by Jenn Stark
“Allying yourself with strength is the hallmark of any great leader.” Eshe sniffed. “He chose the Council when it presented itself, as you see.”
“And angels wept, I’m sure.” I transferred my attention to Kreios. “I’m going to need a plane, some kind of reason to be in Angkor. What I have to do isn’t on the typical tourist itinerary.”
“I’m going with,” Nikki said. She folded her arms as I turned to her. “You are not going to Cambodia on a solo jump, girl. You may have forgotten the fireworks from earlier this week, but I haven’t. And if you don’t let me go, you’ll just be stuck with Jiao’s goons on your ass, and I don’t think you want that either.”
“Can’t Brody keep an eye on her?”
“Not that close of an eye. He’s up to his ass in paperwork over the whole shitstorm at the Palazzo. But you really think you’re not going to have a tail on you the moment you show your face outside these walls?”
“Fair point,” I mumbled.
Nikki gave me a toothy grin. “So I’m going with you. To protect you from your own people as much as anyone else. Besides, you were in a hospital bed a mere hour ago and spontaneously combusted just now. Hell, I’m coming along to protect you from you.”
“Your concern is appreciated, if misplaced.” Kreios nodded, clearly enjoying the byplay between us. “A helicopter is even now on its way to the rooftop landing strip atop the Flamingo, and a jet is being redirected for your needs. I can have you in Siem Reap in approximately a day’s flight. I’ll arrange for papers and accommodations to be ready for you upon your arrival.”
“Thanks.” I poked at the singe spots on my scrubs.
He nodded at Eshe, though his gaze never left me. “Do not discount counsel even if it isn’t what you wish to hear, Sara Wilde. Eshe is correct, Armaeus is correct. Your own intuition, should you allow it to speak, is correct. The course you have set for yourself with the House of Swords will not end well, unless you allow another to fight in your place.”
“I got it, I got it,” I muttered, my mind already jumping ahead to the task of finding a sword in one of the busiest tourist locations in the Pacific. “I’ll be careful.”
“You’ll need to be more than that,” Kreios said amiably. “If you do not relinquish leadership of the House of Swords, you will die.”
Chapter Fifteen
Like Paris in the summertime, Cambodia is hot. And rainy. And especially rainy and hot.
Nikki, being no fool, had stuck to her camo pants and waterproof hiking boots, her upper body on display in a skintight black cami beneath a flowing, sheer white rain jacket. Her hair was in a ponytail beneath her black CPD ball cap, and I eyed her broad back as we tramped through the rain-slicked streets.
“Um, have you been working out?”
“Girl needs to stay in shape,” she said, lifting one impressive shoulder as she surveyed the scene. “Although right now, girl could use a beer, stat.”
It was nearing midnight in Siem Reap, but the busy Pub Street showed no sign of shutting down. The recent downpour served only to force people inside the tiny cafés and bars lining the streets, or to spread plastic bags on the outdoor seating now that the rain had eased off again. The heat stayed at a constant, steaming off the pavement. We pushed our way into one of the more promising-looking bars, a place selling stir-fried beef and an international assortment of beers. There were no tables open, but the couple who’d entered ahead of us spent a second too long gawking at Nikki. She pushed past them, scoring a prime space at the bar. I sidled up beside her as the bartender came by, and Nikki ordered for the two of us with a pointed finger and an attempt at pronouncing the local fare that was so poor, it rivaled mine.
“I like this place,” she said, grinning at me. She leaned heavily against the bar and snaked her foot around a stool that had been vacated a hair’s breadth before. The disgruntled “hey” of a disappointed stool-stalker was cut short as he followed the reinforced-toe boot up to the top of Nikki’s ball cap. I turned to take in the clientele, sipping on my own beer after making sure I watched the bartender uncap it and slide it my way without any technoceutical additives. Not that I was too worried, though. This wasn’t Tel Aviv airport, it was a hole in the wall in the jungle, and we’d traveled with an Arcana-level of stealth, courtesy of Simon. Tainted food would be the least of our worries.
