Rites & Desires

by Amanda Cherry

"You don’t say?" Jaccob half-mocked, winking at her.

  Ruby winked back. "I’m just saying you don’t need to worry about message and branding and such if you don’t want to. Stick with me and I’ll do as much of that as you want me to."

  Jaccob chuckled and inclined his head in her direction before turning his attention to the television.

  Ruby punched the digits to tune into 24-hour news.

  It was no surprise the featured story was the White House bombing. There had been plenty of news media invited to the event, plus the entire White House Press Corps had been allowed in. Anyone else might have been astonished at the level of gore currently on the screen, but Ruby understood the need to compete for viewers when an event was as saturated with coverage as this one was. She had no problem with the gruesome live shots.

  There was chaos and carnage as far as the eye could see. In-studio reporters tried their best to narrate the shaky and occasionally distorted pictures coming in from their cameras still on the North Lawn. They were reporting the number of dead and wounded, with updates every couple of minutes. Ruby was pleased to hear that medevac helicopters had already been dispatched to the White House, and triage was being set up by the Secret Service with the support of the Marine Corps on the scene. She let herself wonder for a minute whether Prather might have a hard time landing in the midst of all that, but she decided she honestly didn’t care. Whatever inconvenience this whole episode was for that abominable louse was fine with her. It was an attack against him that had caused his whole thing.

  And if he hadn’t been a horrible, despicable, slimy piece of trash, then today’s attack would never have happened. If he was bothered by its aftermath blocking his travel path or disturbing the peace of his opulent government residence, then he ought to be thankful it wasn’t a whole lot worse. A bit of inconvenience surely beat being blown to a million pieces.

  There were two reporting segments in particular that caught Ruby’s attention as she sat on the sofa with Jaccob watching the coverage unfold over cognac. She knew he was interested in what they might be saying about Stardust; she cared about that part, but she was equally interested in what the news had to say about her people.

  Every person on that stage when the explosions happened, save Prather himself, had been in her employ. If she was about to need some bereavement press releases drafted or a few job openings posted, the sooner she knew that the better. Those were the kinds of things that had to be crafted with care--not just any member of her PR team could be charged with such a sensitive assignment. She’d learned that somber fact the hard way early in her career when she’d inadvertently come off as callous and cold in her public response to the deaths of a few fans at a Cassidy Sweet show in a California mall. She resolved to handle any similar situations differently. So she turned up the volume when the story switched to the fate of the Young Dudes.

  The picture on screen shifted to some footage from their performance this afternoon. Ruby couldn’t help but to critique the aesthetic; the lights were a little too red for a daytime show, and she seriously wished Jordan hadn’t worn that awful patterned shirt. She’d have to talk to Artist Management again about not letting the talent pick their own wardrobe. She’d been having that fight with the Young Dudes since their second album, and they always seemed to want to test their limits. Gods, she hated boy bands sometimes.

  But it was their well-being, not their appearance, that had to matter most today. Ruby didn’t hate boy bands enough to want to be rid of the one that had been her consistently highest revenue property for the past five years. Annoying and rebellious as they could be sometimes, the Young Dudes had made her heaps of money, and she was very concerned as to their ability to continue doing that.

  The reporter in the studio read from a teleprompter that Hunter had been one of the first victims evacuated; he’d been alive the last anyone knew. So that was good news. She’d have to get Bridget or one of her artist managers to find out hospital details. The other Young Dudes were all being treated for minor injuries and were expected to be released within the hour. There was brief mention of Amani Kasabian and of Cate and Nicholas from Nicetime as being treated for injuries as well, but of everyone’s injuries, Hunter’s seemed the most concerning.

  Ruby took a deep breath and another swallow of cognac. At least she wouldn’t be losing more than one source of income.

  Jaccob seemed to be in a state between completely miffed and mildly pleased that Stardust seemed to be a non-story.

