I had been wearing a mask the entire time I had spoken with him. How had he recognized me?
“That’s her,” Corbisher snarled. “That’s her! I would recognize that smug bitch’s voice anywhere.”
Oh yeah. We had talked to each other when Corbisher thought he had the upper hand in Venomhold.
“Hey, Marty,” I said. “I’m curious. How did you keep the bloodrat from eating you? Because I really thought it was going to eat you.”
“Bitch!” said Corbisher. He took a step towards me.
“Martin,” said Nicholas in a firm voice.
“You’ll regret that,” said Corbisher, and he started to cast a spell, purple fire snarling around his fingers.
“Martin!” said Nicholas. “That is enough.”
Corbisher subsided, but he kept glaring at me. “She cost me millions of dollars, Nicholas. Millions of dollars, and the entire infrastructure we had built up in Minneapolis. She’s an Inquisition agent, and you should shoot her right now.”
“No, I’m not,” I said in a sing-song voice, “and no, you’re not.”
“I am entirely certain,” said Nicholas, “that Miss Stoker is not an Inquisition agent.”
“Miss Stoker?” said Corbisher, turning to look at Nicholas. “Wait. She’s one of your women, isn’t she?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. The dark-skinned man laughed and grinned at me.
“Rogomil told me about her,” said Corbisher. “She ruined the Los Angeles operation. I told you that your womanizing was going to get us into trouble, and now she’s going to ruin this operation. She…”
“Martin,” said Nicholas. “Sit down.”
Corbisher muttered a few more words and then sat next to Swathe. “I can just imagine what your latest woman will say.”
The dark-skinned man laughed again. “That is going to be entertaining.”
“That’s enough,” said Nicholas.
His voice was mild, but the others fell silent.
“Introductions are in order,” said Nicholas. “You’ve already met Martin Corbisher, it seems, and you met Mr. Swathe on your way in.”
Corbisher and Swathe both glared at me. I gave them a cheery wave.
“This is Enzo Morelli,” said Nicholas, gesturing to the Italian man, who inclined his head, “a former member of the European Union Security Directorate who has joined the Revolution.” He next gestured to the dark-skinned man. “This is Roger Vass, a former helicopter pilot with Homeland Security.”
“I was the best pilot with Homeland Security,” said Vass.
“And this,” said Nicholas, indicating the gray-haired woman, “is Dr. Andrea Tocci.”
I was a little surprised at her presence. From what I had learned, the Rebels often kept female captives drugged and gave them to their soldiers as rewards. Maybe she had joined the Rebels of her own will.
“Hello,” said Dr. Tocci. She sounded tired, and her voice was faint and scratchy.
“This,” said Nicholas, waving a hand in my direction, “is Katrina Stoker. As you all know, to proceed to the next phase of the operation, we need a thief of certain abilities. Miss Stoker is in possession of these abilities.”
“This little girl?” said Vass. “Where did she learn to use a Cloak spell?”
“I’m way older than I look,” I said. I supposed that was technically true. “The trick is to moisturize regularly.”
“I maintain that this woman is an Inquisition agent,” said Corbisher. His glare hadn’t wavered. “She is the author of all the troubles we suffered in Minneapolis. The city was almost under our control. Years of work, undone by her…”
“Actually, Marty,” I said, “that was all your fault. I told you should have followed your father’s example and kept things quiet. Guess the apple really fell far from the brains tree in this instance.”
Corbisher scowled. “The hour of the Revolution has come, and not even the Inquisition will be able to stop us…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “Want to know something funny? I’m not even an Inquisition agent. I’m a freelance thief. If you hadn’t forced someone else to steal an object that I had been hired to steal, then none of this would have happened. You’d still be lording it up in Corbisher Tower. Which, by the way, is the gaudiest building I’ve ever seen. Did you decorate it, or did your father? If…”
“You miserable bitch,” said Corbisher. “I’m going to…”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Bitch? Is that the best you can do? So unimaginative. No wonder you lost all your money and…”
Corbisher surged to his feet again, starting to cast a spell.