The bar crowd was an eclectic mix of tourists despite the rainy season, a scatter of Americans, Chinese, Australians, and Europeans. All of them carried on loud conversations over TVs tuned to what looked like a continuous feed of soccer. “We got, what, twelve hours before Soo’s goons figure out where we are?”
“Soo’s goons or the goons of her enemies,” I said. “It’s not like we’ve gotten debriefed on who we should even be watching out for.”
“I get the feeling Soo’d shut up most everyone who needed shutting a while back.” Nikki shrugged. “There’ll be people who move against the House now that she’s gone, but her generals clearly felt comfortable going after you instead of heading off the barbarians at the gate. I suspect her infrastructure is pretty tight.”
“Probably true.” I didn’t like it, though, the sense that I was missing key information about a new purchase—like a rescue dog who was about to have puppies in my living room. Then again, I was almost certain I wouldn’t be keeping the dog, so on a need-to-know basis, I didn’t actually need to know much more than how quickly I could get the Honjo Masamune and hand it off to the first general I could.
“Don’t you get that squirrelly look on your face. That always leads to trouble,” Nikki said, tilting her beer toward me. “What’re you thinking?”
“Nothing. I just want to get this op nailed down.” I turned back to the counter, clearing a space on the scarred wood surface. Then I reached into my jacket pocket and shook loose my Tarot deck, the way an addict of a different sort might break out a pack of cigarettes. I shuffled the deck quickly, then pulled three cards, wincing as lightening flashed in the window, the roll of thunder following behind.
I looked back at Nikki, who was also grimacing at the renewed pelting of rain and the influx of bodies into the bar, everyone smelling of damp sweat. “Really?” she muttered. “Thunderstorms? That’s kinda gonna put a crimp in the sunrise ceremonies tomorrow.”
“I think people show up for sunrise no matter what, in case the weather turns—which it’s already done like six times since we’ve gotten here, so probably not a bad idea.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Her gaze dropped to the cards. “You gonna flip those over, or do I have to guess?”
“You know, I’m not used to having a shadow when I pull these things.”
“Well, I’m the most stylish shadow you’ll ever score, dollface. Get comfy with it.”
I shook my head but couldn’t help grinning as I turned over the cards. It was strange having Nikki along for the ride, but it was good too. In a world where I no longer knew who supported me and who didn’t, she was a constant I hadn’t realized how much I needed.
Which was why I didn’t begrudge her when she whistled low. “Well, that looks like a big pile of suck.”
“You’re not kidding.” Hunkered down in Cambodia in a thunderstorm, I hadn’t expected the cards to be cheery, but this read was exceptionally miserable. The first card was the Tower, complete with its super fun representation of victims flinging themselves off an exploding building. “Could be an explosion, could be the thunderstorm.” tapped the card. “Could be everything falling to pieces.”
Nikki snorted. “Glad to know we’re in the right place.
I moved on. “The Ten of Swords could be betrayal, could be having to look for something along the ground. Could be attack.”
“Or gall bladder surgery,” Nikki supplied helpfully. “Can never be too careful with your gall bladder.”
“Fair enough. Outcome is the Five of Wands. Could be a fight, or the fifth exit, or—”
“You know it’s a fight, hon. A fight where we’re betray
ed. My favorite kind.”
“Clarifying.” I pulled two more cards out of the deck, flipping them upright: Hierophant and Death.
Nikki took another pull on her beer. “I’m glad you’re the card reader and I’m the muscle.”
“This feels like a location clarifier,” I said, dropping the Hierophant between the first two. “We’re going to a religious site, and there are statues dedicated to Buddha in there. So the statues are where we should focus.”
“And this American GI was, what, a Buddhist? Drawn to the elbow of Cambodia as his personal mecca?”
“Who knows. Angkor Wat started out Hindu focused, but it’s been Buddhist since the mid-1500s. That’s a few hundred years after the Honjo Masamune was created.” I shook my head. “I don’t know the connection. Maybe there isn’t one, maybe the guy simply paid more attention to the ley line configurations. They all converge beneath the temple.”
