“That means calm,” Annalise whispered.
“Thanks,” I said. We had reached the house, but the window was too high for Annalise to see. I moved toward the gap in the curtains, keeping a few feet back so the light wouldn’t fall on my face.
The light inside was brighter than I’d first thought, and more harsh. I risked a couple of steps closer to get a better view. The carpet was silvery white, and the only furniture I could see was an ornately carved antique crib made of dark wood. Two floodlights on mobile stands shone directly down into it, and by the shadows cast, I knew they weren’t the only ones. Was there movement inside the crib? No, there couldn’t be. Not under that burning glare. Not unless the baby inside was blind.
I leaned from side to side but couldn’t see anything else of interest. “Just a crib and lights,” I whispered.
Annalise sighed with irritation and moved toward the front of the house. Apparently, that was all the recon she had the patience for. I followed.
At the front window, she paused beside a window with drawn curtains. The Kiels stood in the middle of the room, facing someone out of sight at their two o’clock. Ana stood in front, scolding that unseen person while angrily chopping downward with her right hand like an old-time movie spy doing karate. Luis sheltered behind her, with their expensive hardshell luggage piled behind.
Annalise sidestepped for a better view. I stayed at her shoulder. Ana was talking to João, and he was absolutely not dead.
“No point in wasting time,” Annalise said. She went to the front door and kicked it.
The wood split from top to bottom with a sound like a bomb going off. The hinge side fell crookedly against the wall, a few long screws barely holding the upper hinge in place. The other side tore from the locks in a spray of splinters and pirouetted across the room.
Screams of shock and fear filled the room as Annalise strode through the doorway. I was close at her shoulder and saw her arm extend as she threw her green ribbon.
It flew directly toward Ana, but I knew Luis and João would be engulfed in the magical fire too. Then the light in the room turned red and everything seemed to stop.
Ana had turned her karate chop hand upright so her palm faced us. The reddish silver lines appeared again, but this time they formed a tube with an oval-shaped opening. Behind it, the facets slowly irised open, spreading in front of her like a shield.
Again, my thoughts raced ahead while my body was trapped inside one terrible moment.
Everything seemed to proceed with infinite slowness. Annalise’s green ribbon, dangling behind the alligator clip, inched forward. The fluttering cloth was reduced to an excruciatingly slow wriggle, like it was the sleepiest inchworm in the world.
Ana’s shield also seemed to expand with extraordinary slowness, but I knew it would be fast enough to protect her and her husband before the boss’s spell went off.
I was still holding my ghost knife. It was a powerful spell, but it was written on paper and Annalise’s green fire would destroy it. I started to move it toward my chest. My iron gate would protect me, and my spell would be safe if I could palm it against my body.
Instants crawled by like ages. I had all the time in the world to think about what I was doing, and no chance at all to change it. I should have thrown my ghost knife through João’s window, hitting Ana before she even knew we were there. I should have thrown it at Luis in the cafe, and to hell with who saw. If I’d cut his ghost right then and there, he would have told me anything I wanted to know.
None of that mattered now. I was trapped in this drawn-out moment, and even if I came up with a bold and brilliant new plan, I could never put it into action. I wasn’t even sure I had the time to press my hand against my ribs.
A minute passed. Then another. Annalise’s ribbon floated across the room. I turned toward Ana because, while I could shift my attention from one thing to another, I couldn’t change my field of vision. My eyes moved just as slowly as everything else.
Her spell continued to grow. It had already passed in front of her husband and was now slowly arcing over her head like a bubble.
The oval opening emerging from Ana’s hand was a little larger now. It looked strangely like the mouth of a fish now that it hung on the front edge of a long chamber with thick sides, and I knew what was about to happen long before it actually did.
The opening in the crystal swallowed Annalise’s ribbon in slow motion, the “lips” clamping shut just as the back of the ribbon passed them. Shortly after, it struck the back of the chamber. Green flame erupted, looking dark in the weird light, and billowed against the weird crystalline structure Ana had created to contain it.
Flames churned in slow motion. The crystal shell began to show tiny cracks. For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether Ana’s predator could keep the green fire contained, until the oval mouth burst open, releasing a jet of magical fire over my head. It was so fast, even in this awful suspended moment, that it had passed above me before I thought to flinch.
Ana’s crystal shell was still under strain, still cracking, but the fire was already fading quickly. She and her husband were safe. Maybe if Annalise had thrown two ribbons…
But that seemed like a choice she’d made a long time ago, and we were not going to get round two. The green fire gone, Ana’s crystalline structure sealed over the cracks and began to move toward us.
Toward Annalise, to put a predator inside her.
I willed my hand to drop my ghost knife, but it was clear I didn’t have the time I needed.
Then my field of view moved far enough to the right that I saw João, standing behind Ana. His arm was extended, but Ana herself blocked my view of his hand.
I saw Joao’s arm recoil, and a few seconds later I heard the gunshot. Ana’s expression—the same thin-lipped scowl she wore when she infected me—didn’t change.
Then she exploded in a shower of blood and bone. This wasn’t an exit wound; she just came apart with great force. Time sped up again, and the bloody shockwave of her death knocked me back through the doorway into the driveway.
