by A. L. Knorr
Finally, I cleared my throat and Daria straightened at the sound, those dark and expectant eyes on mine.
“I guess you’ve got a plan?”
A sly smile spread across her face.
“I thought you’d never ask. You aren’t going to like it, but it is our best chance at saving the bloody world, so let’s not muck it up. Get me in front of Jody Marks. I’ll only lay it out once.”
Sixteen
At the train station in London, I left Daria and Marcus sitting on a bench while I found a pharmacy and bought Marcus a set of crutches. Then we used the tube to make our way to the TNC offices. We left Daria in a coffee shop while Marcus and I went to talk to Marks about her idea. The moment we stepped into the lobby of The Nakesh Corporation building, something felt wrong.
Everything had the same polished, nothing-to-see-here normalcy, but there was a brittle tension in the air.
“I know Daria is waiting for us, but shall we check on Uncle Iry and Jackie before we find Marks?” I asked Marcus as we crossed the lobby.
He nodded. “Funny. I was just thinking the same thing.”
Anxiety wound its way around my spine like a climbing vine as I used my ID card to board the elevator. As we glided down floor after floor, I told myself the unease was only in my mind.
“Lobby was painted a different colour,” Marcus said. “Different panelling around the elevator.”
I looked up at him with surprise. “So you’re into interior decorating, along with weightlifting and dangerous women?”
Marcus snorted and shook his head. “Not so much, but while my dangerous woman was running around chasing bad guys, I was stuck in this building with nothing but time. People watching in the lobby was a distraction between push-ups and worrying.”
While I felt a pang of sympathy for the trials Marcus had endured, the changes to the lobby struck me as too timely to be coincidental.
“What do you think happened?”
Marcus tapped the ends of his crutches on the floor thoughtfully.
“Not sure. But there were four security officers in the lobby.”
“How many are there usually?” I asked.
“One.”
I let out a slow breath and fought the urge to use my powers increase the elevator’s speed. I needed to see Jackie and Uncle Iry. I needed to know they were okay. My heart had buggered off to rent a room in my throat and seemed determined to stay there for every agonising second it took to descend to the hospital floors.
When the doors finally parted, we found ourselves blocked by Bordeaux, armed and armoured for the battlefield. The sight of his openly carried combat rifle filled my stomach with ice.
“What’s happened? Where’s Jackie? Where’s my uncle?”
Bordeaux held up a hand, whether to calm me or slow me down, I wasn’t sure; but his usually robotic demeanour faltered.
“Ms Davies is in her room, just as you left her. She was unharmed by the attack, though I imagine the stress didn’t help her condition, but I’m no—”
Stone cold, brutally honest Bordeaux was stalling.
“And my uncle?” I cut him off mid-blather.
Bordeaux paled, his voice raw. “They took him.”
I staggered as the strength went out of my legs. Marcus put an arm around my waist to brace me as I wheezed, laying a hand against my chest. I felt as though my heart was being crushed in a vice.
“The Group of Winterthür took your uncle.”
---
The frustration, sorrow, and shame burning in Jackie’s eyes when I entered her room stole what little heart I had to speak.
I trudged over to her and plopped down in the seat next to her. Unshed tears brimmed in my eyes, but anger beyond expression simmered in my blood. My hands knotted into quivering fists and ground against the top of my thighs. I’d gone immediately to Marks office, spewing accusations, tears pouring down my face. She’d been insufferably calm while she’d explained how the building had been infiltrated. A trusted courier had died, their ID and delivery schedule taken. Recently hired security guards had been duped, the period of their probation giving Winterthür an opportunity to take advantage of a vulnerable moment. Marks had apologized. Told me TNC took every precaution but was not impervious. No intelligence agency was. All in all we should be thankful that the loss of life hadn’t been higher. She promised me we’d get my uncle back, but who was she to make such promises?
I felt Jackie’s eyes on me, knew she wanted to be helpful and encouraging, but she seemed to be having the same trouble I was. Impotent rage did anything but loosen the tongue.
By the time Jackie spoke, I was so lost in strangled thoughts that I started at the sound of her voice.
“They told you how it happened?”
I nodded as I stared into the middle distance, unable to bear looking her in the eyes.
“It happened so fast. Suddenly, they were in the halls searching rooms.” Jackie raked a hand through her hair. “I tried to get Iry to hide, to sneak out, to … to …”
Her voice broke, a rasping sob rocking her body and drawing my gaze at last.
“To do anything except watch over a bed-bound cripple.” She ground her teeth and beat her useless, blanket-swathed legs. “Damn it all, he wouldn’t leave me. He was trying to protect me!”
I reached out to take her hands as the fists became claws, raking at the blankets and her legs.
“Jackie!” Sweat beaded my forehead as I struggled to stop her. “Jackie, please!”
Her screeching shrivelled into a bitter whimper as she finally allowed me move her hands to her sides. The blankets were in disarray, leaving her exposed. Angry welts crisscrossed her thighs. I straightened the covers over her as I fought down more tears, then I bent over and hugged her.
