The villa had many windows, but every one looked slathered with black paint. Blinder walls. Again.
But what else would you expect? Of course a hideaway for Darklings would be smothered with privacy spells. And they were needed. Given any sort of opening, I’d be spying the heck out of Red Pine Villa. But the blinder spells were top-of-the-line, and their coverage was total. To see what lay inside, we’d have to go in.
WE STOPPED IN THE VILLA’S FRONT YARD
Aria hovered to avoid sinking knee-deep in the snow. “Looks quiet,” she said. “See anything, Zircon?”
«Wall-to-wall blinders. Also defense spells.» I scanned more closely. «But the front door looks safe. Nothing glowing.»
“That makes sense,” Dakini said, “They wouldn’t want to vaporize the mailman.”
Ninety-Nine grinned. “Front door it is. Last one in is a—”
Aria grabbed her collar. “It may be safe to touch, but not to throw open and race inside. Let’s knock and announce ourselves before we do anything impulsive.”
“How do we announce ourselves?” Ninety-Nine asked. “Do we have a name?”
“You mean a team name?” Dakini asked.
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to think of one, but I got nothin’. Four Girls from Different Science Departments is not going to fly.”
«Especially the ‘Girls’ part,» I said.
Dakini said, “We could call ourselves Heroes of Science…”
“Lousy acronym,” Ninety-Nine pointed out.
“Oh. Sorry.” Dakini looked momentarily sheepish. “But it would still be beneficial to establish a group identity. If we’ve learned anything tonight, it’s how much the Light cares about symbols. Costumes. Masks. A good team name would give strength to our group identity.”
“Yes, but we have no group identity,” Aria said. “We’re all over the map. A soprano, a hockey player, a muse, and a rock.”
«Zircon isn’t a rock, it’s a mineral,» I muttered.
“My point is, there’s no unifying concept,” Aria said. “Our powers have no common factors.”
“We could take a name based on our aspirations,” Dakini said. “Something like The Defenders.”
“The name’s taken,” Ninety-Nine said. “By a group in Miami.”
“The Guardians?”
“Manchester.”
“The Protectors?”
“Auckland.”
“The—”
Aria cut in: “Can we not do this here? There’s a non-zero chance one of the worst supervillains on Earth is watching us right now. I do not want him to kill us while we’re sounding like fourteen-year-olds trying to name their garage band.”
“Oooh!” Ninety-Nine said. “Band names are a lot more fun than The Defenders! You can pick any old shit. Like Streaked Silver Panties or Too Many Cooks.”
Dakini said, “I like Too Many Cooks. It’s fitting.”
Aria groaned. “Forget what I said about knocking. I’m blasting the door down. If some magical defense blows me to pieces, it’ll put me out of my misery.”
ARIA STARTED TOWARD THE HOUSE, FLYING JUST ABOVE THE SNOW
But she flew with deliberate slowness, giving the rest of us time to catch up and/or stop her. Me, I was still perched in Aria’s hair, and desperately poking my Spark-o-Vision at the house to detect any threats we should worry about. I had no idea if my vision could do that, but what the hell: If I asked nicely, maybe the Light would download a new app into my visual cortex, and suddenly I’d see blinking red flashers on any wards about to zap us.
Alas, no new app. However, as we neared the front door, I noticed magical runes up on the lintel. The runes were the same shade of green as the lintel itself; the villa’s owner must have painted the lintel first, let the paint dry, then used a fine artist’s brush to dab on the runes. You’d never notice them, unless your eyes worked in the brilliant daylight of Spark-o-Vision.
The runes didn’t glow. I zoomed my viewpoint to check them more closely. Nope, nary a trickle of power. «Runes above the door,» I transmitted. «But they seem shut down. Or shorted out.»
“That sounds bad,” Ninety-Nine said. She and Dakini had followed Aria. More precisely, Dakini had kept her flying sled tethered to Aria’s shoulders, so when Aria approached the front stoop, Ninety-Nine and Dakini got dragged along.
“Stop a second,” Dakini said. She extended a violet tentacle and lightly pushed on the door. It opened with a creak. Nothing was visible beyond except a black blinder wall.
