“I know, but he’s taking it too far. He knows this place is safe, and he ought to honor my wishes.” Judy ran her hands through her short black hair, disordering it. “I just—”
“Just what?” I asked when she didn’t finish her sentence immediately.
“I just wish he actually wanted me to move in. Not so he can protect me, but because it’s what he wants.” She sighed. “It’s irrational, I know, because I haven’t told him how I feel, and it’s not fair to him to expect him to read my mind. But if I tell him I want to move in with him, he’ll go for it even if it’s not what he wants—does that make sense? Because I think I’m babbling.”
“It makes sense. You decided you want to live with him?”
“Yeah. I get so cranky on the nights he doesn’t come over because I really miss him. I want him around so I can be cranky over his disgusting habits instead.” Judy laughed. “He’s not at all who I thought I’d end up with.”
“Really?” I perched on the desk. “Who did you think you’d end up with?”
“Oh…someone tall and lanky. Someone into fine dining and art. Probably a Nicollien, given how they’re always in and out of Father’s house. Not a short, stocky Ambrosite whose idea of a fun evening is a sports bar or an MST3K movie.” She laughed again. “I never knew I’d end up liking those things too.”
I didn’t know what MST3K was and didn’t feel like derailing the conversation to ask. “But you went to that art show three weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well, it turns out he likes art, too, and didn’t know it. We’ve both changed.”
“So tell him that, and see what he says. Maybe there’s something else going on behind his desire to protect you.”
Judy shrugged. “Could be. We have to get past this latest fight first. I’ll call him later when we’ve both cooled down.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and headed for the front room.
When the Nicolliens filed in at ten, I’d already done most of the mail-in auguries and was feeling cheerful. One look at my customers dispelled that cheer. I’d never seen a more despondent group. “What’s wrong?” I asked the first woman in line. “Not more attacks I haven’t heard about?”
“It’s trying to fight without our familiars,” the woman said. “You won’t understand because you’re not a front line fighter. No offense,” she added quickly, and sounded sincere. “It’s just not something I can explain to anyone who’s never been bonded to a familiar. You feel like you lose senses you didn’t know you had.”
“I get it.” I accepted her augury slip. “I’m sorry.”
The woman smiled mirthlessly. “You hated them, I know. I doubt you’re all that sorry.”
“Not that they’re gone, no. But I know how close you all were to your familiars, and I’m sorry for that loss. I didn’t rejoice over their deaths.”
“Not the way the Ambrosites did,” came a bitter voice from the middle of the line. “They gloated.”
“Not in here, they didn’t,” I said. “And no more bad-mouthing Ambrosites unless you want me to kick you out.”
The man went silent.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and made my escape.
The oracle hadn’t paid me any attention all morning, but now the pressure of its regard followed me through the stacks to the woman’s augury. “Is this one important?” I asked. “Or is something else going on?”
The oracle said nothing, just continued to watch me. I’d come to realize that this meant something important was about to happen, something that interested the oracle. “All right, but you have to speak if you want me to understand,” I said. “Though your speaking isn’t a guarantee of me understanding, I guess.” I gathered up the woman’s augury and navigated the little passageways to the store’s front.
“Here—” I began, then was startled into silence. Someone else had entered while I was in the oracle, someone I was never happy to see. William Rasmussen, Nicollien leader for the Pacific Northwest, stood in an empty space near the door as if he were a magnet with an opposing pole pushing all the other people away. He looked like a professor of some obscure academic discipline with his plain dark suit and glasses, but his cold blue eyes revealed that he was a man with power who wasn’t afraid to use it.
“Mr. Rasmussen,” I said. “Welcome to Abernathy’s.”
“I have an augury request,” he said. He nodded at Judy as if she were a colleague instead of his only child and extended a folded piece of paper to me. I bit back a protest that he should wait his turn—I knew from experience the Nicolliens always deferred to him—and without responding went back into the oracle.
This time, the oracle’s attention was almost painful. “What is it?” I demanded. “If there’s something you want me to know—”
They come. Union and division. Last chance.
“I don’t understand.” I unfolded Rasmussen’s augury request. How do we make up for the loss of the familiars? Despite my dislike for Rasmussen, I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. When Malcolm had lost his magic, he and his team had struggled so hard to accommodate his changed abilities. Learning to fight without familiars had to be similar.
He chooses. Tip the balance. The oracle’s attention vanished.
That had been even less comprehensible than usual. Did it mean the choice, whatever it was, would tip the balance, or was it an instruction to me to do so? Since I had no idea what the choice was or what balance had to be tipped, I had to muddle through and hope things would become clear.
I emerged from the oracle into chaos. The waiting Nicolliens had broken out into loud arguments, some of them shouting at each other. Most of them brandished phones. Rasmussen, still in his circle of solitude, had his head down over his phone’s display and his brow furrowed. Judy stood next to him, reading over his arm because she was too short to see over his shoulder. As I approached him, he raised his head, and for just a moment a look of terrible indecision crossed his face. Then it was gone, and he was steely William Rasmussen again.
“That’s enough,” he said in a voice pitched to cut across all the arguments. “We will have to go immediately. Collect your teams and assemble at my home for ward-stepping.”
