“Twenty minutes away,” Annalise said, gritting her teeth. “What are the odds that we’ll get there before they meet whoever they’re supposed to meet?”
“I don’t know, boss. Like you said, this is Portugal.”
“Shit. Now that you said that, I’m hoping they’ll be there. They won’t, but I’m hoping. And when the station is empty, I’m going to be pissed. Maria should have gotten off with them.”
“Maria stayed on the train?”
“She did. Too obvious, she said. Too secluded, and the Kiels were the only ones getting off. So she checked with Roman, even though I told her not to, and he told her to drop the tail. He didn’t want them to spot her. This is a pain in my ass. She should have risked it. We need someone on them all the time, even if it’s just to take a picture of the license plate of the car that picks them up.”
“I don’t know, boss. What if she got herself killed?”
“Then she should die someplace where her cooling body would be a useful clue.”
The driver glanced at us in his rearview. I didn’t know how much he was being paid to chauffeur us around, but he kept his mouth shut.
It was just under twenty minutes to the station, which was little more than a wall of stacked stone, a couple of benches, and a wide flat spot between the rail and the forested hill where cars could park. It was at a bend in the river, of which there seemed to be many, and the train tracks crossed the water to reach the station. We’d passed through a tiny village to get there—no more than a dozen houses on a hillside so closely built that our Xterra barely fit between them—but that was a small place. The tracks wouldn’t have crossed the water for them. There had to be a large population center nearby.
And of course the Kiels were already gone.
Annalise ordered the car to stop and she got out. She looked around the little station, at the flat ground, up and down the length of the track. I could see it in her expression: we’d lost them.
“Maria fucked us. She fucked you.”
That surprised me. I was hunting for Ana Helena Nunes Kiel because I was hoping to kill her before Annalise had to kill me. And Annalise was going to kill me. That’s what she did, and she would be right to do it, and I wouldn’t blame her one bit. Whatever blame I wanted to lay out fell on the Kiels.
Of course, I still had my ghost knife. There was some small hope that it could cut the predator out of me, but that hope felt like it belonged to someone else. Not to me. The deaths of Caramella, Robbie, Arne, and the rest were fresh in my mind. The ghost knife hadn’t saved any of them.
I planned to try, but I expected to fail.
At this point, all I was hoping for was that I could see Ana and Luis take it in the neck before I burned. My life could have gone down a thousand different paths. A million. How did it end up here, in a dark Portuguese parking lot with nothing to show for it but the clothes on my back?
The crystal spot on my wrist was larger than a quarter, with two thin filaments growing toward my elbow. It looked like an infection spreading toward my heart, but that was just the physical part. With predators, there was always some nonphysical aspect to them. Something that was, as Annalise put it, “not real.”
The skin around the predator was swollen, red, and so tight it looked shiny. It should have hurt like hell, but it just felt numb.
The driver asked if we were ready to leave. Annalise paced back and forth, unsure where to go. Like she was helpless.
But we weren’t. In fact, I had a brand-new tool at my disposal.
I took out my phone and called Elizabeth.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Lil—Ray. First, let me say—”
“You don’t have to say it,” I told her. “And we’re on the clock.”
“Of course. How may I help you?”
“Remember when you said you’d put the resources of the society at my disposal? Well, you’re gonna hate this, Elizabeth, but I want you to run with me. Okay? I want you to give this the old college try.”
Annalise moved toward me. When Elizabeth answered, she sounded hesitant. “All right.”
“I just sent you my current location. Okay. Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“Share that with Roman and Isser. I need you three to use whatever resources you have at hand to search the area around where I’m standing—say, five miles—and find me the next step. You understand? The Kiels gave us the slip.” I glanced at Annalise. “But they came to this place, so someone near here has a connection to them. I need you, and Isser, and Roman each to work on this and find them.”
“Ray, this sort of thing is Roman’s—”
“No. Don’t take me wrong and don’t take offense, but no. You”—I almost said motherfuckers—“people had a predator right here in the same city as your headquarters. You investigated the Kiels three separate times, and you missed it. Roman’s people did the work, but this is on the whole society, so it’s on you, too. You have computer guys, yeah? Put them on it. Real estate people, too. And Isser works with law firms, right? Tell Roman to unleash his whole staff. Use resources I don’t know about. Look at everything. If there’s nothing in five miles, do ten. Find property owned by a family member, or a cafe run by a grade-school buddy, or an antique shop run by a coworker’s grandmother. And whatever you do, get lucky. Time’s short.”
“I—I will do my best.”
I disconnected the call. The driver looked at us a little sulkily. I guess he thought this job was taking too long. “Hey, how are you for gas?”
Not good, as it turned out. We had to drive about twenty minutes to refill his tank, and afterward, he wanted to try out a bar across the street. He wasn’t happy when I made him return to the station.
“Why are we waiting here?” he asked in a pleading voice. “There is nothing here. No one.”
I looked at Annalise. She looked back. If there was a moment when she could have asked for the money in my pocket, this was it. She didn’t.
