“All set, Rex?” Zane had to practically shout back to me.
“I think so.” Gingerly, I transferred my hands from the seat to his waist. It felt somewhat perverse to be touching him while sitting on the rumbling motorcycle.
Jenner’s bike snarled and popped as she turned and pulled up beside us. Her getup was no less intimidating than Zane’s, and her brilliant red and black bike was only slightly smaller. “Come on, ladies. Time to get moving.”
We rumbled slowly down the gravel to the road, and then we took off with enough torque that my teeth stepped back in my head and my stomach lifted into my throat. My hands flew to Zane’s waist, lifted off with alarm as I realized I’d grabbed him, and resettled as we turned the first corner and roared off down the street.
"Press up!" He yelled back. "Hold on properly! You’re throwing me off!"
He was right: my awkward weight was making it harder for him to turn on the wet road. I pressed against his back, sandwiching Binah between our bodies. My face was burning hot against the tight padding of the helmet… at least until we reached the Expressway, picked up speed, and began to fly.
I forgot about our incidental intimacy as we screamed over the Brooklyn Bridge, buffeted by a ripping tunnel of chill, damp wind. Without the shell of a car to insulate me from the world outside, I was acutely aware of the smell of the city, the rising breath of eight million people and billions of other living things, the surge of life and motion contained within the sprawling stillness of New York. My pain and fatigue receded as I straightened in the saddle and craned my head to watch the sky kiss the sea far below, the wind whistling through the gap between helmet and visor. It took my mind off the meeting and the parasite and the children and my pain. For the first time since Vassily and Mariya had died, since Zarya had expired her last on the end of a sacrificial knife, my mind was perfectly still.
Zane was solid and relaxed under my hands, warm even through layers of leather and cloth. Now and then, I caught hints of his cologne on the wind, and I could imagine what it would have been like to ride with Vassily like this, his arm wrapped around my waist, or my arm around his as we tore up the road. It occurred to me then that Zane was the first person I’d willingly touched since Vassily expired in my arms… and my wonder ebbed with a growing sense of formless, frustrated confusion.
Vassily would have been jealous beyond reason or sense if he’d seen me like this, pressed up against a man he didn’t know, someone who was not our mutual friend. It was inexplicable, but suddenly, I’d never felt more like a traitor in my life.
Chapter 18
The Museum of the American Indian was a sepulchral Neo-Classical sarcophagus in no way designed to showcase the diversity of Indigenous American history. Everything was white, as if in emphasis, and two distinctly European female sculptures flanked the intentionally intimidating archway. Like a church, it was open to the public on Sundays. At eight in the morning, it was a ghost town.
We parked the bikes off the road near the base of the stairs and clambered off. Binah wiggled out of my jacket and perched on my shoulder as I pulled my helmet off and hung it. As soon as it was off, she wrapped her tail around my face and peered at the nearby trees with interest.
“Fuck, I hate this place,” Mason grunted. He hitched his belt up. “Gives me the weebies.”
I studied the stairs and the open doors beyond them, running my tongue over my teeth. The Smithsonian ran this museum, which meant it was a Federal building. “Do any of you happen to have a pair of sunglasses I could use?”
All three Tigers pulled out a different pair of shades from a pocket somewhere on their person. Jenner was the closest, so I accepted her pair with a nod and slid them on, taking a moment to adjust to the change in light. They were mirrored aviators that would have done Hunter S. Thompson proud.
Zane stayed out by the bikes, keeping an eye on them while Jenner, Mason and I went inside. We were pulled up by security at the door. Before we reached the gate, I lay a hand on Mason’s arm and gripped his sleeve. He looked down in confusion, but didn’t protest.
One of the guards held up a hand, which I nearly bumped into. “Sorry, but animals aren’t allowed in here.”
I adjusted my glasses, and then felt out for Mason’s elbow. “She’s a service animal.”
He looked at my glasses, then the hand gripping Mason’s jacket, and then back to the cat. “I ain’t ever heard of a cat for the blind.”