“I’m sorry,” she moaned, her head falling against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Ibby! I was useless; I am useless.”
Jackie’s final despairing declaration knocked out the last of my self-pity. Ninurta had beaten me, Iry was gone, and none of that changed the fact that she needed me. Soon, I feared a whole lot more people would need me.
“Jackie, stop.” I took her face in my hands and looked at her, rubbing away a tear with the pad of my thumb. “You. Are. Not. Useless.”
Jackie’s face was blotched with red patches and wet from weeping. Though she couldn’t speak between hitching breaths, she gave a shake of denial.
“You are not useless,” I whispered, keeping her face turned towards me and my eyes locked on hers. “You are my best friend and the strongest woman I know, and I need you. I need your help.”
Jackie sniffled, her breathing catching at each inhalation, but her expression changed from broken surrender to bewilderment. “What?”
“I need you to help me fight Ninurta.” I released her face and sat on the side of her bed.
She blinked and brushed away another tear. “How the bloody hell do you expect me to do that?”
She gestured toward her limp legs in a quick angry sweep, that had me tensing to restrain her again.
“I need your mind, not your body.” I replied, drawing my feet up and perching my heels on the edge of the mattress. “I need your experience and knowledge more than I need your fists or feet.”
She studied my face. “What do you mean?”
I took her hand. “I need your way of thinking; your self-defence training. You told me that one of the things they drilled into you during your fighting classes is that you should assume your enemy is bigger, stronger, and more dangerous than you. Well, Ninurta is bigger, stronger than me, and so much more dangerous. I need to learn to take on someone like that.”
Jackie frowned, her eyes expressing a world of doubts.
“Just because I took self-defence doesn’t make me a soldier. I don’t know strategy.”
“That’s just it,” I pressed, “I’m not looking for a military perspective. I need a cage-fighting, go-down-swinging mindset. That’s what you can give me.”
Jackie’s frown deepened, but she swiped away the last of her tears.
“When you are fighting someone who has you beat at almost every level...” Her eyes went soft as her mind sifted through her rolodex of fighting knowledge. “You do everything you can to get away. You create space, give yourself room to manoeuvre, and the second you can, you run like your hair is on fire.”
I waited as her thoughts came together, knowing she wasn’t finished.
“But sometimes there’s no way out.” An angry light kindled in her doe eyes. “And if that’s the case, the next thing is maximum damage.”
Her gaze swung to me, focused again.
“You bring the pain.” Cords of muscle stood out on her neck. “It becomes your mission to hit them in every place, in every way that will do damage. But more than that, you show them that to keep them from getting what they want, you aren’t afraid to die.”
I hadn’t expected to survive Ninurta’s first attack so I was already on board with that.
“We learned how to strike at sensitive places, not just because pain can slow your attacker down, but because pain makes people angry and afraid. And angry, fearful people are stupid. Pain is the mortar, injury the bricks. So there is only one question then …”
I nodded. “How do you hurt a demigod?”
---
I gave myself a cooling off period of an hour before approaching Marks again, wishing I could take a day. I went to the cafeteria on Jackie’s floor and got a cup of coffee, pacing among the tables and talking my heart into a normal rhythm. I didn’t have time to sleep on things. Daria was waiting, and I’d been too shattered by losing Iry to have broached the subject with Marks yet.
When I finished the coffee I went back up to Marks’ office and knocked on her door, letting her know this time I was ready to be civil.
There was the sound of a phone settling back into its cradle and then, “Come.”
Pushing through her door, I crossed to the chair across from her. She eyed me, leaning back in her chair.
“Back so soon?”
“In the heat of my last visit,” I began, taking a breath and resting my hands on the arms of the chair, “I forgot to tell you about Daria.”
“Daria…” Marks canted her head to the side and a line appeared between her brows.
“Daria is an edimmu.”
I was about to explain what an edimmu was when Marks’ expression shifted. She paled and grew serious. She already knew.
“What have you gotten yourself involved with, Ibukun Bashir?” she asked quietly.
I cleared my throat, assuming that question was rhetorical. “Daria wants to die, but before she does, she wants to fulfil her promise to her master, Lamashtu.”
“What promise is that?” Marks leaned forward ever so slightly, her fine brows arching.
“Taking out Ninurta.”
Her expression fell. “Edimmu are frightening, but if you’ve described Ninurta accurately, even she cannot withstand him.”
“That’s why she’s proposing we work together.”
Marks listened quietly while I relayed how the edimmu had rescued Marcus and I, and Daria’s desire to meet her and discuss a plan. Marks’ response was to ask me to leave the room for five minutes while she made a phone call.
When she called me back into her office, her demeanour had changed from wary to settled. Whoever she had called, my guess was it was to a superior, they’d given her some kind of certainty.
“I agree to meet with her.”
Lowering myself back into the chair, I cocked an eyebrow. “That was easy.”
Marks shrugged. “Allegiances pass from one hand to another in this business all the time. Even if you weren’t vouching for Daria, I would at least listen to what she had to offer.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not clear on what exactly the offer is, she said she’d present to us at the same time. She’s only told me she has a plan, and information.”