Blood was in my eyes. It was in my teeth. My shirt was warm and wet against my skin.
God, I could taste it.
I scrambled to my feet. Annalise was already upright and I followed her through the doorway again. João crossed toward the window, revolver in his hand. It was an ugly thing, blue steel with a short-barrel and a black rubber grip. He switched off the light in the window then glanced around the room.
The place was a wreck. The carpets, the furniture, the walls and ceiling were all coated with a fine spatter of blood.
João sighed. “Shit.”
A bearded man entered the room. He was tall and slender, with thick black hipster glasses to match his black clothes. After one glance, he threw up his arms and began complaining in Portuguese.
I forced myself to look again at the spot where Ana had been. It was a revolting mess of meat and blood. Her sensible leather shoes—feet still in them—lay with their soles almost touching. Her bare calves, now more skin than meat, lay on the carpet pointing in opposite directions.
But her knees—and every part of her above them—had sprayed around the room in a fine red mist. The carpets, furniture, curtains, and people were soaked with her.
I’d seen worse than this. Predators have as much concern for the dignity of their prey as lions do, and I’d seen people who’d been torn apart and eaten. People I knew.
That didn’t stop the tingles running down my back, or the lightness in my throat.
I glanced down at the thing growing into my arm.
João answered his…friend? Roommate? Boyfriend?…in a weary tone. I couldn’t understand the words but the meaning was clear. Shut the fuck up. I did the best I could. Then he looked at us and shrugged. “She would not go into the bathroom, where it is all tile. Much easier to clean.”
“Tell me about that fucking bullet.” Annalise said.
“They are not cheap,” he answered. He si
ghed again. “You two should go now.”
Annalise turned toward the sound of a sob. Luis was still crouching beside the couch, but the spray of blood that covered him made good camouflage. I’d lost track of him.
Annalise stepped toward him and slapped the back of his head. It didn’t come off this time, but when Luis slumped to the floor, he was just as dead.
The bearded man came into the living room, still complaining. He bent down and grabbed Luis’s heels, then dragged him into the hall. He had a wary look for Annalise and me, but I wasn’t sure how to read it.
Annalise didn’t seem to have heard João’s last sentence. “You don’t have to buy expensive bullets. You can get rid of these people for the cost of a phone call. Why do you need to bring them all the way up here just to shoot them?”
I glanced down at the Kiels’ luggage, then stepped forward and knelt. They had three pieces: two were identical oversized suitcases with roller wheels, which would hold their clothes and other bullshit. The third was smaller and shaped like a cube. I turned it right side up and ran the zipper around three of the sides. It was filthy with gore, but so were my fingers.
My first thought when I opened the lid was that I was looking at Monopoly money, and that the Kiels had played a trick on someone. But that was ridiculous. I was looking at Euros. Stacks of them.
A little black box rested on top of the bills. Inside were a dozen irregular rocks that looked like cloudy glass.
“What’s that?” Annalise said from just over my shoulder.
“If I had to guess, I’d say they were uncut diamonds.”
João cleared his throat. “They belong to me now.”
He was standing with his back to the wall and he wasn’t smiling any more. His gun was still in his hand, and by the way he was holding it, I knew it was still loaded. He wasn’t aiming it at us, but he was thinking about it.
My ghost knife was still in my hand. I wondered how quick he was, and what effect his bullet would have on the protective spells Annalise and I bore.
“This is why you couldn’t just call the society,” I said. “You got all of us into that cafe, then used me to spook them into running. You offered to get them out of the country, then lured them here. And you knew they’d bring their nest egg with them. Did you know they had uncut diamonds?”
“Her predator made them,” he said. “Somehow. I don’t know. I only know it’s why they called it from the Empty Spaces.”
“You,” Annalise said, sounding like her anger was building. “You put Ray next to a predator. You got him infected.”
My wrist was less swollen than it had been, but the soft crystal was almost as large as a silver dollar.
“He should have waited for his peer,” João said. “Why is he blundering around my country? Why are you? The predator is dead. Isn’t that what you care about? I did not ask you to destroy my door. Gunshots echo, and the houses nearby are empty. With our doors and windows closed, we are just like the other houses.” He gestured toward the doorway. “This, the police will notice. So, you should go now.”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at us. João looked as though he was one wrong word from turning that nasty little piece of blue steel against us.
“Where did you get the bullets?” I asked.
“Elias. He sold them to me years ago. Now I am nearly out.”
“And… What? They blow up predators?”
“Any kind of magi—”
I threw my ghost knife.
There’s a reason cars are required to stay one second behind the car in front of them. A flash of bright red brake lights is an excellent attention-getter, but drivers still need time for their brain to recognize it, and they need even more time to press their own brake.
Reaction times are faster for brainy types, and also if the person is paying careful attention so that mind and body ready to act. João seemed smart enough, and he was absolutely focused on us. Unfortunately for him, he was in the middle of a sentence. When he finally jolted into action, he did the right thing, rotating the gun rather than trying to raise his whole arm, but he wasn’t fast enough. My ghost knife cut him before he could squeeze the trigger.