“She’s an All-Seeing Eye Cat,” I said. “Mister John Spotted Elk is expecting us.”
Binah began to purr, tail lashing down my back.
“Uhh…” The guard looked between the three of us, and then stepped back. “Please just walk through the detector, sir.”
Mason and Jenner had to nearly strip off to their underwear to make it through the metal detector, but we were eventually admitted into the bare and sterile foyer beyond the checkpoint. There was no one at reception. Fortunately, Jenner knew the way: Spotted Elk’s office was upstairs, reached by an elegant spiral staircase that led up behind the main theater.
Talya was waiting for us beside the door in her brown skirt and pale yellow blouse, clasping and unclasping her hands. She jumped a little when we rounded the corner, and then flushed. “Thank goodness. Ayashe isn’t here yet, but John and Michael are waiting for you inside.”
“No worries, kitten.” Jenner kissed cheeks with her, and then Mason did the same. Talya glanced shyly at me before she rubbed her face against his, and then stepped back before opening the door for us.
The room beyond was beautifully appointed – gothic interior, red carpet, mahogany desk, glass-fronted bookshelves, and a small private display of unsigned Native American objects. Michael was examining them, meandering between two of the cases. He was dressed somewhat more nicely than he had been at the meeting, changing out the baggy jeans and basketball jersey for a neutral charcoal suit and a large golden Ankh pin. I wasn’t sure what he did for a living, and there’d been no mention of it.
Spotted Elk was perched on the sill beside the window, smoking a seaman’s pipe out into the breeze. He was dressed for work: nice cream suit and loafers, a bolo tie, his graying hair pulled back in a short ponytail. There was still something about his bearing that didn’t match the ostentatiousness of the room, a blue-collar manner that clothes could not conceal. An auto mechanic in Brooks Brother’s clothing.
“Hetep Hena Ten Jenner. Mason.” Michael turned to us as we entered, his hands folded behind his back. “John and I would like to talk with Rex alone before Ayashe arrives and we discuss matters as a group. Do you mind?”
“No worries. Come on, big guy. Let’s go and loiter on Federal property.” Jenner punched her partner lightly in the waist, and turned back the way she’d come. Mason gave us a flippant salute and followed her out without a word.
I took off the glasses, and waited until the door closed. Spotted Elk turned on the windowsill and dropped down the three or four inches to the ground, the pipe still jammed in the corner of his mouth.
“Take a seat,” he said, dropping into his own seat behind the desk. “The chairs are as uncomfortable as they look, but that’s the Government for you.”
I grimaced, and coaxed Binah off my shoulder as I complied and took the edge of the nearest chair. My thighs were still shuddering from the motorcycle ride, so I couldn’t hold the position for long. My familiar turned restlessly in my lap, fixing Spotted Elk and Michael with a baleful eye.
“This is your familiar?” Michael took his place beside Spotted Elk, not deigning to sit. “Her condition speaks of terrible abuse.”
Spotted Elk held out a work-worn, calloused hand. Binah replied with a hiss and a striking paw, claws extended.
“Indeed.” I gathered her against me. Binah growled, tense and wary in my arms. “She is also feeling somewhat antisocial.”
Spotted Elk smiled ruefully and sat back, rubbing the fresh red welts on his fingers. “No wonder. Looks like they roughed her up pretty
good.”
“I don’t imagine she has much love for strange men.” Michael didn’t even try to pet her.
“She and I are alike in many ways,” I said. “We are here for business. What did Jenner tell you about our findings?”
“That you found child pornography in your old apartment.” Spotted Elk looked over at me. His eyes were as dark and patient as a horse’s: gentle, wary, and anxious. “That Duke lost control and the change took him over… and that you got carried away with your magic.”
They thought I’d used magic to blow the apartment? Well… if they thought I was that powerful, I suppose that was in my favor. Sort of. I rubbed Binah’s ears, massaging the tension out of her scalp. “They deserved it.”
