“Perhaps these artifacts hold the key to that peace? You know, I believe they are Zep Tepi. Atlantean in origin. Such power the first race had in the dimension, power well beyond the Gods we know now.”
“Power always has a price.”
“So does peace,” Kerr countered. He sensed he was losing Hugh. “Anyway, such talk is only that. Talk. I fear our battle is long from over. In fact, I think it’s only going to pick up pace.”
Hugh remained silent.
“I have some intelligence we’ll need to act on shortly. How ready are the new cadre?”
“You handpicked the best for this strike team. Had I joined you in their selection I’d have made the same choices.”
The comment rankled Kerr. He’d kept this a secret from Hugh, not sure where his true loyalty would place. Raising this small band of dedicated warrior knights was akin to starting a private army. Kerr had successfully passed it off to Hugh as necessary given the depth of conspiracy. An added safety precaution. But the man had been put out that he had no chance to participate in the building of this particular team. Kerr, however, had his reasons for keeping Hugh in the dark.
“My mystic is locating an artifacts trafficker. Salazar visited this individual several times in the recent past. Once the location is determined, I want the trafficker brought in for questioning, several items of interest retrieved, and the base of operations wiped clean.”
“Sounds fairly routine. What’s the connection?”
“Ramon filed reports indicating that the retrieval teams turned up blanks at multiple junctures. I think he used his own mystic to identify this trafficker, and possibly met with him to obtain information regarding the stolen artifacts. The Spaniard isn’t as dumb as he plays, Hugh. Calling in Jack is a smoke screen. He wants us angry and off-guard. Even with your niece’s energy, Madden is a husk. I ensured he was burned to a crisp, so he’d never be a bother to the Covenant again. We need to see past the smoke and mirrors.”
The information didn’t faze Hugh. “When you’ve isolated the target location, and any other intel, send it my way and I’ll develop the mission specs. Until then, I’d like to return to the practice field. I have an army to train.”
“Of course.”
Hugh stalked out of the room with his usual air of unshakable command. He often reminded Kerr of a Warrior King, misplaced out of time. The old times, bloody though they were, saw the Gods in their proper place. Those that did not deserve worship were removed from the pantheon, taken out of play as the saying now went. Hugh would have fit in well.
* * *
Seth passed his hand above the black scrying sands, trying for more clarity. Again the Druid Kerr came into sharp focus. The old one was seated at his desk now, drinking water from a tall glass and staring into space. The knight was gone. What he’d seen, and worse, heard, left him sick. And close to panic. “So, what do you think?” he asked his newest partner-in-crime, Loki.
The Norse trickster sat back on his heels and cursed in his native tongue. “How’d you discover the properties in this cave? Kerr’s stronghold is more protected than a pocket dimension. You saw into it as clear as if you looked through his bedroom window.”
“I think there was an Atlantean holy site in this cave. I discovered the properties while trying a regular sand scry. We’re the only two Gods who know this secret. I suggest you might want to keep it that way.”
“Hell yeah. This can be very useful.”
“It doesn’t always work. I can’t tell why, but it craps out at times and draws a blank. Some places it just can’t penetrate. Jack’s place, for instance, and Kerr’s holy chambers.”
“What is that crazy bastard Kerr up to? You don’t think he’s going to try to resurrect your brother, Osirus?”
“What else can I think?”
Loki’s handsome face screwed up into a frown. “Can he even do that? Bring a dead God back to life?”
“You worried about someone bringing back Baldur?” Loki cringed a bit at the mention of the most beloved, dead Norse God. The one Loki had a direct hand in killing. Seth continued. “As powerful as he is, I don’t think Kerr can manage that without the addition of some serious juice. If those artifacts are indeed Atlantean, though, I’d say we’re fucked. Totally. Because then I think he could succeed.”
“Your brother is technically a dead God, but he’s ruling in the underworld as a shade, right?”
“He is, and shade or not, he’s still a pain in the ass. His power resides in a narrow spot of the afterlife, but that doesn’t stop him from meddling with our end of business.”