“You gotta love the classics,” Ninety-Nine said. “Creaky unlocked door that opens the second you touch it. Haunted house stuff.”
«Then keep an eye out for Wraith,» I said. «He left the Market before we did, so he could have easily gotten here ahead of us.»
If Nicholas had eavesdropped invisibly on the Goblin and me, he’d have heard where his sister was staying. He might have raced straight here.
“You think Wraith deliberately left this door ready to creak open?” Aria asked.
«I think he can’t help it,» I replied. «Darklings warp the world around them. Dust accumulates, lights burn out, and deathwatch beetles appear out of nowhere. Even if Wraith closed this door as carefully as he could, it might spontaneously unlatch and swing wide open with an ominous creak as soon as someone walked by.»
“That must suck when you’re flicking the bean in the shower,” Ninety-Nine said. “Hypothetically. If that were something anyone ever did.”
“Shut up,” Aria said. She flew over the threshold and into the house.
AS SOON AS WE PASSED THROUGH THE BLINDER WALL, WE COULD SEE THE VILLA’S INTERIOR
The entrance was just a foyer with mats for damp footwear. I’ll remind you the city had no snow on the ground until the unnatural snow started falling, yet I could see several pairs of galoshes and those silly rubber slippers you wear over your oxfords when you want to seem like a candy-ass. At one time, the galoshes and slippers must have been neatly aligned on the mats, but someone or something had tossed them around, bouncing them off the foyer’s walls and scattering them higgledy-piggledy.
This did not bode well.
Beyond the foyer, a reception room had received the same tornadoed treatment. The room had originally been designed to give a cozy ski-lodge ambiance. The main part was two stories high, with polished wood stairs leading to the upper floor, and a big stone fireplace framed in white salt-and-pepper granite. (Or granodiorite. Or granitoid. Something igneous, felsic, and phaneritic. I’ll shut up now.)
The fireplace had survived the upheaval. Not so the rest of the room. Furniture had been volleyed around so violently, every piece was broken … and it takes a lot to break an expensive leather sofa. Lamps had been smashed. Copies of the National Post and Wall Street Journal had been innovatively disrupted and the shreds jammed into corners of the room. Whatever happened had even swept away the usual signs of Darkling occupancy: dust and cobwebs had been pulverized, insects eradicated, and crumbling paint sandblasted clean.
The blinder walls on the windows remained intact. Perhaps they were extra-tough blinders, made bulletproof to guard against snipers. Whatever the source of their strength, the magic black walls had prevented the window glass from breaking despite the furor inside. It occurred to me that someone could set off a bomb inside Red Pine Villa, and no one on the street would ever know. The super-duper blinders would shut in all evidence. The blinder walls were intended to defend against external dangers, but the spells worked just as well to hide internal violence if a threat ever got in the door.
The house was silent, but that might just be another effect of the blinders. No sound could be heard from outside, and if every guest room was individually shielded, someone could be screaming under torture and we’d never hear.
«What do you think happened?» Dakini asked. She was using her comm ring, but somehow she managed to whisper.
«Looks like an explosion,» Aria said. «And what does that make you think of?»
&nbs
p; «A rift opening?»
«Bingo.»
We looked around the room. With its lofty ceiling, the place could accommodate a rift almost as big as the one in E3. The floor and roof weren’t visibly damaged, but that might just mean the rift had come and gone quickly, before it outgrew the available space.
Without warning, Ninety-Nine vaulted toward the stairway. It led to a mid-floor landing, then angled back to a second-floor balcony overlooking the reception room. Ninety-Nine bounced off an overturned armchair and grabbed the balcony railing. She pulled herself up, then somersaulted over the railing to land on the balcony floor. “I thought so,” she said, crouching and pointing to the balcony’s broadloom. “Indentations in the carpet. Just the right size for a rift machine.”
“So someone brought in a rift projector,” Aria said. “They revved it up and set off the usual explosion. I wonder what the other guests thought of that.”
“Maybe they were all in on it,” Ninety-Nine suggested. “If every guest was one of those Unbound douches…”
“Let’s call them the Unbound Cabal,” Dakini said. “That would look most excellent on a book: Too Many Cooks Versus the Unbound Cabal.”
