Circle of Enemies: A Twenty Palaces Novel

by Harry Connolly

  He didn’t sound sorry about what he’d done. I guess that would have been too much to expect. We reached my Escort and I opened the door for him. He sat and I shut the door. I went around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  “I should have taken that money,” he said. “I had hopes for it.”

  “Wally doesn’t need your money.”

  “Maybe he wants it.”

  “For God’s sake! It should have been obvious to you a long time ago that you cannot pull the usual shit here. You can’t buy off or bully these people. There’s no way to blackmail them. They have their own little world, and it only comes into contact with ours when they need to kill someone or find a patsy.”

  “Fuck you. I’m nobody’s patsy.”

  “Fuck me? You have a living stomach lining over your whole body, and it’s going to start eating you soon. You’re a patsy. Deal with it. Whatever Wally really needed, he tried to get it with Luther. You weren’t involved.”

  Ty turned toward me suddenly. “Tried? At that house?”

  I didn’t like the look on his face. “Dude—”

  A Range Rover screeched to a halt right in front of my car. I jammed the key into the ignition at the same moment that Ty opened the passenger door and turned invisible. The engine started as I lunged toward Ty but missed him. He was gone.

  The doors of the Range Rover swung open. Meatheads One, Two, and Three piled out.

  To hell with this. I threw it into reverse and tried to back out of my spot. One of the meatheads fired three rounds into my engine block.

  Immediately, the engine started grinding and lost power. I cut the wheel, backing up anyway, but I didn’t have the space to make the turn, and I plowed into the street-side taillight of the car parked behind me.

  By then, a man was standing by my window, tapping a pistol against the glass.

  I turned off the engine and opened the door. Their ugly faces were all around me, thick, pouchy, scarred with acne. Hands pressed me against my car and patted me down the way a cop would. They found my cell and ghost knife, and this time they kept both. They also found the ten grand. Damn, I hadn’t even gotten to the end of the block with it, and now I had to listen to them laugh as they split it between them.

  A woman on the sidewalk held up her cellphone and snapped a picture of us. I stared straight at her, knowing my face would be recorded. Too bad I was on the twisted path; by the time she showed the photo to someone, it would no longer look like me.

  “Let’s go,” one of the men said. They dragged me into the Range Rover and shoved me into the back, where I sat squeezed between two guys who smelled like sweat and enchilada sauce.

  Potato Face sat in the front seat. He looked me over and turned away. He’d caught me, but he didn’t look happy about it.

  We pulled away, leaving my car with the money under the floor mats jutting into the street. An embarrassing pang of grief went through me. I’d killed too many people to be moved by the loss of an old vehicle, but I was anyway.

  We drove on Beverly Glen Boulevard much too fast. The windows were open, but the freeway air blowing into my face was dry and hot—there was nothing cooling about it. I asked for water, but no one acknowledged me. I was forced to sit quietly and wonder how I was going to track down Ty again, not to mention the others, and how much time I had before he fell out of this world and let more predators in.

  We pulled up to Francois’s big white house and parked at the curb. There was a blue panel van in the drive, and its back doors swung open as we got out of the car. Two more meatheads climbed out, with Arne and Lenard at gunpoint.

  Arne had a nasty smile on his face. “God, it’s a beautiful day. Am I right?”

  Lenard snorted. I wondered why the two of them let themselves be captured. Were they trying to keep their power a secret? I thought I was the only one concerned about that.

  The three of us let ourselves be herded up the front walk toward the house.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Each of us had two meatheads assigned to him, with two more in back and Potato leading the way. When we entered the clean white house, the air-conditioning was so startling that I gasped aloud. It must have been 65 degrees inside, and the sweat on my face and back immediately chilled.

  Lenard turned toward me, smiling at the way I gasped. “I know, huh? Let’s move in.”

  One of the meatheads shoved him roughly, and we ran out of things to say. I could feel my ghost knife nearby, in the pocket of one of the men, but I didn’t call it. If Arne and Lenard were hiding their tricks, so would I.