  "You know," Ruby said, looking back and forth between Jaccob and the television screen, "there’s every chance the cameras were all pointed the other way. There’s every chance no one even saw you help Prather."

  "You don’t think it’ll come out?" he asked her dubiously.

  Ruby took another drink and shrugged. "Probably not if we don’t want it to," she said. "And even if it does get out that Prather left with us, he owes you pretty big right now. I’m sure we could talk him into telling the truth if he gets asked. You wanted to get us out of there. He knew the way. In exchange for his access and guidance, he got to take advantage of your shield technology until we were all clear of the danger."

  "You think Prather would do that?" he asked dubiously.

  Ruby sighed. "Like I said, he owes you, and he owes me. And with his history, and with his well-known attitude toward superheroes, he might. Not that it matters much. We know what really happened, and the cameras don’t lie. So if there is footage of what happened, all it’s going to show is you saving yourself and the people nearest you, and that lunatic poltroon diving for cover at your feet."

  Ruby shrugged and took another sip from her drink; as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over. Either no one would ever know Jaccob had helped Prather at all, or everyone would hear from every quarter the full and unvarnished truth of the matter. The story switched then from the wounded entertainers to speculation about the perpetrators of the bombing. The story seemed to be set in the minds of the broadcasters that the attack had been orchestrated by Islamist terrorists.

  They switched feeds again and re-ran part of a story from several months ago. Ruby had all but forgotten the fuss when nearly the entire complement of an internment camp for suspected terrorists had somehow vanished. News of that variety rarely crossed her radar at all. She preferred to keep her consumption of media curated to include only things that directly affected her empire, but that had been such a big story at the time that she distinctively remembered it having happened. She hadn’t given it thought since. Thinking about it now, she was sure the news anchor was completely off-base.

  They cut to a shot of a briefing room. Vice President Michaels stood beside whoever was taking the current turn as White House Press Secretary. The portly blonde man with an obvious spray-tan was declaring today’s attack the work of rogue Islamists with an agenda against America.

  She almost let the truth slip right then.

  She was glad she managed to hold her tongue; there’d be an awfully lot of explaining to do if she were to have just blurted out what she knew in that moment. Jacob would want an explanation, and she wasn’t in any way prepared to give him one. But those claims were entirely false and she knew it.

  They hadn’t been attacked by bombs, they’d been attacked by magic. Ruby knew that, and she was pretty sure anyone with two clues to rub together about explosives and forensic analysis knew that, too. The Secret Service had to know by now. And if they didn’t, they would soon. There wouldn’t be any devices found--no switches or powder, no fuses, wires, or intended projectiles. Whatever had exploded in the crowd today had been magical, not mechanical.

  And it hadn’t been Islamic magic.

  Ruby had enough experience with magics of different origins that it was usually easy to identify the root of the power behind any mystical energy she encountered. Islamic magic had a very particular feel and flavor to it, and today’s explosions were decidedly not of that origin. The energy behind this magic was not Is
lamic energy. It wasn’t even pre-Islamic. And the more Ruby thought about it, the more she was convinced it wasn’t even Middle Eastern.

  Ruby had a definite suspicion as to where the magic behind these explosions had come from. She had a strong familiarity with the general flavor of the energy. And Ruby knew, in a way that not many people did, of someone who had both the power to affect an attack like this one and also a beef with Prather large enough to get them to act.

  It was only a hunch, but it was a powerful one.

  She’d have to look into it further after she got home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  There was only one way to verify Ruby’s suspicion as to who had been behind this afternoon’s attacks. When the car from the airport dropped her off at her building, she didn’t even bother going up to her penthouse. Instead, she took the elevator only as far as her offices, then dashed across the lobby and to the public elevator bank.

  She was sure she looked a mess, doubly sure when she caught the looks on the faces of the few passers-by who saw her in the lobby. She had literally forgotten it was the middle of the work day. Thankfully, she was alone in the elevator lobby when the car came. She’d have hated to have had to shoo unsuspecting employees or visitors out of the lift, but she’d have done it. Ruby used her thumb print to unlock the keypad allowing her access to the non-business floors of the building and punched the button for the forty-sixth floor.