“That’s lunacy,” someone called out. I heard a couple of muted gasps. “Without familiars, there’s no way we can fight.”
“Magi fought the Long War for centuries without familiars,” Rasmussen said without turning around. “We have an obligation that transcends our temporary concerns. We will fight. And we will succeed.”
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Judy.
She had her attention fixed on her father. “Another attack,” she whispered. “Not one the Pattern predicted. In Palembang in Indonesia. They’re going even though they’re at half strength, and they’re going to get killed.”
Rasmussen put his phone away and held out his hand. “My augury, Ms. Campbell,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to ask you to make it quick, as I’m sure you see the urgency.”
“Of course.” I gave him My Enemy, My Ally and saw him do a double-take. Probably he’d never seen a Star Trek novel before and certainly never expected one as an augury. He glared at me as if the book were my fault. I shrugged and tried not to look annoyed. “$25.”
“Excuse me?”
“It surprised me, too. I guess the oracle wants—”
The door swung open, setting the bells jingling. Another familiar figure filled the doorway, this one tall and dark-skinned with muscles stretching his T-shirt taut across his shoulders and chest. The light gleamed off his bald head. “Blessings be upon this place,” Ryan Parish said. The Ambrosite leader looked like a bodybuilder—that made sense, that’s what he was—but was as formal in his manners as Rasmussen.
“Mr. Parish,” I said, forestalling more arguments, “this is Nicollien time. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Parish ignored me. “Will,” he said, approaching Rasmussen. “You heard?”
“We’re leaving immediately,” Ras
mussen said.
“You’re under strength after the familiars—”
“Don’t you dare rub that in my face again, Ryan,” Rasmussen spat. “Ambrosites may be juvenile, but Nicolliens aren’t. We will fight regardless.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Parish said. He drew himself up to his full height like a soldier standing at attention. “I said some ill-judged things four days ago about Nicolliens and their lost familiars. I was wrong. I let my pride and hatred blind me to who the true enemy was, and I regret how long it took me to realize the truth.” He held out his hand. “The Ambrosites are going to Palembang, and we need the Nicolliens to join us. To fight together as we should have done all along.”
Rasmussen looked at Parish’s enormous hand, then at the augury. I held my breath. Despite my confusion over the oracle’s words, I was sure intervening at this point would be a colossal mistake. Judy’s hand closed on my arm painfully tight.
Slowly, Rasmussen reached out and clasped Parish’s hand. “You’re right,” he said. “This fight has gone on far too long. Anyone who’s willing to work with Ambrosites, follow me. If you can’t control your animosity, we don’t want you. Choose.” He shook Parish’s hand, then shifted the augury from one hand to the other and looked at the cover more closely. “I’m not sure I needed more than this title,” he said.
“Keep it,” I suggested. “It’s going to take more than one battle to bring the factions together.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’re right. Thank you, Ms. Campbell.” He left the store after Parish. Almost everyone followed him. When the store was nearly empty, I said to the lone remaining Nicollien, “Why not you, Brittany?”
Brittany Spinelli, Malcolm’s long-time enemy and an uneasy friend to me, shrugged. “I hate Ambrosites,” she said. “They caused the deaths of too many Nicolliens to change that. I’m never going to be friends with them no matter what Will Rasmussen tells me to do. I’ll go to Palembang on my own terms.” She shifted her weight in a way I was familiar with, one that said she was adjusting the set of her concealed guns. “I don’t need that augury, after all. Be seeing you, Helena.”
When she was gone, I sagged into the counter and let out a deep breath. “Did that just happen?”
“I didn’t think Parish had it in him to be so humble,” Judy said.
“Do you think it will last? The truce?” I gathered up the receipt book and put it away behind the counter.
“I don’t know.” Judy’s face paled. “Another attack. One the Pattern didn’t see coming.”
“They’re already changing their tactics,” I said.
We stared at each other in silence for a moment. Finally, I said, “I’ll call Malcolm. He may not know about it yet.”
Malcolm didn’t answer his phone. I texted him and got no reply. Anxiety built in my chest until I couldn’t bear to eat the tuna salad sandwich I’d brought for my lunch. We tried calling Lucia and got no response from her, either. Two o’clock rolled around with no sign of any Ambrosites. The silence nearly drove me mad.
Finally, with a bitter curse, Judy went online looking for news, something neither of us had wanted to do. The mundane world knew so little about what was actually happening, their reporting couldn’t be accurate. I didn’t want to watch them panicking when I knew they didn’t have the truth. But with so many hours passing with no news from Warden sources, we couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
The stories appeared almost immediately: terrorist attacks on Palembang, city in crisis. The news said the terrorists had made a number of small attacks, disappearing when the military showed up only to appear somewhere else. The death toll was estimated at upwards of ten thousand. “That’s wrong,” Judy said. “They always guess too high.” Three terrorist organizations had claimed credit, and two of them had threatened follow-up attacks unless their demands were met.
“I wish we know how much of this fighting was the Wardens stopping the invaders before they could do more damage,” I said. “It looks disastrous.”