“That is quite enough!” said Nicholas, his voice cracking like a whip. The note of command in his voice was strong enough that even I shut up. I’ve mentioned before that he was charismatic, and something in his voice, his presence, his eyes made you want to obey him. “Miss Stoker is here, and we shall determine very shortly if she is an Inquisition agent or not…ah, Hailey, come in.”
I blinked.
A woman had come into the conference room.
She was tall and blond and leggy and busty. She was wearing a tight tank top and white shorts, and she had the kind of body where she could wear a tight tank top and skin-tight white shorts without a hint of self-consciousness. The woman had bright blue eyes, piercings glittering in her ears and nose and lip, and she draped herself over Nicholas, one arm going around his shoulders.
I had never before in my life noticed how attractive another woman was, and I had only noticed because she was draped over my former lover.
God, but that was irrational. I hated Nicholas, and I didn’t want to be here, but some part of my mind had noticed that he had replaced me with a woman who was taller, blonder, and rather, er, bustier.
“Nicholas,” said the woman, rubbing his shoulders as she looked at me. “Is this the one the Forerunner promised us?”
“She is,” said Nicholas. “This is Katrina Stoker, and she has the skills we need for the operation to succeed.”
“She is also our esteemed leader’s ex-girlfriend,” said Corbisher with no small amount of spite. I got the impression he didn’t like the blond woman.
The woman looked me up and down with contempt, and her pierced lip curled. A storm of emotion went over her face, a mixture of hate and anger, and then a flicker of fear as she looked at Nicholas.
“What, her?” said the woman. “Why did you have to bring her here?” Her voice rose half an octave with accusation.
“She is the one the Forerunner brought to us,” said Nicholas. “Would you question the Forerunner?”
“Of course not,” said the woman. Her blue eyes flashed thunderbolts at me. “But…is she the one you told me about? The one who betrayed you at Los Angeles?”
“Yup,” I said before Nicholas could answer. “So, Nicky, who is your friend? Do you pay her by the hour, or is it a lump sum at the end of every week?”
Her glare intensified, and I saw a flicker of black-purple fire around her fingers. She could use magic. Great. When Mr. Cane had been trying to kill me, I had wondered if Nicholas had found a new girlfriend with magical ability to send a banehound after me. I had been wrong about Mr. Cane’s master, but it looked like my speculation had been accurate.
“What did you say?” said the woman, her voice hard.
“This is Hailey Adams,” said Nicholas, unruffled by her anger. If anything, he looked amused. I bet he enjoyed watching his current girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend glaring at each other. “Despite your insinuation, Miss Adams is not a prostitute, but a valuable part of this operation.”
“Operation?” I said. “Is that what you call it now?”
“She does have a smart mouth, doesn’t she?” said Hailey. She straightened up with sinuous grace and stepped away from Nicholas’s chair. I noticed that Hailey was wearing sandals with four-inch spiked heels. As if she wasn’t tall enough already.
“You have no idea,” muttered Corbis
her.
Hailey walked towards me, her heels falling against the carpeted floor with muffled taps.
“Dare I ask,” I said, watching both Hailey and Nicholas, “what…services Hailey provides for you?”
“She is quite skilled in a variety of magic,” said Nicholas, “particularly certain aspects of mind magic.” Hailey stopped a few feet from me, flexing her fingers, purple-black flames twisting around her hands. “Which is why she is now going to read your mind.”
“What?” I said.
“Because Corbisher is right,” said Nicholas. “It is possible that you are an Inquisition agent. Or that you are planning to betray us at the earliest opportunity. Hailey’s magic will read your mind and determine if you are lying.”
“And if you are lying,” said Corbisher, “we will punish you accordingly.”
Morelli reached into his coat, produced a pistol, and leveled the weapon at me. His face remained a calm mask. Vass had also produced a pistol, though his grin remained in place, and as I looked Corbisher produced a gun of his own.