João sagged. I willed the ghost knife to return to me and it did, passing through him a second time. His blood-soaked shirt had two slots cut into it, but his skin beneath was unmarked.
“Desculpe,” he said.
I took the gun from him and emptied the cylinder into my palm. Only two shells came out. One had been fired and was still warm to the touch. The other had not. Joao’s last enchanted bullet. I looked closely at the tiny sigil engraved on the tip. It didn’t mean anything to me.
“Sit on the couch,” I said. He did.
Annalise stood at my shoulder. “I don’t object to taking cash from assholes. In fact, I love it. But using you in his scam pisses me off.”
“Yeah? Well, I think you’re going to be really unhappy about this: I think our buddy and his pal have a predator in the back room.”
She looked up at me, her beady eyes narrowing. “What?”
“João’s assistant—and with the way he was complaining, I think that’s what he is—went right for the corpse and dragged it into the back. Boss, nobody ignores the money unless they have an even bigger prize. And the way João was looking at us with that gun in his hand? I think if he’d had an extra bullet, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
She looked at João. He looked at the floor. “Desculpe,” he said again.
Annalise scowled and looked to the side, no doubt imagining the killing she was about to do. “You said there’s a crib in the back, Ray? Wait here.”
As soon as she was out of the room, I put Joao’s last bullet into his gun, pressed the barrel against the thing growing on my wrist, and waited. From the back of the little house, I heard a man’s voice suddenly pleading and saw a glow of green firelight. It was done.
And now, so was I.
I squeezed the trigger.
There was no sound. Or maybe the boom of the gunshot mixed so perfectly with the excruciating, overwhelming pain that flooded into me that I couldn’t tell them apart.
I was looking right at the predator when I shot it, but everything was so quick that I couldn’t see what happened. It seemed to vanish in a red spray. My arm came apart, and the spells Annalise had placed there turned to black steam and sparks.
When the spell inside the bullet slammed against my iron gate, it burned like molten steel. I fell into a darkness that felt like death.
I was surprised to wake up, but I did. I’d never expected to see light again. Immediately after that feeling of surprise, I felt something filling my mouth, clogging the back of my throat, choking me. The crystalline predator—
Annalise leaned into my view. “Hold still, Ray. And don’t bite down, goddammit. Shit, you’re such a pain in the ass.” She pulled a thick plastic tube out of my throat. It felt as wide as a vacuum cleaner hose, but it was more like a roll of nickels. My throat felt scraped raw as the tube came out.
“What the fuck, boss?”
She dropped it onto my chest. “What you did for Pratt gave Elizabeth a new idea, so she put together this little kit. We blended broth and linguica from João’s fridge and poured it directly into your stomach. Your iron gate held you together, but you still had a lot of damage to undo. Welcome back.”
I know she didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I know she didn’t mean to suggest I was dead.
“Boss, I’m gonna guess linguica is some kind of sausage.”
“Good guess.”
Well, there it was. The secret of my success. Guessing.
I tried to sit up but ended up rolling onto my left side. Annalise lifted me a little. My left wrist, where the predator had been, itched furiously. I went to scratch it and discovered it wasn’t there.
Oh, yeah. I blew that arm up.
Now it was just a stump extending a few inches from my shoulder. It was a tidy stump, though. No blood. No op
en wounds. My golem flesh spell would heal me as long as I ate some kind of meat—the fresher the better, but apparently broth and linguica would do in a pinch—but could it regrow my whole arm?
“I have lost my left arm,” a familiar voice said. “Twice.” It was Callin. He flexed his left hand as though both of us needed proof it was real.
“Because you are careless,” Alexandre said as he entered the room. “In all my years of fighting, I have never lost more than a few fingers.” He turned to me. “Soon, you will be whole again too.”
More people streamed into the room: Elizabeth, Isser, and Roman. Finally, Pratt stood just in the hall. He was staring at me with an expression I couldn’t read. I didn’t like it.
They all said the right things—congratulations, glad you survived this one, great job. Roman looked sheepish and stammered out an apology. Elizabeth and Isser said reassuring things to him, but the looks he was getting from the peers was chilly and dangerous.
They were all standing too close, and in my mind’s eye I could see my arm exploding, with my own blood spraying everywhere.
I thought again about that crystalline predator and the way it spread up my arm like an infection. I thought about the hidden freezer unit with the bed inside, and the prostitutes Luis brought home that were allowed to leave again. Were they prey? Were they hosts for the creature’s crystal babies? And what was in the crib in João’s back room?
Someone else was going to have to look into that. I would probably never know, and that was cool by me.
“Boss, where’s my ghost knife?”
“Right here.” She took it from the end table and put it into my hand. I should have been able to sense it, but my thoughts were running in a thousand directions at once. The laminated paper was filthy with my own blood, but I had nothing clean to wipe it on. I pressed it to my chest.
Callin laughed. “Keep your weapon. You have nothing to fear from us. Not anymore. It’s impossible to deny the truth here. You and Annalise are clearly doing something right. This is a substantial win. Costa and the Kiels were both feeding predators. Without the two of you, things could have gone very wrong.”
The Twisted Path, a Twenty Palaces Novella Page 7