“I know.” Marks gave me a knowing look. “But given the experience and expertise of the creature we are talking about, those two things are worth quite a bit, whatever they may be.”
I nodded.
“So how do we contact her?” Marks steepled her fingers, her eyes glinting with eagerness.
“She gave me this number.” I presented a folded strip of paper. “She said once she receives a call from your personal phone and you stay on the line for ten seconds after the tone she’ll know you’ve accepted her entering the building. She’ll enter the lobby, and is fine with security screening; she wants it understood that calling the number acknowledges that she is to be treated as an asset, not a threat.”
Marks’ eyes narrowed fractionally, then she took the paper while reaching for the phone on her desk.
“Sorry,” I interjected before she could pick up the receiver. “She said your personal mobile.”
Marks’ expression flattened into a glassy semblance of her usual unflappable, slightly ironic facade.
“I suppose there’s no point in asking how she would know to recognise this number,” she mused as she drew a phone out of her jacket pocket.
“Should we go downstairs to meet her?” I asked, after Marks pocketed her phone, trying not to squirm under her unrelenting scrutiny.
“No, she’ll be brought up after she’s cleared by security, although that’s a formality. The most dangerous thing about that woman is not what she carries on her, but in her.”
Remembering Pierre Gwaffu’s demonic powers, I had to agree.
“But you’ve worked with supernatural beings before,” I said. “That’s why you have Dr Emoto, right? You’re used to this sort of thing.”
“That may be, but supernaturals are categorized into classes. I’m accustomed to working with soldiers and elementals, leaving supernaturals outside those classes to others. Beings as ancient and dangerous as an edimmu are part of a disconcerting list. The head of our organization, Devon Nakesh, would normally work with someone like Daria, but he is not available at this time. So.” She shrugged and ran a hand over her perfect updo.
I stared at my ally, a riot of feelings surging and subsiding like waves. Enigmatic and yet seeming supremely pragmatic, she was the strangest woman I had ever met, and that included Daria. I wondered what Marks had seen in her time.
“How many classes of supernatural beings have you encountered?” I asked, telling myself I was just killing time until Daria arrived.
Marks’ features were so precisely set she could have been wearing a mask.
“Many,” she stated with irritating simplicity, before the quiet stretched into an uncomfortable silence. “Yet, not so many that I don’t feel a little … giddy at the thought of meeting a new one.”
It was hard--to the point of impossible--to imagine Marks giddy but I felt that the statement might have been one of the most honest things she’d ever said. Somehow the answer rang with a deeper truth. The glimpse of utter honesty sharpened my curiosity while giving me a little more confidence.
“Are there other supernaturals here now? In this building?”
Her answer was clipped. “You don’t have the clearance for that answer.”
“Okay, but I’m a supernatural myself now, and we’re about to embark upon a mission to take out a powerful demigod. If you had supernaturals around that could help, one would think now would be the perfect time to introduce them, so we could include them in the plan?”
She tilted her chin down. “Don’t you think I would have done that already if I could have?”
I pulled a face. “I don’t know. No one ever tells me anything in this bloody place until it’s the last minute.”
She let out a breath. “While I cannot give you details, I can tell you that I tried to have a few of our assets reassigned from a project we’re setting up for in North Africa. Our CEO would not allow it. The project there is high p
riority.”
“A demigod with the power to affect the earth’s core isn’t priority?” I gaped at her. “Whatever this other project is must be galactic in nature.”
I’d said it ironically but Marks just nodded.
“If the timing had been better,” she said, “and that project successfully concluded, we would have been able to deploy a supernatural with abilities even Ninurta could not withstand.”
“What kind of supernatural are you talking about?” My heart began to pound at her words.
“I’m not permitted to say.” Marks folded her hands on the desk. “You are an Inconquo. The enemy is an Inconquo. You are the best supernatural for the job that we currently have available to us.”
I wanted to ask her more about this mysterious supernatural but I knew she wouldn’t say any more. From the look on her face, she’d already said too much. Instead I asked, “Don’t you ever get frightened by the powers you’re involved with?”
Marks’ gaze slid around the room, as though looking for some spy or eavesdropper foolish enough to hide in her office. When her eyes settled back on me, I knew I’d pushed too hard.
“I am not sure this conversation is beneficial at this time,” she said, whatever tiny door I’d opened closing before my eyes. “You need to focus on the task at hand. I have been doing this for a while now, I am not frightened by my job. I plan to keep doing it for a good while longer, that is assuming…”
“Yeah.” I sank back into my chair, disappointed. “Assuming Ninurta doesn’t wipe us all out in the next few days.”
“Precisely,” Marks agreed and then looked positively delighted when her phone rang again.
“Yes?”
Her expression became one of wary confusion as she listened.
My skin prickled at the sight and I nudged the rings, fusing them. Had Daria already turned on us?
“No, do not let them move from that spot,” Marks said sharply, her voice perfectly controlled in spite of the fearful glimmer creeping into her eyes.
I rose from my seat, straining to hear what was being said on the other end of the line. “What’s going on?”