“That is questionable,” Michael said. “Because now they cannot talk.”
I grimaced. “Kir was talking before Duke lost control.”
“So we heard,” John replied. “You had no knowledge that this filth was taking place in your home?”
Was everyone going to ask me that question? “No. I ever only really knew the business of my unit.”
“What business was that?”
Even after everything that had happened, I couldn’t tell them. Talking about some of the ins and outs with the likes of Jenner and the Tigers was one thing, but when it came to people like John Spotted Elk, self-proclaimed good guys tied up with the Feds, the business of the Organizatsiya was the Organizatsiya’s business alone.
I exhaled thinly. “Nothing involving children.”
“Hmm.” Spotted Elk stood. “Tea or coffee?”
I glanced up at him. “Coffee. Black, strong, no sugar.”
“Michael?”
Michael shook his head.
John disappeared out of sight behind me. When I turned around to track his position, I saw him at a small table with a kettle and a box of assorted packets and sachets. While the kettle boiled, he began to spoon dark, syrupy sugar into one of the cups. Two, three… six. I stopped counting at eight, and turned back in consternation.
“Ayashe told us about the explosion,” Spotted Elk said. “They found the remains of at least three men, and sniffer dogs picked up extensive drug residue. There were explosives and assault weapons scattered across the street. The entire top floor burned out, and the other floors were damaged. Fortunately, the building did not collapse. She says the apartment was registered to a man named Kostya Kalikov.”
“I lost the passport for that alias years ago.”
He made a short sound of amusement. “Are you going to stay when Ayashe arrives to speak with us?”
I mulled that over for a moment. “I assume no one has expressly told her that it was my apartment that was destroyed.”
“They have not.”
I shrugged. “Then there’s no problem.”
“There is a huge problem.” Spotted Elk said. “Because the entire purpose of the Four Fires and the Pathfinders is to unite shapeshifters in lawful, constructive ways.”
“Besides that, we have the Ib-Int,” Michael added. “The ancestral laws of all shapeshifters, passed through generations of Elders since Mesopotamia was a world power. They proscribe against killing for revenge.”
The word ‘law’ had a number of unpleasant connotations for people like myself, but knowledge was knowledge. Besides… whatever corner these men hoped to talk me into, I still had Nicolai’s notes. “Fortunately for you, I am not a shapeshifter, and therefore not under your aegis.”
“Listen to me. You’re a Phitometrist,” Spotted Elk said. “Which means you must have at least partial knowledge of the threat we face from the Outside.”
He spoke the word like a name. “Something of it.”
“Michael is the best one to tell that story.” He motioned to the other Elder, sipping at his tea. “My old brain gets too cluttered.”
Michael inclined his head in acknowledgment. “That may or may not be true, John. You have more years than I do.”
“You were reared in the cradle of the Law, Michael. I was born on a Rez.” He laughed briefly at his own joke.
“True enough.” Michael smiled faintly, the first time his face had relaxed in any way. “We have a long history of interaction with magi. To begin with, your soul and my soul were both born out of a great calamity. The oldest Gift Horses – one of the oldest beings in all Creation – all call it the same thing. The Second War.”
My eyes narrowed. I remembered the litany. The First War was not a war. It was a slaughter…. It came with the first star to ever light the Mirror of the sky.
“I know what a Gift Horse is, vaguely. The First War was when the DOGs came from the NO-thing, I believe,” I said. “I don’t know what the Second War is.”
Spotted Elk nodded, stirring his tea. There enough sugar in it that it was soupy. “Around about eight hundred years ago, I was living as a barley farmer in South Korea. I was visited by a great Gift Horse Stallion and his manservant. Michael knows him, too. He was a powerful elder of his people, and hard as tacks… stern, ruthless, terrifying.”
“Stallion?” I thought back to Zarya, but struggled to remember her face. “Gift Horses call themselves Stallions… and Mares?”
Spotted Elk laughed for a moment, and then shook his head. “They wouldn’t deign to call themselves man and woman, in case they’re mistaken for HuMen.”