  She stepped off the elevator into the empty marble foyer of the penthouse beneath her office and crossed through the vestibule’s arched entryway into the open great room of the opulent residence. The décor had been brought up and set out exactly to her specifications. This was good. This meant what she was here to do was actually going to be possible. It had taken some doing to get all the requisite items imported and delivered--she’d had to go so far a few times as having the crates mislabeled as fakes and knock-offs so that she could bring them into the country. It seemed multiple international governments took issue with illicit trafficking of antiquities, and some even had problems with legitimate purchases by private collectors outside their countries of origin.

  But not a single one of them appeared to give a damn about cheap copies of those same antiquities. A few shoddily printed labels and a forged paper trail putting the true items elsewhere was all it had taken. Ruby wasn’t surprised that no one in the customs office had been able to identify the genuine article when told they were looking at a fake. The best and the brightest never seemed to find their way into government service. That held especially true under the current administration.

  The statuary and tapestries were all set out just so, as was the sparse-but-still-impressive oversized baroque furniture. But the furnishing, as perfectly suited to purpose as it was, wasn’t enough to keep the place from feeling empty. Ruby’s footfalls echoed loudly as she crossed into the center of the great room. It amazed her that after everything she’d been through today, her shoes still hadn’t grown uncomfortable. That was part of the value in expensive shoes, she figured.

  It occurred to her that perhaps she should have taken a moment to try and repair her appearance, but the conversation she’d come here to have seemed far more pressing than her hair or her face. She was sure she’d hear about how haggard she looked, but that was hardly the most important happening of the day, although she was well aware that allowing herself to be seen in such a disheveled state was nearly as rare an occasion as an attempt on the life of a world leader.

  Either way, she needed to do what she needed to do, and she was far too anxious to shower and change before she did it. Ruby crossed swiftly to the switch on the wall and activated the mechanism to draw the curtains. Jaccob and Mike were next door, and it would do her no good were they to get a peek at the conversation she was about to have. She’d done a good enough job keeping the truth of this association from Jaccob thus far. Getting caught now would just be embarrassing. Letting him catch her at this because she’d left the curtains open would have been a rookie mistake. And Ruby Killingsworth did not make rookie mistakes.

  "Loki!" she called out. "Loki!" She paced back across the mostly empty marble room. "Loki, will you please show up and talk to me? You know I’m not falling for the whole ‘needs an avatar to manifest’ business; I set up the fetishes in this place myself."

  She looked around the room then, taking mental inventory of the anchors and icons she’d had brought in. Promising Loki a forty-sixth floor condo would have meant nothing if she hadn’t prepared the space to allow him to actually show up there. She’d done the arranging herself once the attendant items had been delivered; she knew it was right. If Loki failed to show, it was by choice and not by necessity. Ruby shook her head. "Listen here, you magnificent bastard. I need to talk to you. Don’t make me use a summoning ritual."

  "Now, now, Ruby," Loki’s voice sounded from behind her. "Threatening to take me by force? Tsk tsk. That isn’t very becoming."

  "I’m more interested in what you’re becoming," Ruby snapped as she turned to get a look at him. He was lounging in a red and gold rococo chair she’d had brought in for exactly that purpose. The thing had practically screamed his name when she’d seen it in a castle in Saxony. When she’d gone to outfit this sanctuary, she’d had her office make that castle an offer they couldn’t refuse. She was glad it had been delivered in time for this conversation. The god was splayed across it, one leg hanging over the arm rest and one hand stroking the intricate carves in the gilded frame.

  "And what’s that?" he asked.

  "Self-destructive and batshit crazy," she answered plainly. "Did you or did you not attempt to assassinate you own avatar today?"

  "You mean my ex-avatar?" Loki asked smugly.

  Ruby’s jaw dropped. That could explain Prather’s erstwhile feelings of abandonment. "Well, that’s news."

