my way along the wall, I set my sights on a door at the back of the room with an ‘Employees Only’ sign on it.

  As I made my way forward, I noticed that all of the customers were keeping one eye on the front door. The bouncer and the bartender were also a lot more alert than they appeared at first. I wished that I’d set up a better signal for Isabella to crash the party. Too late. Technology such as cell phones didn’t work well when magic was twisting reality, and my shrinking and glamour were definitely not part of Earth’s normal reality.