“Maybe. All that matters is you think the thing is here.” She flapped her hand over the cards. “And that we have enough lead time to get the hell back to the plane before the rest of that happens. What’s Death mean in context here?”
“Probably not actual death, since the Tower is with it.”
“Thank heavens for small favors.”
I shrugged. “Change, something that takes us completely by surprise. That’s what we’re looking at, I think. Something that changes everything.”
Our food arrived, and conversation halted enough for us to sample the delicacies that Siem Reap’s Pub Street had to offer. Throughout the meal, though, Nikki’s gaze kept casually sweeping the crowd, and I didn’t miss how her hand strayed to her waist every time the door to the small bar opened.
I grimaced and downed another sip of beer. I was used to entering dangerous situations, thrived on it, in fact. I was used to ending up places I sometimes needed to exit equally quickly. But it was a different sensation to be walking around with a target on my back. Some of that was because of the House of Swords, admittedly. But how much would change even if I gave up that commission? Could I go back to the shadows at this point, even if I wanted to?
I looked over at Nikki, whose gift of Sight extended only to what her clients saw—or believed they saw. An excellent skill to have in her former role of cop, but not as useful now, when I truly needed to divine the future.
“You ready?”
“About as much as you are,” she cracked, but she pushed back from the bar, throwing down a few bills on the counter. “Pretty sure that’ll guarantee us a seat when we come back,” she said, and the confidence in her tone bolstered my flagging spirits.
We headed back to our hotel, ostensibly to sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, a half an hour later in the middle of another rainstorm, we padded down the backstairs. The car Kreios had secured for us was small and nondescript, and Nikki folded herself into it with a curse.
“He did this on purpose,” she grumbled. “He’s thinking about me in this roller skate right now, laughing his exceptionally fine ass off.”
“It’s twenty minutes, and take heart. If the cards hold true, we’re probably not going to be driving back tonight.”
“That’s great, Sara.” She rolled her eyes. “You just keep the troops smiling, and it’ll all be okay.”
The downpour made the travel slow going, even in the dead of night—because nothing was really dead in Siem Reap, ever. People traveled on foot, on bike and motorbike in addition to cars, as numb to the rain as if it were a passing cloud of gnats. We dumped the car about two blocks from the temple and trekked the rest of the way on foot, pausing at an overhang to peer across the moat to the temple proper.
“I guess no one would really notice if we showed up wet,” Nikki observed, and I grimaced.
“Whatever is living in that moat, we do not want to have it crawling into us,” I said. “The back access road to the temple will take too long too. Kreios tapped into local data, and it’s a barricaded nightmare right now. So that means we go over the bridge to pray at the temple doors with everyone else. And we stay there. We’re die-hard pilgrims come to watch the sunrise celebration, and I bet we won’t even be the first in line.”
We weren’t. Tourists sat huddled under makeshift rain shelters, their spirits bright and cheery despite the sweeping rain. The beach of Angkor Wat’s opening to the temple grounds extended for several hundred feet in both directions, and trees hung over the high wall. It wasn’t too much of a stretch for two soaked Americans to wander over to the edge of the tree line, looking for shelter.
We sat there another half an hour, until yet more tourists arrived, these singing drunkenly as they careened back and forth across the bridge.
“That’ll do for distraction,” said Nikki, and I nodded.
“Remember, the walls might have razor wire. So look for the biggest trees you can find.”
“I just spent three hundred dollars on a full body wax,” she retorted. “Ain’t nothing going to gash open these legs if I have anything to say about it.”
She moved off, melting backward into the trees as I watched the beach for five minutes longer. By the time I reached her on the other side of the wall (thankfully there’d been no razor wire), Nikki had holstered her gun for easier movement.