“Zircon,” Aria said, “how much would I have to pay you to crawl into my brain and lobotomize me?”
“Shush, I’m Sherlocking,” Ninety-Nine said. “Let’s say this place’s owners have Unbound sympathies. That would explain all the ultra-max blinder spells. They were hiding covert activities. Other members of the cabal booked the rooms so they could open a rift, troop inside, and receive superpowers. Woohoo!”
“Do they know that the rift makes Darklings unstable?” Dakini asked. “Insanity, and then detonation?”
“Depends when they entered the rift,” Ninety-Nine said. “If they went in before the mess in the Market, they wouldn’t know what happened to the others. If they went in after…”
“If they went in after,” Aria said, “Diamond could have just told them, ‘I’ve taken careful readings and I know what went wrong.’ Maybe that’s why they opened the first rift in a lab: to monitor the process with lab equipment and refine the techniques. Diamond says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve corrected the problems. This time, the process will work.’”
“It hasn’t been that long since the Market rift closed,” Dakini said. “We only spent twenty minutes or so dealing with casualties. Is that really enough time for Diamond to correct a flawed process and start another trial?”
“Maybe,” Ninety-Nine said. “If he knew what the flaws were likely to be, and just had to make adjustments, like tuning a radio.”
“Especially if,” Aria said, “Diamond had no intention of actually getting the process right. Given what we know about Diamond, he might just get his jollies from tricking Darklings into something that’ll kill them.”
Ninety-Nine said, “And the cabal took no precautions in case they were being played?” She shrugged. “Guess we’ll see when the rift reopens and lets out a new crop of superpowered Darklings.”
“Oh,” said Dakini, “is that likely? I suppose it is. Will the rift open here?”
Ninety-Nine shook her head and gestured to the marks on the carpet. “The rift projector is gone. The cabal has bugged out. They probably worried someone would find them—if not us, then the Dark Guard.”
I nodded. By now, the cabal would know that Waterloo had its own set of Sparks—Diamond had been watching the Market, so he saw us in action. And even if we’d never found our way to Red Pine Villa, the Dark Guard would. They were the Darkling MI5; mostly, they hunted Darklings who violated the Dark Pact, but they also dealt with assaults against the Dark. The injuries and deaths at the Goblin Market would bring the Guard running, as would any hint of Unbound activity. The Guard had a reputation for being ruthless but thorough. They’d wring the Goblin for information and raid the villa shortly thereafter.
“Whatever happens,” Aria said, “Diamond won’t open his next rift behind closed doors. When his insane super-Darklings are ready to emerge, he’ll set it up someplace public. Produce maximum carnage. That’s what he gets off on.”
“Besides,” Ninety-Nine said, “Diamond can’t open a rift twice in the same place. The process creates a dimensional scar that messes up the continuum too much to allow another rift. You can only open rifts in unscarred locations.”
Surprise. Dubious looks. Aria said, “Are you bullshitting, or do you actually have a clue how rifts work?”
“Dude,” Ninety-Nine said, “I know things.”
“Could you open a rift yourself?”
Ninety-Nine considered the question. “I can guess a few ways it might work. With half a million dollars and a month to experiment, I could come up with something.”
“So for the cost of a half-decent condo, you could open up a hole into another universe?”
“When you put it like that … well, yes. But I can think of better ways to spend the money.”
“Curing cancer? Perfecting cold fusion?”
“I was thinking of buying beer,” Ninety-Nine said, “but curing cancer is good too.”
“That’s a relief,” Aria said. “For a moment I thought you were serious.”
“I’m serious about the rift machine,” Ninety-Nine told her. “Piece of cake.”
“Fuck,” Aria said. “Are you turning into a Mad Genius?”
“I’m not turning into anything,” Ninety-Nine snapped. “What I’ve become, already, is an expert in everything. My head is filled with enough for a thousand PhDs. And it’s all just immediately there, you know? I don’t have to search through lists or tables, it’s just there. I see so many connections, I’m in this constant state of ‘Eureka!’ and nearly bursting into tears, because it would be trivial to make the world better. But the instant I think of a new invention, I also see how some bastard could wreck everything by abusing it, or just creating a cash cow that only the rich could afford. I see a million possibilities but not how they’ll play out. So fuck it, I want a beer. My head is full of noise, and it’s exhausting.”