“I very strongly suggest,” said Nicholas, “that you cooperate.”
I considered my options. I really didn’t want Nicholas’s girlfriend digging around inside my head. I also didn’t see any way around it. I couldn’t kill them all before they shot me, and since I was sitting, Cloaking would be useless, and I couldn’t conjure a wall of ice before they shot me.
On the other hand…
There were a lot of spooky things in my head.
Maybe Hailey was going to have a nasty surprise.
“All right,” I said. I stood up, the guns shifting to follow me. Hailey was still a lot taller than me. I grinned at her. “I’m an open book. Start reading.”
Hailey smiled, her blue eyes glinting as the fire around her hands darkened. “This is really going to hurt.”
She put her left hand to my temple. As I did, I noticed she was wearing a chain bracelet with a golden disk in the center. It was adorned with a symbol that looked a bit like a stylized squid-thing with nine tentacles. It was the symbol of the Dark Ones, which meant that Hailey was a Dark Ones cultist, and that was where she had learned her magic.
That was bad.
Then her cold fingers touched my temple, and the dark fire flashed.
I felt her presence in my head.
It was a lot like what Morvilind had done earlier. I felt Hailey’s mind inside of my head, felt her will digging through my thoughts. She was trying to sort through my memories, trying to learn the truth about my identity and my intentions. Hailey wielded the spell with a great deal of skill, and I suspected that she had spent a lot of time using this spell on various people at Nicholas’s behest.
“That’s right.”
Her lips didn’t move, but I heard her voice in my head nonetheless.
“You can’t fight me,” said Hailey’s thought. “You can’t resist me. Give me what I want, and this will hurt less.”
She was skilled…but she wasn’t strong. Well, I suppose she was strong for a human wizard, but she hadn’t spent a century and a half in an Eternity Crucible, had she? I had been able to push back against Morvilind’s mental touch a few days ago, and he had been exponentially stronger than Hailey.
I concentrated and projected a thought back at her.
“Give me what I want, and this will hurt less?” I thought at her. “Is that what Nicholas said on your first date?”
Hailey blinked. She wasn’t used to people talking back through the spell.
I gave her that humorless grin that I seemed to do a lot lately…and I seized her will in the grip of my own mind. She let out a startled gasp, and I felt her mind thrashing in my grip. I held it fast, even as she sent pain at me. It hurt a lot, but I had endured worse.
“Pain?” I thought. “Do you want to know about pain? I’ll show you pain.”
And I plunged her mind into some of my memories from the Eternity Crucible.
Hailey’s eyes bulged wide, her mouth falling open in a silent scream. I forced the memory of some of my more brutal deaths through the mental link and into her head, which meant she got to experience them firsthand. She wasn’t at all prepared for that, and I felt her mind crumple from the weight of the pain.
Which meant it was my turn. I pushed my way into her mind and started rummaging through her memories.
The first thing I took was knowledge of the spell she had used to invade my thoughts. It was called the mindtouch spell, and I added it to my own collection of spells. Her memories flashed before my eyes – a father who beat her, a mother who drank, a kindly older man who had introduced her to the cult of the Dark Ones…
Something huge and dark rose at the back of her mind, reaching for me.
A Dark One. There was a Dark One in her mind, fueling her magic.
I ripped free of her thoughts, shattering the mindtouch spell between us.
It felt like an eternity had passed, but I don’t think the contact lasted more than four or five seconds.
Hailey staggered back from me with a shriek of agony, her eyes wide with horror and fear. Her right ankle twisted in those ridiculous heels, and she lost her balance, hit her head against the wall, slid to the floor, and started screaming. Dr. Tocci surged out of her seat and ran to her, while Corbisher, Morelli, Vass, and Swathe all jumped to their feet, pistols leveled at me.
Nicholas did not move. He didn’t even look at Hailey, his eyes narrowed as he stared at me.
“You died!” shrieked Hailey as Dr. Tocci knelt next to her. “You died and died and died! I saw it! How can you be here? How?”