We set out, reaching the main temple area with surprising speed. It was approaching three a.m., and the place glowed with a skeletal lighting system, not enough to worry about. Still, up on the actual steps to the Bakan Sanctuary, the lights were everywhere. Only one of us would probably be able to slip up there unseen, and it wasn’t the one who topped six foot four without heels.
“I need you on the ground until I get back,” I said. “If all hell breaks loose, get out.”
“Aye, aye,” Nikki said, squinting at the light show. “Figured they’d dim the lights more with the rain.”
“I think this is the dim version.”
Nikki hunkered into the lee of the steps as I pulled a pair of climbing gloves out of my pants and slicked them on. The rain had kicked up in force, and the thunder had taken to rolling in ten-second rumbles, interspersed with bright pops of lightning. I timed my surges to fall as the bright static from the lightning faded, and made it up the steep stairs half running, half climbing—and half lying flat on my stomach, gasping for breath. Even the description of “stairs” was a kindness. These steps were more like a rock wall at a gym, despite sporting more regular handholds. By the time I pulled myself up to the central tower’s opening, my arms were wobbling from exertion, and I flattened to the stone surface as a lightning bolt split the night sky.
“I get it, I get it,” I muttered, squinting into the tower’s central chamber with the aid of the heavenly light show. There were several statues of Buddha within, and I hopped the short fence to enter the monument, carefully avoiding the piles of ornamental offerings in tribute to the silent forms.
Four Buddhas stood at each of the cardinal points of the room, along with one in the center, the Maitreya Buddha. I looked at the feet of the four exterior statues, nodding as I confirmed they were bolted to the floor. None of the signs of reconstruction touched the statues’ feet.
“Where’d you put the sword, soldier boy,” I muttered, thinking back to the cards. The Buddhas all had similar poses, but I’d pulled the Hierophant card at the bar, symbolic of all things religious, yes—but also something more. The central Buddha had his hand in the air, as if passing on a benediction. That exactly matched the Hierophant.
Still, there was simply no way the sword was buried beneath or inside these Buddhas. The pit these statues currently rested on had been excavated and filled back in, everything of value carefully removed. A sword would have been found if it’d been buried in that gravel at any time over the past seventy years. I moved more closely to the central statue, brushing past the others.
The outer Buddhas towered over me and serenely watched my progress. I focused again on the Maitreya. It was virtually impossible to see the line where the head had been r
eattached after the original statues had been literally defaced by vandals. Had the sword somehow been placed inside while the statues had been undergoing construction? It was impossible to know, and either way—I wouldn’t have the tools to unearth the thing.
Scowling, I reached inside my shirt for the cards, even as another rush of lightning illuminated the temple room. The shadows jumped, and I jumped along with them, yanking the card free and flipping it upright.
The Ace of Swords.
Helpful to know I was on the right track, but I scowled at the card, looking for hidden clues. The sword was held aloft over a rocky mountain range, a crown and garland surmounting it. The hand floated in the air, and I looked from it to the hand above me, Buddha giving his benediction.
Lightning cracked again, and I looked up farther.
The dome of the Bakan Sanctuary had been gilded with several layers of silver, gold, and other precious metals through the years, too high and too awkward for vandals to easily reach, only recently uncovered through careful restoration. The ceiling was covered in bas-relief carvings that glistened through that precious covering, heaven represented through the original Hindu artwork of a throng of warriors paying honor to Vishnu. The warriors carried swords, arrows, and knives, and as I scanned the elegant artistry, another lightning strike cracked through the sky, hitting the top of the temple.
Electrical sparks showered down all around me, and the lights blinked out.
But not before I saw it.
Chapter Sixteen
A long, slender sword stuck out near the bottom of the ridged dome, adding an extra bump that didn’t match the other four arcs. Its scabbard reached out a scant inch farther than the other ridges, gleaming with the same metallic sheen as the rest of the gilded dome. I would bet my teeth that scabbard was lined in lead too. That might not have been done purposefully, but it had served to hide the sword better than anything else could have all these long years. After all, the dome was lined with metal—what was one more shard of steel?