Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3)

by Craig Schaefer

  “Vaguely,” the king said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Do you remember Clytemnestra?”

  He waved a restless hand. “Why would I? We made a point of taking their names away from them. Slaves don’t have names.”

  “You and your brothers each picked one knife to take home as a trophy of your cruelty,” Carolyn said. “Clytemnestra was yours. And if you’d known that—if you’d known that, or if you’d kept track of which of your minions you’d lent her to or where she ended up over the centuries, well…you might not be in this situation. Because she never forgot you, and she never forgot her vow to see you pay for what you’d done to her. Tell me…is that ironic?”

  “How is this possible? Our intelligence network is flawless. The Demiurge is dead.”

  “If my estimate is wrong,” Carolyn said, “yes, he is. But it didn’t happen when Nessa visited him. And if my timing is absolutely perfect…”

  She tilted her head, eyes distant, as if listening for a whisper on a dying wind.

  “If my timing is perfect,” she said, “it’s going to happen roughly six minutes from now.”

  “What?”

  “And as for the question of how we were able to inject fake information into your flawless intelligence network, well.”

  She cracked her knuckles and savored the moment.

  “It’s time for my favorite literary technique of all,” she said. “The twist ending. Are you ready for it?”

  * * *

  The flagship’s command deck was a small, rounded disk near the top of the vessel, at the far end of the long, slender gooseneck that separated the King of Rust’s elite from the drones, soldiers and beasts toiling in the belly of the ship. Three men in slate-gray uniforms worked a rounded bank of consoles, taking in telemetry from the Shadow In-Between. A radio squawked now and then, blaring something in an alien tongue, and the men would make subtle adjustments to the bank of controls.

  The door hissed open and a figure stood in the doorway. The closest man expected a visit from the king. He jumped to his feet, eager to salute faster than the others. Then he blinked.

  “Wait, you’re the fleet interrogator. What are you doing up here? You don’t have clearance—”

  The interrogator drew his Luger and shot him twice in the chest. He fell back and slammed into the rolling chair, momentum carrying him across the steel deck. Another man spun, reaching for his sidearm. The Luger spat fire twice more, tearing out his throat and drilling a hole between his eyes.

  The third showed his open hands, frozen.

  “Who are you?” the man breathed.

  “Oh, me?” he said. “You can call me the Marquis.”

  He held his gun steady on the pilot. His other hand twirled, brandishing a scrap of paper, and handed it over.

  “Change course to these coordinates and prepare to enter terrestrial space.”

  “You can’t be serious,” the pilot said. “This…this is…”

  “A hijacking,” the Marquis said. “We’re stealing this ship.”

  “You can’t take a ship this size out of the Shadow! It has a Swann-Puthoff drive—without a total saturation of magical energy, it can’t even fly!”

  “Don’t worry. We’re not stealing the whole thing.” He pressed the long, slender barrel of the pistol to the back of the pilot’s head. “Now key in the coordinates and set a five-minute timer for the jump.”

  He watched, covering the pilot’s every move.

  “Good. Now lock it in.”

  The pilot swallowed hard as he turned a key on the console.

  “There. It’s done. Five minutes and—”

  The Marquis pulled the trigger. The pilot slumped against the console, blood guttering down the back of his uniform shirt. The Marquis briskly walked from the command deck. The door whisked shut behind him.

  * * *

  The King of Rust dashed to his credenza. An antique telephone rested beside his phonograph. He snatched up the receiver. Through the walls, Carolyn heard the distant echoes of his voice, magnified through the entire ship.

  “Red alert. We have an impostor on board. The fleet interrogator is a spy. Capture him and bring him to me at once. Lock down all hangars immediately. Do not let him escape.”