  We were taken to the same room as the last time. The sliding doors were closed, and blinds were drawn across them. The only light came from a pair of lamps in opposite corners, and they cast a sickly yellow tint over the white furniture.

  Swizzle Stick sat in a plush chair in the corner. She wore the same purple bikini, but her legs and arms were crossed, and her chin tucked low, as though she didn’t want to be noticed.

  Beside her chair, Francois paced back and forth. His suit this time was midnight black—maybe it made him feel tough.

  He never took his eyes off Arne. Potato stopped us five feet from him. The meatheads were all around, standing so close together they were practically in one another’s way. There was a door behind Francois, another that we came through, and of course the sliding doors. The meatheads would catch me if I bolted toward Francois, and there was too much heavy flesh to shove aside to get to either of the other exits.

  “Well?” Francois suddenly barked.

  “Yeah,” Swizzle Stick answered. Her confidence had drained away. “It was the middle one.” She lifted her chin toward Lenard. “He was the sp—”

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” Francois said. “Now get your things and call a cab.”

  Her crossed arms and legs slid apart. “What?”

  Francois spun toward her. “What did you think would happen? Get out!”

  She pushed her long, lanky body out of the chair. I stepped to the side to give her room to pass—and to better position myself to rush the door—but the meatheads took hold of me in a very convincing way. Swizzle went out the far door anyway.

  “Bad enough,” Francois said to us, “that you steal my fucking car and try to sell it back to me, but you had to put that fucking video on the Internet? And then you tell my wife?!”

  Arne was still smiling. “That’s Web two point oh, baby.”

  Francois stepped up close to him. “You think I’m being funny?” There was something unconvincing about Francois’s performance. He wasn’t used to threatening people, and he didn’t have the knack. I snuck a glance at Potato Face. His expression was not quite blank, and he had turned his body away from his employer. I didn’t think he’d be murdering anyone for this boss.

  Francois shifted his feet. This wasn’t turning out how he’d planned, and he was growing frustrated. “Do you know what I do to people who cross me?”

  I said: “You make them leave this air-conditioned room?”

  Arne and Lenard both laughed. Francois spun and came toward me. He got very close to my face. “You think you’re someone, don’t you? But you’re nobody, and I’m going to prove it.

  “What’s the matter, gallito?” Lenard said. “Are you a man or not? Tell your wife you wanted to fuck somebody new for a change, and if she don’t like it, tough.”

  “The only problem with that,” Arne said, “is that most of the money is hers. Right?”

  “That’s bullshit! I have my own money. All my own.”

  “That’s good,” Arne said, his voice full of bad ideas. “It’s good for a man to have his own.”

  “For now, at least,” I said. “I hear your wife is one hell of a lawyer.”

  Francois licked his lips. “You guys are nothing. Mosquitoes. You have no idea what kind of enemies I have.”

  Arne grinned at him nastily. “Baby, you don’t even know what kind of enemies you have.”

  He turned into a silhouett
e and vanished.

  Francois shrieked—actually shrieked like a little girl—in shock. The meatheads shouted curses or little prayers, and suddenly no one was holding me at all. Lenard smiled and shrugged, then he vanished, too.

  Potato suddenly grunted and doubled over as though he’d been kicked in the crotch. The door behind me banged open, and I could hear heavy footsteps stomping through it. Potato staggered toward Francois and fell against him, pinning him against the door and shielding him with his body. “Shut that damn door!” Potato rasped, and his heavy, low voice had the authority to stop everyone still. I heard the door slam shut.

  My ghost knife was still nearby. I called it and it zipped out of one of the meatheads’ breast pocket into my hand. He gaped at me, but no one else seemed to notice.

  There were five of the meatheads left, plus Potato, Francois, and presumably Arne and Lenard. And me. Three meatheads backed against the glass doors blocking them. One stood against the door we’d come in, and the last one kicked the back of my knees and drove me to the floor.

  I hated kneeling, but before I could do anything about it, Potato yelled, “Guns!”