I crossed the narrow train tracks and stood at the edge of the river. It was slow, calm, and dark in the starlight. I wondered how cold it would be, and if the predator growing on my arm would make me swoon for it.
It didn’t happen. Annalise had once told me that the predators dislike water. She never explained why, probably because she didn’t know herself, but I guess it didn’t matter.
I was wondering if I could put on some scuba gear and drown the predator somehow when Elizabeth called me back.
“That was quick.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “It was one of Isser’s operatives who put it together, actually. He ran your location through his contacts list, and came up with an address you might want to look into. A house. It’s nothing related to the Kiels, though.”
Even though I suddenly knew what she was going to say, I asked the question: “Who?”
“João Fonte Costa.”
Before:
The oldest peer in the Twenty Palace Society, Dmitry Ilyich Gerasimov—another pseudonym, Isser assured me—was old enough to have been alive when the society suffered its worst disaster. That was four hundred years ago.
“He comes and goes as he pleases,” Elizabeth said. “Well, they all do, but Dmitry is different. He simply appears inside the building and disappears afterwards. He has all the power and guile of the old-time Twenty Palaces.”
I thought again about Csilla Foldes, the oldest peer I’d met so far. She didn’t have a lot of lucid moments, and I’d seen her murder an innocent girl for the crime of asking a question. “Is there anything I should know?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “For god’s sakes, don’t say motherfuckers in front of him.”
Isser laughed. I stepped into the elevator. They didn’t join me.
I went to the same room on the same floor. Room J. Annalise was waiting for me in the hall.
“Hey, boss.”
“Ray. How do you like things so far?”
I looked around the hall. “I don’t like it here. It
feels off.”
She shrugged. “It’s safe.”
“The first thing the peers said to me was that they were thinking of killing me.”
She looked straight at me. “Why?”
“Some bullshit about you submitting fake mission reports. Don’t think they really believed it, though. I think they just wanted to see how I’d react.”
“How did you react?”
“You know me, boss. I cried and begged forgiveness.”
“When I heard they wanted to meet you, I figured it was even money that they’d outright murder you just to piss me off.”
Wonderful. Hearing that was my new favorite thing in life. “Isn’t that why they made you take me on in the first place? Because you hated me and they wanted to piss you off?”
She shrugged, a sort of Yes, but so what? “What about this thing where you survive our missions?”
“I told them I’m the Chosen One.”
She snorted. “Come on, Ray. Answer the question.”
Huh. I guess this was a bigger deal than even I thought. I was tempted to tell her about my fancy guesswork with Elizabeth and Isser, but here in this gloomy hallway, it seemed thin. “Dunno. I don’t understand it any better than they do.”
“Well, don’t look at me,” she said. “I have no clue how you manage it. Here.” She took her hand from her pocket and offered me my ghost knife. I’d felt it there, but I’d wanted to see what she would do. “They shouldn’t have asked for it in the first place.”
I took it. “Thank you,” I said, with more conviction than I’d given Elizabeth. Then I told her about the council’s offer, which she admitted was a big deal, because it was a break from tradition. Tradition meant a lot to people as old as the peers.
“What about this guy I’m about to meet? He’s the oldest of them all, right?”
“Right. But he changes his name so often, I can’t remember it, so to me he’s just the Russian One. Maybe he doesn’t remember his own name all that well either. He knows a lot of tricks and can do things the others can’t.”
“Like appear and disappear inside the First Palace?”
“Exactly like. I haven’t talked to him in thirty years, give or take, and he was no better than the rest back then.”
Which meant he was a ruthless killer and probably arrogant as hell. Better not to keep him waiting too long. I opened the door and went into the room.
Whatever I was expecting, Dmitry Ilyich Gerasimov was not it. He looked to be in his seventies, with the posture of an old-school actor used to playing nobility. His suit was midnight blue, and his tie the color of fancy white wine. He was also about six foot five, just tall enough to loom over me but not so tall that he seemed like a freak.
“Thank you for coming,” he said in an accent similar to Roman’s, although his voice did not sound so heavy and wet. “Take a seat.”
He gestured toward the table. I pulled out one of the heavy leather chairs and sat. He settled on the next chair over. Where the other members of the society used the table as a sign of their status, this dude was trying to suggest we were equals. Which we weren’t.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I just ate downstairs.”
“Fine. So, what have the others told you about me?”
I shrugged. “Annalise said you change your name a lot, but none of the other peers have said anything. I don’t think they’re in the habit of explaining things. The council members downstairs said you’re the oldest peer in the society, that you can do things they can’t explain, like magically turn up in this room right here. I got the impression they were afraid of you.”
He spread his long, slender hands. “People fear what they do not understand. I would wager that you have also been treated with suspicion since you arrived, because they do not understand you.”
“You’d win that bet.”
“I wonder, Ray, if you would be willing to shake my hand.”