“So you’re keeping tabs on him.”
“Certainly.”
“And?”
Seth shrugged, waved a hand over the sands and returned them to an inert state. “He’s done nothing to lead me to believe he’s joined forces with Kerr.”
“If a dead God is brought into a resurrected status, taken from being a shade, and made whole again, what happens?”
What indeed? Seth could think of a hundred unpleasant, deadly, and outright destructive results. “Osirus, when alive, was dedicated to order. Even now, he’s inflexible. If his full power and glory are restored, that would be trouble. Worst-case scenario, he restarts the war between us, wins, and imposes his will across the dimension.”
“He can’t win against all the Covenant Gods, and the ones unaligned with the Covenant.”
“No one has ever resurrected a dead God. It’s unexplored territory. He won’t be bound by any mythic conventions. He may have access to power beyond anyone’s imagination. Certainly with the artifacts in hand, he’ll be a terrifying force.” At least he wasn’t Atlantean. In that respect, Kerr was miles away from the truth.
They fell into a tense silence inside the cave hidden on a remote shore of the island of Atlantis, each God considering the dire implications of what they’d seen in the scry. After a while, Loki spoke. “We should kill the Druid.”
That pulled a laugh out of Seth. Loki was nuts. Certifiable. “As much as I don’t want to cease to exist, I don’t want that to happen because I openly violated a major parameter of the Covenant and became sanctioned for execution.”
“You’re right, we can’t do that anymore. Kill mortals without committee approval. Not openly, at least. Things would be easier if we could.”
“Agreed.”
“So what do we do?”
Seth thought for a moment. Then his dark mind sparked an idea. “We talk Jack into killing him.”
“Jack?” Loki didn’t seem so enthusiastic about this plan. “Kill the Druid?”
“He hates Kerr anyway. If we give him a good enough reason to take the Druid out of play, he’ll jump at the chance. Besides, he’s in exile. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“The Tribunal sanctions him for execution.”
“One mortal’s life is worth saving the dimension.”
“I have a better idea,” Loki said brightly. “One that makes sure we accomplish the objective, and neutralize Kerr, without any risk of association with the plot.”
The deadly glint in Loki’s startlingly blue eyes was promising. “I’m listening.”
“We have Jack duplicate the artifacts, and turn over fakes. That way Kerr can’t get his hands on the real deal. If Kerr had any plans of resurrecting Osirus, we’ll know because he’ll try to use the fakes. We can turn Kerr into the Tribunal and let the machine do its things.”
It would work. Except for one very loose end. “And what happens to the real artifacts?”
“We sit on them until we know what Kerr’s going to do, then we hand them over for decommission.”
Loki’s face held not an ounce of guile, but Seth was no idiot. That “we” meant “I” and Loki was more than crazy if he thought Seth would agree to that kind of insanity. “I want the Spaniard to take control of the artifacts.”
“You trust him over me?”
“Ramon likes the status quo even more than me. He takes them, se
cures them, and then, when we’ve outed Kerr, hands them over. We still maintain plausible deniability.” Beyond the cave mouth, the sun shone ever bright, blazing off the white sands of Atlantis like a shower of sparks. “Those are the terms.”
“Fine, fine. We’ll do it your way.” Loki got to his feet. “What about Hugh Spencer, and his niece?”
Hugh Spencer. A man impossible to read. A man worthy of fear. “He’s Kerr’s right hand.”
“He didn’t know about that army the Druid is raising.”
“I don’t think we can trust Spencer.” He didn’t want to think they couldn’t trust Raine. Not after the power he’d recognized inside of her. Not after what he’d done to accentuate the power. Then again, he’d done so on his own visions. Visions that were finally making sense given this newest information.
“Raine’s fine.” He rose gracefully and wiped the sand from his robes. “Let’s get going.”
“Where?”
“Jack Madden’s place.”
Loki snorted. “Good luck getting in there. He’s got it magically zipped up like a freezer bag.”
“I’ll get us in. Don’t worry.”