  Loki shrugged, turning to sit properly in the chair and smiling. "I’ve got three new little darlings to make my way through in the mortal realm," he told her.

  "Three?" Ruby wasn’t sure she’d ever heard of one god having multiple avatars before. But then again, Loki always had been a rule-breaker.

  Loki nodded.

  "Well, aren’t you a damned overachiever?" she asked. "And how very like you: to have made the sorry sonofabitch the presumptive leader of the free world and then abandoned him to his fate."

  "Isn’t it, though?" Loki mused. "What is it you tycoon types say? It was very ‘on brand’?"

  Ruby laughed. "Indeed."

  "But to answer your question, I didn’t try to blow him up. That was Muslim extremists. Or didn’t you see the news?"

  Ruby frowned and shook her head. "I didn’t have to see the news," she said. "I saw the whole thing up close and personal."

  Loki looked horrified. He stood abruptly and took two long strides in her direction. "Mjolnir!" he exclaimed. "Are you all right? You look all right."

  Ruby nodded. She was glad, all the sudden, that it was rather dim in here--otherwise she was sure he’d have amended that to "you look like fresh hell."

  "Date a superhero," she said. "It could save your life."

  Loki closed the distance between them. He rested his hands on her shoulders and shook his head. "I’ll keep that in mind," he snarled. He took a tiny step back and crossed his arms over his chest. "You thought it was me?"

  Ruby nodded.

  "Why?"

  "Because it was magic," she replied frankly. "They’re not saying that on the news. I don’t know whether they haven’t figured it out yet or they’re just not telling the media, but it was magic. The story seems to be that radical Islamist terrorists snuck the components for IEDs into the event, put the bombs together on site, and tried to blow up the President. And no one’s contradicting that. But the fact is, that is not what happened. Those explosions came from magic, and it wasn’t Islamic magic."

  "How can you be so sure?" he asked, turning away from her and walking toward the large picture window at the far side of the room. W
ith a flick of his fingers, the velvet curtain drew out of his way, allowing Loki his first look at the view from his new penthouse. The sun was setting, and the sky over the water was a vibrant shade of red-orange. Ruby followed him to the window, glad at least that he’d chosen to pull open the curtains on a side of the building not facing Starcom Tower.

  "Didn’t you hear me?" she asked, "I was right there. If Jaccob hadn’t been standing beside me, I’d have been blown to oblivion. I felt the magic. I could taste it. And it didn’t taste like Islam. It tasted--" She paused as she turned from the view of the water to look at the god beside her. "A little like you."

  "Hmmm," Loki purred, turning to lean his shoulder against the pane glass of the window. "You remember what I taste like."

  Ruby quirked her eyebrow and smirked. "Now wouldn’t you like to know if I remember it fondly?" she teased. "But I mean it. Magically speaking, it felt far closer to your work than anything with roots in Islam."

  "Well, it wasn’t me," Loki declared flatly, standing up to his full height and taking several steps back from the window.

  "I had to ask," she said.

  "Of course you did," he replied, his tone indicating both an affirmation and a dismissal. He’d paused to examine one of the icons Ruby had placed in the vestibule. It was a statue of him, half-scale and reasonably accurate, standing on a pedestal just tall enough for the god to look himself in the eye. "But if I were after Prather, I wouldn’t do it in front of a crowd. And I sure as hell wouldn’t do it in front of Stardust. For all his well-tempered pontificating on what a rotten human being Prather is, the man can’t help but rescue anyone in range."

  "For what it’s worth, I believe you. I didn’t really think it was you to begin with. It was just ... sort of your flavor."

  "You talking flavors and magic like this," Loki said, turning from the statue’s gaze to Ruby’s, "does that mean you have your powers back?"

  Ruby shook her head and wrinkled her nose. "Not quite yet," she replied. "But I’m working on it--with the help of the Blights you sent me and, of course, the Eye of Africa."