“I picture our people chasing invaders all over the city,” Judy said. “Damn it, I hate that Mike and I fought just before he left. It makes me worry more that he won’t come back.”
“Don’t be superstitious. It doesn’t change anything.”
“I know.” Judy leaned her chin on her hand and sighed. “How are they doing it? The invaders, I mean? They’re good at illusion, but I didn’t think they were so good they could make themselves completely unseen.”
“I don’t know.” I remembered running through a hotel pursued by hostile familiars and closed my eyes to dispel the image. “If they were even disguised as wild dogs, someone would have said something.”
My phone rang. I opened my eyes and snatched it up. Malcolm. “Are you all right?” I said.
“I’m uninjured. The attack is nearly over.” He sounded out of breath. “Too many deaths, unfortunately, but we prevented the invaders from destroying the Maladewi Node.”
Judy’s phone rang. “Mike?” Judy said. She stood and walked away from the desk toward the back door, speaking in a low voice.
Distracted, I hadn’t heard all of Malcolm’s next words. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I said the Pacific Northwest contingent worked as a unified team, Nicolliens and Ambrosites together,” Malcolm repeated. “It was unbelievable.”
“Ryan Parish came into Abernathy’s and apologized to Mr. Rasmussen,” I said. “That was unbelievable.”
“I wondered what had happened to bring them together.” Malcolm’s breathing was slowing. “But it may be too little, too late, because that unity hasn’t penetrated to all levels of Warden society. Too many lives were lost because Nicolliens and Ambrosites from other places around the world wouldn’t work together. The invaders led us a merry chase all over Palembang, making a thousand small strikes across the city. If this is their new strategy, it’s one we’ll have trouble countering.”
“I’m sure Lucia will want an augury on how to do that. Malcolm, how are they doing it? How have they avoided being seen?”
“By leaving no survivors,” Malcolm said grimly. “And in their undisguised forms, they now have a limited invisibility that makes them appear to be shadows if you don’t look too closely. We believe their intelligent masters conferred it on them. But at some point, now that those intelligent ones can direct their stupider cousins, I fear they will stop caring about not being seen, and then the real disaster will strike.”
“What will happen then?”
“They attack from hiding now because that inspires greater fear and makes their attacks more effective. If they stop hiding, it will be because their numbers are great enough that they no longer need that advantage. Then the Wardens will fight not only the invaders, but the world’s military forces as they scramble to face a foe they have no experience fighting.”
“But the Wardens would go public then, right? Show the world how to fight the invaders?”
Malcolm sighed. “I don’t know. The US military, at least, does things a particular way and isn’t likely to take orders from civilians, as they’d see us. I choose to hope we’ll find another solution.”
“Or that Mr. Wallach will.”
“Or that. Love, I have to go now, but I’ll be home in a few hours. Possibly just as you’re getting off work.”
“Stay safe. I love you.”
I hung up and looked at Judy, who was still talking quietly to Mike. I sat in the office chair and stared blankly at the monitor, my mind filled with images of thousands of slavering invaders overflowing the streets of Portland. Looking at pictures of Palembang, some of them showing bodies in the street, it was hard to remember it hadn’t happened here. I’d never felt so helpless.
“He said they’re coming back soon,” Judy said, waking me from my reverie. “It was a victory. Just not a bloodless one. Our estimates say maybe twenty-five hundred dead.”
“That’s so many.”
“Not as many a
s ten thousand. I’m clinging to that because it keeps me from falling into despair. That, and the Wardens themselves didn’t lose many.”
“I guess that’s a relief.” I pushed back from the computer. “Let’s get cleaned up. I’d say we should close up early, but I don’t want to go home to an empty house. It will just make me worry, even though I know Malcolm’s fine.”
Judy’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. She glanced at the display. “That was Father,” she said, “telling me he’s well and asking me to invite Mike to dinner. He says the three of us have things to talk about. I hope that means he’s going to apologize for being a jerk. Which means I should get Mike alone first and suggest strongly that he do the same. I want this civil war over.”
“So do I,” I said, and went downstairs for the bottle of glass cleaner.
I was busy spritzing the countertop when the door opened and Viv came in. She held the slab of crystal open for Wallach, who carried a cardboard box big enough he couldn’t see over it. Its bottom sagged as if it contained something heavy, but Wallach, not a young man, hefted it onto the counter with ease. He was in black scrubs printed with multicolored palm trees and wisps of his white hair were coming free from the pouf. “Sorry, were you cleaning that?” he said.
“I was, but it’s okay…can I help you with something?”
“Just give me a corner to set up in,” Wallach said. He opened the box and removed a stack of folded white cloths, which he set on the counter, then a Tinker Toy contraption that looked like it went through five dimensions. That, he carried to the farthest corner from the door. It was about two feet high and bristling with rods like a wooden porcupine that had been flattened by a truck and stretched over an armature of a different shape.
“Um…” I couldn’t think which of all the questions brewing inside me I should ask first. Finally, I went with, “What is that?”
“It’s an anchor,” Wallach said. He messed with the connector wheels for a bit, achieving no difference that I could see. “Part of the realignment magic. Ms. Haley, can you bring me a sheet?”
The Book of Destiny Page 18