Chapter Eleven
“You have to be kidding me.” Jack peered at the security camera’s image of Loki and Seth, standing in his lobby with the doorman. Both were fashionably attired, Seth in all black Armani, and Loki looking like a typical Calvin Klein model. Seth held a Tiffany’s bag, and Loki had a Starbuck’s coffee. “I don’t believe this! Those assholes are going to completely compromise us.”
“You have to let them in,” said Havers. “Now. Before they’re seen.”
Loki glanced up at the lobby camera and held the cup up in mock salute.
Jack’s blood pressure rose another hundred points. He jabbed the intercom buzzer. “Okay, Harold, let them up.” She was right. It was either let the bozos in or risk sending the op down the toilet. Now that he had one artifact in hand, and had realized Raine’s power might be not only his ticket to revenge, but a way to undo the binding and restore his sorcery, he wasn’t about to screw things up. He turned to Havers. “Near as I can tell, the security spells show mild fraying at the edges, which could be normal wear and tear, or not. Let’s leave things as they are, and watch them closer. Anything else starts to unravel, we’ll know we have a bogey trying to sneak into our back door.”
“Then what?”
“They we let them sneak in and bag them with a butterfly net for further study.”
“Risky.”
“Risky, but calculated.” He glanced uneasily at the security cameras. The lobby showed no other signs of trouble, but Jack knew better. There was a war going on in the streets of New York, his apartment was under watch by demons and vampires alike, and now the Gods were visiting like Girl Scouts peddling cookies. If things got any tighter, he’d need to move this entire op to his pocket dimension out in the Vegas desert. He preferred privacy at his fortress there, but the way things were going, he might not have a choice. “Can you handle it from here?”
Havers nodded. “Go take care of your guests. Don’t let them track dirt on the carpet.”
“They won’t be staying.”
He met them at the private elevator, and before they could step out, he stepped in and shut the door. The elevator started to move, and he hit the emergency stop, trapping them between floors. Jack wasn’t a man given to anger, but he had his moments.
“There better be a good reason for this,” he snarled, facing off against the Gods.
“See, I told you he’d be mad,” said Loki. “We should have called first.”
“Ease up, Jack. I’m going to talk, you’re going to listen. We don’t have much time.”
“We have time.” Jack turned to Loki. “What did you do to me in that bathroom?”
“You look tense. Seth, doesn’t he look tense.” Loki held out the cup. “Here, have some coffee. It’s a decaf soy mocha java.”
“You did something to him?” Seth sounded half-interested, half-pissed.
Now it was Loki’s turn to get irritated. “Okay, fine. Yes. Mea culpa and all that shit. I gave you the divine spark. For luck. So sue me, or whatever it is you modern-age metrosexuals like to do.”
Jack wasn’t certain if he should believe the trickster. If that’s all Loki did, it explained why all the tests they’d run on his blood came up negative for any changes. The divine spark was nothing more than a simple blessing. Sometimes it added a little bit of good luck, other times it did nothing. But it never harmed. “They why’d you knock me out?”
Loki laughed. His features rapidly shifted from mulish to entertained. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
Jack shook his head. Random, chaotic acts were right up Loki’s alley. Since the tests were negative, and he didn’t feel any adverse effects, chances were good this time the trickster was telling the truth. “You’re here why? Did you get bored sitting around and decide it would be fun to put the entire dimension at risk for the evening’s entertainment?” Or worse, did they know he’d found an artifact?
“We need to bring you up to speed on some new intel.”
Loki immediately launched into a summary of what they’d seen while scrying on Kerr, and what they believed it meant. Seth finished up with the new mission parameters they wanted Jack to employ. Jack, for his part, suddenly wanted a drink and wished there was something stronger than decaf in the Starbuck’s cup.
The information was damning. What they wanted, though, made a crazy kind of sense and held attraction. If the Gods manufactured the duplicates, their imprint would be all over the items, giving them away immediately to any half-rate magic user. Jack offered plausible deniability and knew how to hide his magical signature. Or at least, he used to know how. Which brought him around to what made this so hard to pass up: the payback angle.