  The meatheads drew their pistols. Everything suddenly fell silent. We all listened for some sign of Arne and Lenard but couldn’t hear anything. Were they being completely still, or had they already left the room?

  Potato fished a Zippo out of his pants pocket and tossed it to one of the men at the sliding doors. “Newspapers,” he said. The meathead grabbed a section off the coffee table and set fire to it, then held it out in front of him.

  “Wave it around,” Potato said. “Spread that smoke.” He turned to me. “How the fuck are they doing this?”

  “They were bitten by a radioactive chameleon.”

  He scowled at me but didn’t press further. He had other problems to focus on.

  The smoke filled the room quickly. I stared at it, eyes unfocused to take in as much as possible, looking for swirls that didn’t have any obvious source. I couldn’t see any.

  “Let me out,” Francois said, his voice a low, terrified whisper. “Let me out. Let me out.”

  “When I’m sure we have both of them trapped in here, I’ll open the door. Until then, shaddup.”

  The central air-conditioning suddenly turned on with a low hum. Smoke swirled in every direction, and at the same moment, the guard holding the burning paper grimaced and clutched at his chest. Blood welled up under his left breast, and he collapsed forward onto the carpet, smothering the flames with his body.

  “No, no!” one of the other men yelled, but Potato hissed at him. He shut up.

  “Do you know what kind of enemies I have?”

  It was Lenard’s voice, and it came in a low whisper, making it hard to trace. I had a strange feeling, though, that he was very near me—just a couple of feet away. It was the same feeling that had led me to the spell on Sugar Dubois’s back, a lifetime ago. It felt like magic, pulling me toward him.

  “Gimme those,” Potato said, pointing at the newspapers. One of the men tossed him a couple of sections. He shook them out, letting the pages fall onto the carpet around him. His men did the same.

  Within seconds, each was surrounded by four or five feet’s worth of paper.

  “All right,” Potato said. “You guys don’t have guns. I know, because I took them from you. And I got your buddy right here.” He pointed a pistol at me. “You can’t get close to us without stepping on the paper and giving yourself away. And getting shot. So I’m gonna count to three, and if you don’t show yourself, I’m putting a bullet in your pal here.”

  Potato aimed the gun at my forehead. Why couldn’t he have chosen a part of me that was bulletproof?

  “Go ahead,” Lenard whispered. “So what?”

  The smoke alarm suddenly went off; everyone winced except Potato. “Fire department’s on its way!” he shouted. “Time is running out!”

  “You’re right, it is!” Arne shouted. He suddenly became visible just behind me. Damn if he didn’t have a gun of his own in his hand, although I had no idea where he got it.

  He pointed his pistol at Potato or Francois—it was hard to tell which. The meatheads all pointed their weapons at him. He was outnumbered and outgunned, and I couldn’t figure out what his play was supposed to be. If he had the gun …

  “Lenard!” Arne shouted. Lenard became visible just a few feet in front of me, crouching beside a low table. He shrugged, his smiling expression suggesting that he was playing along in a game that was beneath him. The meathead who’d been standing guard over me moved toward him.

  Arne shifted his aim and fired a single shot at Lenard. The meathead jumped back. Lenard looked at his old friend in shock. There was a bloody hole in his shirt over his heart. Behind him, red was spattered against the wall; the drape was strong, but not strong enough to hold an exit wound closed.

  Arne laughed and vanished again.

  “No!” I shouted. There was a loud cracking sound, and beneath the piercing alarm I could hear a droning buzz.

  It took a moment or two for Lenard to drop. I grabbed the meathead who’d been guarding me and pulled him away from Lenard’s body. He twisted, thinking I was attacking him, and laid a heavy, door-busting right hook to the side of my face. I tried to roll with it, but it still had enough power to bounce me off the wall and lay me flat.

  The noise was oppressive, but the awful mix of sounds helped me stay conscious. I struggled up onto my elbow, trying to clear the blinking white spots from my vision. Two meatheads moved toward Lenard—damn, they were close. I tried to warn them back, but all I could manage was a harsh croak and a vague wave of my arm.