The last time someone had actually asked me to shake his hand, it was because, after a whole lot of boasting and shit-talk on his part, I’d knocked him the hell out. We were in a boxing gym, and we hadn’t even finished the first round. He was impressed. It had been a weird moment, but not as weird as this one. Dmitry wasn’t saying hello and he wasn’t congratulating me. I didn’t know what he was doing.
I extended my hand and he shook it. The iron gate spell below my collarbone began to ache. Then the pain increased.
Then Dmitry released my hand and it was over.
“My apologies for your discomfort.”
“I’ve eaten burritos that hurt more,” I said. “But now you’ll tell me what that was about, right?”
“I wanted to know if there were any predators in you,” he said blandly.
Goosebumps ran down my back. “Since you didn’t pull my head off, I’m guessing you didn’t find any.”
“The Twenty Palace Society is not safe. I don’t know what you have been told about the current state of things here, but just being in this building puts you in danger. Your Annalise Powliss is honorable and conscientious, but she is no match for the powers that come out of the Deeps, powers that are already here.”
I realized I was leaning away from him and forced myself to relax. “Me and her have been matching up with these powers since I signed on. That’s why you guys asked me here.”
“Even your invitation to this building should not be taken at face value.” Dmitry leaned toward me. “We must not speak here. You and I must meet somewhere private. Unobtrusive. Not even your peer should know, not until we are sure.”
I took out my phone. “Text me a time and place.” He took my information but didn’t provide any in return. Big surprise.
“You will hear from me soon.” He stood and hurried toward the door.
“Before you go,” I said, and he stopped by the door. He expression was blank and he stared at me as though studying my face. “The others have said you’re the oldest of the peers and that you have power they don’t understand. Why don’t you round up some of the other peers hanging out here and fly them to Hammer Bay? Annalise said the wheel of fire is still there. I couldn’t kill it, but you and a crew of your buddies might manage it.”
Just as I was finishing my question, an odd expression flickered across Dmitry’s face. It was a look of anger and revulsion, as though I’d suggested we barbecue his dog.
Then the moment passed. “The predator in Hammer Bay is restrained, and trying to kill it might set it free.” He ran the tip of his thumb over his left eyebrow. “Besides, the society does not have the power it did in my youth. I won’t risk the lives of the few good peers we have left unnecessarily. We still have fights ahead.”
“Makes sense.”
I sat there while Dmitry pulled the door open and went into the hall. His footsteps were loud on the cement floor but I didn’t hear voices. Either Annalise was gone or she and “The Russian One” weren’t on speaking terms.
The oak tabletop was thick. I ran my fingers over the grain, wondering how many years they represented. A table like this was a marker for the kind of wealth and stability that I would never have.
It didn’t matter. It would burn just as hot as the cheap shit. Maybe hotter.
I stood. Wherever Annalise had gone, I needed to talk to her, because her Twenty Palace Society was fucked.
After:
It turned out that João owned one of those pretty little hillside houses with the grapevines growing all around, and that it was less than two miles from the spot where we were standing. Our driver took us past, slowly but not too slowly, and we looked down the terraced slope into the windows.
Curtains blocked most of the light coming from inside, but not all. I hadn’t realized just how many of the other houses we’d seen were completely dark and probably empty.
There were two cars parked out front, both Mercedes. One was an SUV—probably a GLC—black with tinted windows. The other was a little B-class
MPV, also black. Not the sort of thing I’d expect to find on a farm back in the States. Growing grapes must have been more lucrative than I thought.
Once we were out of sight, Annalise told the driver to park on the shoulder of the road and wait.
“What do you think, Ray?”
“Not sure, boss. All this time, I thought I’d put a bull’s-eye on your pest by agreeing to meet with him. Now I’m not sure what to think.”
João said he had a mission for me. Was it the Kiels? Were they coming for him?
If they’d already killed João, his little vineyard in the north would be a fine place to hole up for a few days, assuming they put some effort into hiding the body. Which would be a shame. I still sorta liked the guy and didn’t want him to be dead, but worse things had happened to better people.
Annalise ordered me out of the car and told our driver not to leave without us. João’s little house had a long driveway that connected to the street, but the windows facing it, and the cars parked by the door, threw bright yellow light into the night. The curtains at that end of the house were wide open. If we approached that way, we might be spotted.
We moved farther down the road to a break in the grapevines, with stairs leading down from one little terrace to another. Were her eyes that much sharper than mine, or did she have a spell that let her see in the dark? I didn’t ask and figured I would never get the chance.
I took my ghost knife from my pocket and followed her down to the house. We hadn’t seen the Kiels yet, but I knew in my guts they were here, and they were going to die before I did. There was some grim satisfaction in that.
Our footsteps sounded absurdly loud in the still night air, but as we got close, the sound of raised voices made it clear that no one was going to hear us.
It would have been considerate of them to argue in English, but no. The most strident voice was a woman’s, and she sounded more impatient than angry. A man’s voice kept repeating the same syllables to her. Cal mah. Cal mah.
The Twisted Path, a Twenty Palaces Novella Page 6