Seeing Kerr taken up on charges would be nothing short of karmic bliss as far as Jack was concerned. There was only one problem. One big, honking fucking problem. “How do you expect me to duplicate Atlantean artifacts? I’m lucky I can manage a simple entry spell on enchanted doors. Remember, guys, I’m busted, right? I don’t work the way I used to, so those freewheeling days of ‘Jack thinks it and it happens’ are gone-ola. That’s why I have that tasty little magical surrogate hanging out in my spare bedroom.”
“Here.” Seth pulled a large, velvet box from the Tiffany bag and handed it over.
“And it’s not even Christmas.” Jack popped the lid. Inside was a solid red block of a resin-like substance, about three inches long, three inches wide and two inches thick. As he looked closer, turning the box to the light just so, he discerned a truer color disguised beneath the red: one more ochre in nature. There was no scent, no immediate energy signature, nothing to identify it as anything other than a thick hunk of colored chalk. But Jack didn’t need the signs to know what he held. It was rare, more valuable than anything that readily came to mind, and in this quantity, capable of completing the task laid out before him.
“Carmot,” he said, low and to himself. “What did you suspend it in? Cinnabar?” he asked, using the more formal name for Dragon’s Blood resin.
Carmot, the trace element, was all but gone from this current incarnation of history, and not recognized by chemists, though sought for centuries by alchemists. It was the element of the Atlanteans, used to create anything from nothing. The true ingredient of life, the spark of magic, the most potent substance ever to be hinted at or used, literally the holy grail of transmutation. If magic had a color, a feel, an element all its own, that was Carmot. “This doesn’t exist anymore.”
“I had some tucked away,” Seth said dryly. “For emergency purposes. Like now. Is that enough?”
“Barely.” Jack’s brain went into overdrive. If he mixed some of this up with Raine’s supercharged magical essence held inside the hematite beads, he’d be within spitting distance of outwitting his binding and breaking the last chains of his imprisonment. He’d need most of it to duplica
te the artifacts, true, but if he got creative enough with his magical enhancement ingredients, he could stretch the supply to skim some off for himself. “What do I get if I do this for you?”
“The satisfaction of seeing Kerr fry.” Loki took a drink of coffee. “And the glory of bringing Atlantean relics home to the Gods for safekeeping.”
Jack’s gut tightened unpleasantly. It was the only part of the plan he didn’t like. Well, not the only part. Raine. She was the other downside. There was no way he could tell her what the plan was, not given how rigid she was about the Covenant sanctity and all that. Worse, she’d think he was central to the conspiracy. He wasn’t at all sure she didn’t already believe that anyway, despite her offhand comments about him being a hero.
Holding out on her triggered a heavy, unpleasant guilt. Between deceiving Raine and handing over ultimate power to the Gods, he was finding the pleasure of sticking it to Kerr and the Wardens less pleasurable by the second. “So all I need to do is duplicate the artifacts well enough to deceive Kerr?”
Both Gods nodded.
He looked again at the rare element, the supposed substance that created life and magic where once there was nothing. If legend held, this was the most powerful element in the universe, at least in this dimension. Jack took a deep breath. He could do this. He could SO do this.
“Duplicate artifacts, four, made to order.” He started the elevator back up and stepped out on his floor. “I don’t need to tell you, we can’t meet like this again.”
In answer, both Gods smiled and dissolved in a shimmer of heat and light.
“Show-offs.”
Jack sent the elevator back to the lobby and activated the security lock that would prevent it from reaching his floor. He had a hell of a lot to do tonight, and now, that was increased tenfold. So was his potential for reclaiming his power. Raine’s image summoned up in his brain, as if pulled there by his ever-growing, ever-annoying conscience. She’d understand, he reasoned, going back to his private laboratory. She wanted the artifacts neutralized. Once it was all over, he’d explain his reasons and she’d get it. He had faith—in her ability to be sensible, and his ability to spin. His ability to escape the nagging guilt, however, seemed to elude him at the moment.
ImmortalIllusions: The Eternity Covenant Book2 Page 18