  “A while back,” Carolyn said, “I asked Daniel if he could teach me a thing or two about stage magic. He told me that the most important thing, when it comes to sleight of hand, isn’t the moves. It’s about assumptions. Give people an assumption, sell it hard, and they’ll believe it right up until you pull the rug out from under them. We gave you a few assumptions. First of which, that I wasn’t a willing hostage who wanted to be here all along. Second, that your ‘interrogator’ was real, not a fake personality the Marquis has been using to rob you people blind for over a year now. He had to play rough with me a few times, to sell the act, but that’s all right. See, we knew you were listening, so we had to be careful.”

  Carolyn reached under the neck of her sweater and tugged out a tiny antique key, dangling from a brass chain. The key’s teeth were sharpened to a razor’s edge and crusted with flecks of dried blood.

  “So for instance, when I needed to cut myself, I asked him to leave the room so he wouldn’t see it, even though he knew that was the plan. And later he made a point of noticing the cut. Why? Because if he pretended not to notice and you spotted it, you’d want to know why he’d been so imperceptive.”

  “Why would you…” The king’s voice trailed off as the answer sank in.

  “Because just like I told you—repeatedly—the blood of the first story’s characters is special,” Carolyn said. “And with the right blend of technology and magic, you can track it.”

  * * *

  Far below on the detention level, inside the pea-soup-green confines of the interrogation room, a puddle of Carolyn’s blood lay crusted beneath the brushed-steel table.

  With a pop of displaced air and a sudden violent gust of wind, the table flipped on its side. Chairs slammed against the cinder-block walls as a rectangle of light erupted.

  Tricia was first through the gateway, helmet on, the bulbous, insect-shell grip of a rifle in her hands as she led the charge. Her sister Valkyries followed. Bandoliers dangled over their shoulders, slung with fist-sized black disks suspended in elastic webbing.

  Two guards were on patrol in the hallway outside. The nozzle of Tricia’s rifle spat a gout of white-hot fire that washed over them, engulfing them in a living inferno as they fell and thrashed against the deck. She drew her pistol as she strode right past them, not even looking as she delivered a pair of kill shots to the shrieking men’s skulls.

  The king’s warning blared from concealed speakers as they rode a lift upward. Good, Tricia thought. Green light.

  The lift gate rattled open. A security squad was running their way, but the Valkyries were faster and washed the corridor in merciless flame. Tricia led the way to the long, slender gooseneck of the ship, with its windows gazing out upon the Shadow In-Between. More flagships hung in the frozen void, the King of Rust’s brothers come to savor their victory.

  The Valkyries unslung their bandoliers. They slapped their black disks against walls, windows, support struts, giving each one a firm press and a twist. The disks beeped in unison, and a tiny green light flashed beneath their black plastic faces. While they worked, the Marquis speed-walked down the corridor from the other direction.

  “Time?” Tricia asked.

  “One minute thirty.”

  She slapped her last disk in place, looked to a readout on her armor’s wrist, and tapped in a ninety-second timer. It strobed once and began to count down. The Valkyries retreated back to the portal, taking the Marquis with them.

  * * *

  The king stood over Carolyn, the purple mist dancing like a coat of fire as he seethed at her.

  “Whatever this ‘plan’ is, whatever you think you’re going to accomplish here, you aren’t going to succeed. There’s no escape from this ship. Your li
ttle friend is going to be found, he’s going to be captured, and the two of you are going to spend the next ten thousand years suffering for even thinking of challenging my authority.”

  He stormed across the room. The sweep of his arm sent the phonograph slamming to the floor, its antique box smashed, spilling mechanical guts across the money-green carpet. He wheeled around, snarling.

  “Who do you think you are? I’m a throne. The first of the Demiurge’s own handmade creations, invested with his power and his strength. I am a god! And you, you…barely evolved monkeys, you sniveling little maggots, you accidents—what makes you think you can stand up to me?”

  “I can’t speak for all humans everywhere,” Carolyn said. “But I’ve found there’s one thing that most people, decent people, have in common. We don’t like bullies. And really, that’s all the reason we need to stand up to you. Because take away your power, take away your armies, your fancy ship, and that’s all you are. Just another bully who needs to be knocked down a few pegs.”