Her shoulders slumped and she turned her back on us. Silence. I had never heard such a tone in her voice; I couldn’t remember her ever admitting to genuine weakness.
Apparently, it was new to Aria too. Almost at the speed of sound, she flew to the balcony and wrapped Ninety-Nine in her arms. It was so fast and unexpected, I lost my grip on Aria’s hair. I was left a loose speck of dust, tossed by the wind of her passage.
DAKINI TURNED TOWARD ME
Proving once again I was mentally obvious, despite my size. «Let’s let that happen,» she transmitted. «You and I can search the house.»
«I’ll take the top floor,» I said. «You’ve got down here.»
«Be careful. Even if everyone in the cabal is gone, they may have left traps.»
I nodded and flew to the second floor. On the balcony, Ninety-Nine had started to cry; Aria held her, whispering. I gave them a wide berth as I headed for the guest rooms.
I DIDN’T EVEN CHECK WHETHER THE ROOMS WERE LOCKED
I just scuttled under the doors and through the blinders that kept each room private. As soon as I had a clear view of a room, I did a five-second scan for people, corpses, and ticking bombs. Nothing? Then on to the next room.
I only needed a minute for a complete circuit. Nobody home, and no blatant threats or emergencies. Good. I started again at the beginning, this time being more thorough.
For the record, the rooms were lovely. Each had a four-poster bed, a writing table, and an en suite bathroom. Oak hardwood floors with Moroccan rugs. No televisions. A many-buttoned phone on each writing table. Every room had a painting on the wall that I suspected was genuine: a Matisse, a Picasso, a Monet, and so on. (I’d have bet a nickel the management used those paintings to refer to the rooms. “Ah yes, you’ll be staying in the Renoir Suite.”)
Each room showed signs of occupation: clothes in the closet, toiletries in the washroom, plus the usual eccentricities one expects from Darklings. A cag
e full of hamsters (probably food). Oddly shaped tongs (likely for grooming). Eight Victorian porcelain dolls arranged in an asterisk on the floor (no idea what they were for, but I stayed the hell away).
The rooms didn’t show much degeneration, despite the many Darklings who must have passed through. The paintings had to be protected by magic; otherwise, they would have faded and crumbled by now. Maybe additional magic kept the rest of the rooms clean and nice. Either that, or diligent maids visited several times a day and the furniture was replaced every week. Considering the prices people must have paid to stay in the villa, that was also a possibility.
THE FIRST ROOM I SEARCHED HAD BEEN OCCUPIED BY A MAN
Or at least someone who identified as male. Masculine business suits in the closet, male underwear in the drawers. Since I was looking for Elaine, I moved on. (I refused to entertain the possibility that Elaine might be a covert cross-dresser. That would bring her uncomfortably close to my own status as “none of the above.” I didn’t want to think Elaine might be anything like me.)
The next room had female clothes in the closet. It also had a handwritten letter on the writing table: gold-embossed stationery proclaiming, “Thank you for choosing Red Pine Villa,” and promising courteous, discreet service for all the guest’s needs.
The letter began, Dear Lilith. Jackpot.
I SEARCHED LILITH’S ROOM BUT FOUND NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY
My search turned up a smoked-glass “water bottle” that smelled strongly of blood, but that was totally ordinary for vampires. They invariably carried flasks of the good stuff in case their throats got dry. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised Lilith hadn’t had anything to swig during our fight in the alley. Perhaps like an alcoholic under stress, she’d chugged everything she had before the fight began.
Next stop, Elaine’s room. That just meant going from room to room until I found a Dear Elaine letter. I hit pay dirt in the Mary Cassatt room. (No, I can’t identify a Cassatt on sight, but there was a label on the frame. I noticed that none of the paintings in other rooms had labels. Maybe we were expected to recognize Monet and Degas, but Cassatt was considered obscure. The painting was a mother and daughter looking at a picture book.)
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