She broke down and started to sob uncontrollably, burying her face in her hands.
“It’s okay,” said Dr. Tocci. “It’s okay, Hailey. Come on. We’ll go to the infirmary and get you something to calm you down. Okay?”
Hailey managed a miserable nod, and Dr. Tocci helped her to stand. Both women shot one last fearful look in my direction, and then they left. I heard the clatter of Hailey’s heels against the hall.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“What did you do to her?” said Nicholas at last.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all. I let her look around inside my head, just like you said, Nicky.” I dropped back into my chair and looked down the barrels of all the guns pointed at me. “Guess she didn’t like what she found in there. See, that’s the trouble with being a voyeur. You might see something that you don’t like.”
“Plainly,” said Nicholas.
“Look,” I said. “You want to play more games, or do you want to get down to business? The Forerunner sent me here for a reason. Either we get to work, or I leave. I don’t care about you, your stupid Revolution, or your precious security. I just want to get the job done and go home.”
Morelli snorted. “Direct, isn’t she?”
“Feisty,” said Vass with a rumbling laugh.
“Dangerous and untrustworthy,” said Swathe, and Corbisher nodded agreement.
“Like you guys aren’t,” I said.
“Miss Stoker has a point,” said Nicholas, waving his hand. The other men holstered their guns and sat back down. “She is, in fact, untrustworthy and dangerous, but clearly skilled. Those skills give us a unique opportunity. It is time to proceed with the operation.” He smiled. “Though Miss Stoker will know as little about it as possible, of course.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can’t steal things for you unless you tell me what to steal.”
“True.” Nicholas smiled. “Let’s begin, then. What can you tell me about the city of Chicago?”
I almost said that I had driven past it on my way here, but I stopped myself before the words got to my lips. Driving past Chicago would let them figure out that I had come from Wisconsin, and the less Nicholas and his Rebel gang knew about my movements, the better.
“Not much,” I said. “Used to be a big city back in the old days before the Conquest. Then they rebelled, and the High Queen burned the place. Anyone who goe
s inside gets killed and raised as an undead. The ruins are still standing as a warning.” I looked them over. “Guess the message was lost on you guys.”
“The message was not lost on us,” said Corbisher. “We fight to free humanity from such oppression.”
I almost pointed out that the Dark Ones were not interested in freeing anyone, but I didn’t. I was sick of arguing with these morons, and Nicholas did have a point. It was time to get to work.
“That is the widely accepted story about Chicago,” said Nicholas. “While broadly correct, it is missing several key details.”
“Which you happen to know,” I said.
“Yes,” said Nicholas. “I…”
He fell silent as the door opened and Dr. Tocci returned.
“I’ve got her sedated,” said Dr. Tocci, her eyes downcast as she sat down. “She should feel better once she wakes up. Given how…emotionally unstable she is, maybe you shouldn’t have her use the mindtouch spell.”
“It is a necessary risk,” said Nicholas. “We all must make sacrifices for the Revolution.”
“Romantic as ever,” I said, not bothering to hide my scorn. Through the mindtouch spell I had seen that Hailey was madly, wildly in love with Nicholas. She would do anything for him.
I doubted he cared anywhere as much about her.
“What did you do to her?” said Dr. Tocci. For the first time, she met my eyes, and she looked angry. “I’ve never seen her react to a contact like that.”
I didn’t blink. “She wanted to look into my memories. I let her.”
Dr. Tocci looked away first, shaking her head.
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Nicholas. “But back to the matter at hand. I have spent a great deal of time studying the history of the early days of the Conquest because I am convinced that the key to overthrowing the High Queen and defeating the Elves lies in that history.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because,” said Nicholas, “the official account has been highly edited.” He waved a hand around the table. “All of us spent time in public schools, and on the first day of school we watched the video of the High Queen using her magic to make the last pre-Conquest President and Congress kill themselves.”
Cloak Games: Tomb Howl Page 9