  “Well.” The king’s voice dropped, dangerously soft. “I don’t see how you’re in a position to take away any of those things. So you lose.”

  “You know, there was a point—it was close, I was almost sure the jig was up—but there was a point in this story where I did blatantly lie, and you let me get away with it.”

  He frowned, uncertain. “When?”

  “When Clytemnestra and Nessa first met, and they entered each other’s minds. Passing your questions through the interrogator, you asked me what the secret of poison was. I told you I wasn’t there, then I gave you the reasons I couldn’t have heard them speak, and you took that for my answer. But the truth is, I know the secret of poison.”

  Carolyn sat back, cupping her glass of water between her hands.

  “Want to hear it?”

  Forty-Four

  Standing inside the misty void, Clytemnestra whispered her secret.

  “Every herbalist, healer, and witch should know the secret of poison. Very few herbs are naturally good or naturally evil; that which can heal, in large enough doses, can kill, and some dangerous ones—when used properly, in the right measure and for the right affliction—can drive impurities from the body.”

  “There’s no cure for the poison in my veins,” Nessa replied.

  “I was here before the Kings of Man staked their dominions inside the Shadow In-Between. They corrupted it with their own essences. That is the source of your ill.”

  “I don’t see how that knowledge aids me.”

  “You’ve shown a knack for siphoning Shadow itself, haven’t you? When you needed it, in Carson City, you turned yourself into a conduit. You devoured it and turned it into fuel for your magic. Yes, the ordeal nearly killed you, but most witches couldn’t do that.”

  “I’m not most witches,” Nessa replied. “But again, not sure how that helps.”

  “Shadow isn’t entirely fatal to all who imbibe it without wards. After all, there are nine living creatures who are utterly saturated with it.”

  Nessa pulled back, squinting.

  “The kings.”

  “They suffer the ultimate Shadow infection,” Clytemnestra said, “and yet they live and thrive, unharmed and even immortal. They’ve attuned themselves to the winds of raw magic, to such a degree that it can no longer harm them. That which normally kills, in their case, heals.”

  “And you’re saying…there’s a way I could take that power for myself?”

  “Perhaps,” Clytemnestra said.

  The ancient witch leaned close once more, whispering into Nessa’s ear.

  “If,” she said, “you devoured the very essence of a king.”

  * * *

  A convoy of black SUVs roared down the back roads of upstate New York. Trees shivered in their wake, the underbrush cast in the glow of red and blue strobes as shrill sirens sent animals scurrying for cover. New York City was a distant memory. Up ahead, one hundred and eight miles north, was their final destination.

  The abandoned ruins of the Vandemere Zoo.

  A procession of emergency units—ambulances, a fire-rescue truck, and a mobile command center with FBI markings—followed in their wake. By radio command they broke off a quarter mile shy of the staging ground, setting up a triage station and preparing for imminent casualties.

  The SUVs flooded the parking lot, curling in a semicircle like an armored wagon train. Doors slammed and black suits moved out with military precision. Hatchbacks swung up as they dragged out heavy crates of gear. On the other side of the wall of cars, the gates of Vandemere—one flat in the dust, the other hanging on one twisted hinge—marked the way forward.

  “Get those floodlights set up,” Harmony called out, striding through the controlled chaos. “Beach Cell, on me. Redbird, establish perimeter. Panic Redux, I want every piece of that arsenal checked and double-checked in the next five minutes. Jessie, are we—”

  Jessie walked past her in the other direction, nodding sharp as she held up a finger, talking into her phone. “—no-fly zone for five miles around our coordinates in every direction. Everyone. No commercial flights, no law enforcement, nothing flies over Vandemere tonight—”

  “Where do you want us?” Janine asked, cradling a long cardboard tube in her arms. Harmony sighed, looking between her and Tony.

  “Not here, at all. But seeing as you insisted and your roommate insisted right along with you—stay behind the cordon at all times and keep your heads down.”

  One of the newer recruits waved to get her attention. “Ma’am? Question?”