“I see,” I replied. “So what about the Second War?”
Michael considered his words for a minute or so in silence. “As John has noted, I also know of this ancient Horse. He called himself Dust, and it was he who conveyed the story of the Second War to my mentor. For the purpose of this conversation, I will recount the short version. The White Land was the original skin of GOD, and by that, I mean the creature that we live inside… the acronym is a YESian term, nothing to do with the religions of the world.”
YESian? “I’m aware there is a difference.”
“Dust told us that the name of the White Lands was AZN, and that the AZN was destroyed at the end of The First War by a great evil known as the Morphord, no ‘e’. Dust said that his people, the Gift Horses, were the first beings in all of AZN to wear the man-shape, and with two legs to run, two arms to fight, two eyes to see and a head to turn, they stood a chance to drive the Morphord and his army – the Morph-horde – out of the territories they had now infested.” As the story progressed, Michael slipped into the rhythmic cadence of memetic recall. “To do this, Dust’s ancestors took up the shards of glass the Morphord had caused to fall from the broken shell of the sky. They made this glass into the first swords, and with them they fought back.”
“Their enemy, who Dust was very adamant was male, was clever,” Michael continued. “The Morphord observed the inhabitants of the AZN, and when he realized that he was going to lose to AZN's Man-shaped host, he drew all of his soldiers and their victims back in to himself, and with their mass, created a form for himself for the first time. This form agonized him, because it was against his nature to take a shape, and so it was of the largest and strongest Man-shape he, in his great narcissism, could conceive of. He was thirty thousand miles tall, when he stomped a foot down on the White Land, he shattered the entirety of the shell protecting GOD, ending The First War and mixing himself into Creation forever in the process.”
I listened in heavy silence, the coffee steaming on the desk in front of me.
Michael closed his eyes. “The destruction of the White Land caused the formation of strata of different sorts, with the first being that of the Wra-Tha, who Dust referred to as 'The PusLickers', followed by HuMans, and then us: The Ka-Bat, or animal spirits, who bonded with some of the first HuMans even as Dust's people and allies engaged the Morphorde again in The Second War. The very oldest of us came to consciousness as the whole of GOD writhed in agony from its wounds. The Ka remembers this anguish, Rex. Even the youngest of us remember bits and pieces, and with that memory, clear or faint, every Ka-Bah responds to the presence of illness and corruption in the world. They may ac
cept the call or reject it, but those who choose to serve find allies, while the outcasts remain alone and weak. The Ib-Int is formed around this concept and is built around gathering like-minded Ka-Bat to rejoin the current War, the Third War, to fight the corruption imposed on Creation.”
Spotted Elk nodded. “The important takeaway – for you – is that episodes like Duke’s are not the exception: they are the rule. The animals we channel are furious, intelligent spirits of the broken Glass Land who want to do nothing else except hunt down and kill the Morphorde in every shape it takes. Problem is, it can take all kinds of forms. The Ka doesn’t just hate demons and unspeakable creatures, or evil sorcerers and shamans. Evil can be in normal people who have good intentions and make mistakes.
“Precisely.” Michael reached up to finger the ankh he wore over his heart. “If we let the Ka rule us, all we do is kill, and kill, and kill. Duke could not help himself when he smelled the evil of the Morphorde and his Ka overrode him, and that is because he doesn’t care about working within the law. He does not want to control himself. You understand?”
“I certainly understand the need for control,” I replied.
“I know, because you’re a predator. Anyone could tell that.” Spotted Elk leaned in over his desk a little. “I created the Four Fires for the same reason that Michael continues the legacy of the Pathwalkers. If we have to face an army one day, we can’t be a disorganized rabble. We must raise an army to fight an army.”
I mulled that over. “I understand. But while we’re on the subject, Lily and Dru were almost certainly not as virtuous as you make them out to be. I found delivery instructions for a very large quantity of heroin that was to be delivered to their address.”
Stained Glass: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 2) Page 17