  Potato stepped toward them. “Back!” he shouted over the noise. He pulled one back and the other moved, too, as though they were tethered. Just then, the floor turned dark and vanished. Lenard’s corpse dropped away into the void, and the meatheads began screaming.

  Five drapes floated through the opening like balloons rising out of a manhole. The yellow light from Francois’s lamps made them look like phlegm. The meatheads gaped, frozen in place.

  Potato Face stepped back, and the first of the drapes rushed him. It flopped over him like a net, and he struggled for a couple of moments before toppling to the floor.

  The two men he’d pulled away from Lenard’s body turned to run, but drapes were on them before they could take a second step. One fell against a lamp and end table. The other landed on the middle of the floor.

  One drape moved toward the guard who’d laid me out, and he fired four quick shots into it. The bullets tore through the predator’s body, looking like clean spots on smeary glass, but the holes sealed over immediately. I tried to stand and push him away, but I was too slow. The man had time to scream once before it wrapped itself over his face and head.

  The opening into the Empty Spaces disappeared. The couch jolted to the side as one of the guards thrashed against it, but Potato and his three men had vanished. I reached toward the space where the fourth man had fallen. He was there, invisible and trembling, just like Melly after her protective spell wore off.

  Where was the fifth drape? I tried to remember how many men had fled the room and how many should have been here still. The only other person I could see was a lone blond beefhead crouching by the French doors. He stretched his hand out and touched the air at the base of the glass, then yanked his hand back and wiped it on his polo shirt.

  Was that the fifth? I touched the one that fell near me, then crossed the room to touch that one. One man had fallen closer to me than I thought, and I nearly tripped over him in my search. Then I found Potato by the back door and the last beside the broken end table.

  That was five. If one of the drapes had escaped the building, I didn’t know what I’d do. Luckily, it hadn’t become an issue. There were enough victims right here when they attacked.

  And I’d had my ghost knife in my hand the whole time. I’d failed them all.

  Worse, now I had to find a way to kill them safel
y.

  That last guard stood. “You!” I shouted, trying to be heard over the blare of the alarm. “Stay here so we can help your friends!”

  He stared at me for just a second, then barreled out the door. So much for my leadership abilities.

  The alarm set my teeth on edge, and I suddenly remembered what Potato had said about the fire department coming. I rolled to my feet, bumping against one of the invisible bodies. My arm started to itch from the contact, but I pushed it toward the wall anyway. If firefighters chopped the door down and tripped over one of these invisible bodies …

  I couldn’t think with that damn alarm going, so I pushed a chair to the middle of the room and stood on it. The alarm was mounted on the center of the ceiling, and the cover came off with a quarter-twist.

  It was nothing more than a thirty-dollar drugstore model. I yanked out the nine-volt battery, and the unit fell silent. There were no wires connecting it to the rest of the house, and no way for it to call emergency services when it went off. Potato had been bluffing.

  First things first. I went through the open door into the kitchen, which looked like a smaller version of the kitchen at the Sugar Shaker, but without the men in white caps. I rinsed off my hands and searched the house as quickly as I could.

  Francois was gone. So were Swizzle Stick, the two guards, and the Bugatti. Had Arne taken Francois and the car, or had one of the others? I wouldn’t have a chance to drive it after all.

  Beside the blank space where the Bugatti should have been parked was an H2 Hummer in a grotesque blue-green color. It was a big, stupid vehicle, but it was perfect for what I needed. A set of keys hung from a hook by the door.

  There were also gardening gloves in the garage, but nothing I could use to move those bodies. Damn. I needed to find something, because there was no way I could leave those drapes and their victims here in the house.

  Even if the fire department never came, somebody would. Maybe the guard would come back, or Swizzle, or even a process server for Francois’s soon-to-be-ex-wife. Eventually, someone was going to want to know what happened to Francois—in fact, they could be placing a call to the cops right now.