  “Shoot,” Harmony said, not breaking her stride. He scrambled to keep up.

  “Um, over by the end of the convoy—” He pointed to the figures standing in a tight circle at the perimeter’s edge. “That’s Daniel Faust and Caitlin Brody.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “They’re on our target list.”

  She turned, studying him. “Janssen, right? How long have you been with Vigilant, month and a half?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’re going to find, Agent Janssen, that there are some ops where we have to toss out the rulebook. This is one of them.” She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Everybody, focus front!”

  She waited until the din of conversation simmered down and all eyes looked her way. Jessie finished her call as she walked up to stand at Harmony’s side.

  “In a minute, Jessie will give you your squad assignments and firing positions. First, let me say this: we’re hunting big game tonight. The biggest game anybody’s ever hunted. Under normal circumstances, Vigilant’s mandate is to confine and contain supernatural threats.”

  “That’s off the table tonight,” Jessie said. “They won’t be taking any prisoners. Neither are we. All Network operatives are to be terminated with extreme prejudice.”

  Harmony held up a pair of fingers.

  “We have two objectives. Primary: carve a pathway for Ms. Fieri and Ms. Reinhart to reach their target. Secondary: extract Carolyn Saunders and ensure a safe evac to the medical staging ground.”

  One of the gathered agents, a broad-shouldered woman with hard eyes, raised a hand. “Ma’am? What kind of OpFor are we expecting here?”

  “Expect anything and everything,” Harmony said. “What we’re doing tonight has never been done, in the history of humanity. But that doesn’t mean the other side hasn’t trained for the possibility. Whatever happens out there, I want you to remember one thing. Tonight, we are sending a message to the Kings of Man.”

  She stepped forward. Her gaze swept over the gathered teams, slow and steady. Making eye contact with each and every one of them.

  “And that message,” she said, “is going to be loud, direct, and crystal-clear. You do not fuck with our planet. Time’s running out. Let’s get this welcoming committee underway.”

  * * *

  “Everything had to be timed perfectly,” Carolyn said. “It helps that while you were listening in on me, my friends on Earth wer
e listening in on you.”

  The king shook his head, his giant shoulders clenched, torn between fury and panic. “How?”

  “How many times in this story,” she asked, “did a witch use a puddle of stagnant water to communicate with her sisters?”

  The king’s gaze shot to the glass of water in Carolyn’s cupped hands. Just a quarter inch left, the last few sips she never drank but insisted on carrying with her, with a sliver of wilted lemon floating on the surface.

  And for just a moment, upon the water’s face, the image of the Lady in Red. She winked as she vanished in a fluid ripple.

  “I gave you all the clues. But that’s not the big one. The one I mentioned time and time again.”

  The King of Rust loomed over her, one hand drawn back like he might strike her down, but frozen, trapped in indecision.

  “Nessa’s greatest enchantment,” Carolyn said. “Even Nadia wasn’t powerful enough to notice the illusion she laid on that mirror bag. What did Nessa say, in the Deadknot? ‘Good chance God wouldn’t notice it.’ Marie was even searched while she wore it, patted down twice, and no one found it.”

  The king’s eyes flared, a second pupil blossoming inside the first, as he looked to Carolyn’s side.

  And to the mirror-coated bag that had been there all along. The one Carolyn had patiently carried for two days while she waited to be kidnapped. The one no one, not even him, had been able to see until now.

  Carolyn snatched up the water glass and hurled it in his face. He reflexively threw up his hands to protect himself, surprised—which gave her enough time to reach inside and yank out a length of sapphire chain. The manacles bit at the air, smelling the presence of a throne, eager to do the job they’d been enchanted for.

  She let them fly, and they snapped around the king’s wrists.

  * * *

  “What if I offered you a better way?” Nessa had asked him.

  The Demiurge stood alone on his tiny disk of a world, outside his humble cottage, on his overgrown lawn, and stared up at the void.

  “You want the endless voices to stop. You want to shed this burden.”