by Jim C. Hines
“No.”
I waited, but the book didn’t react.
“What are you going to do with me?” Deb asked.
I should hand her over to the FBI, along with the names of the other two werewolves. Deb had facilitated two assassinations tonight.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “If you turn me in, they’ll either dissect me or use me.”
Once again, the book remained silent. Deb believed what she was saying. “What exactly do you think I should do? You amped up the hate and rage of three murderers. You’re as responsible as they are. You don’t get to walk away from that.”
“Then kill me.”
Looking at the emptiness in her eyes, hearing the flatness in her words, it was as if a part of her wanted me to do exactly that. “What happened to you, Deb?”
“Keep your damn pity to yourself.” She snorted and turned away. “You won’t hurt me. Because you’re still playing their game, by their rules.”
I turned away. “Lena, could you keep an eye on her while I check the rest of the house?”
“Knock yourself out,” Deb muttered.
The panel at the back of the closet was about three feet high. I shoved aside old dresses and shirts, switched on my reading lamp, and crept into the attic.
Two seconds later, I launched myself out again. I tripped over my heels, and my lamp went skittering across the room. I scooted past Deb, rolling and slapping at my jacket. Two wasps flew up and away, while a third stung my wrist.
Deb leaned down to pluck that one away. “Be careful,” she said as she chewed. “That’s my snack bar you almost fell through.”
“Your snack bar?” The wasps were an inch and a half long. They’d built their nest between the rafters. There had to be twenty square feet of wasp nest in that attic, so thick it was like another layer of insulation. “You could have warned me, you little shit-weasel!”
She was laughing now. “Relax, Isaac. If I really wanted to piss you off, I’d command them to swarm. At which point you’d get all pouty, steal my magic, and turn them against me. Honestly, you’re no fun at all these days.”
“Shit-weasel?” Lena repeated. She was trying not to laugh, but wasn’t doing a great job of it.
“Shut up.” I got to my feet and shuddered. “I hate wasps. I should let Smudge burn this place to the ground.”
“Where would you like to search next?” Deb asked innocently.
I glared death. “Do you have anything else in this house that’s illegal, dangerous, or could help me find the people behind tonight’s attack?”
“Nope.” The Goblin Wood remained silent. Deb caught another wasp and crushed it in her hand. “You know, you could have asked that up front and saved yourself the humiliation.”
I refused to dignify that with an answer. Not that I had much dignity left. Instead, I swapped books again, grabbing my thin paperback copy of Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. It was an older book, and that made it harder to use, but it retained enough power for my purposes. I extended one finger into the page, touching a sheaf of crinkled paper within the scene. In the story, each sheet had been impregnated with a microdot transmitter.
I pulled one of those papers free and transferred its magic into Deb’s skin. Like copying and pasting a bit of code, as Talulah would say. “I think we’re done here.”
I looked over at Lena, who nodded in agreement and said, “Deb can stay with me.”
“I’m your prisoner now?” asked Deb. “How are the bugs at your place?”
“You can share Smudge’s cricket stash.”
“Be careful, hon.” Deb grabbed an old black coat from the closet and tossed it on. “This isn’t one of your field missions for the Porters. This is war. If you don’t figure that out soon, it’s gonna kill you.”
TESTIMONY AND QUESTIONING OF WITNESS NUMBER 18: ISAAC VAINIO (CONTINUED)
The CHAIRMAN: How were subjects selected for human medical trials at New Millennium?
Mr. VAINIO: We asked for volunteers with life-threatening medical conditions that couldn’t be cured by mundane means. From that pool, a team of Porters and NIH doctors selected candidates who—
The CHAIRMAN: Why don’t we skip ahead to the favoritism and nepotism?
Mrs. CLARKE: I believe Mr. Keeler is referring to the inclusion of Alexis Vainio in your medical trials. Your niece, yes? You have to admit that’s not normal practice.
Mr. VAINIO: Lex is my niece. She’s also an ideal candidate, with severe injuries and complications from an automobile accident when she was younger. She lost a leg, suffered brain damage, and continues to experience chronic pain. I suggested they apply for the trials, but I wasn’t involved in the selection process, nor did I have any influence on the decision to include Lex.
The CHAIRMAN: You expect us to believe that, out of a pool of hundreds or thousands of desperate volunteers, this selection committee just happened to pick your niece?
Mr. VAUGHN: Isaac, is it possible Lex was deliberately included in the trials as a way to reassure the public? To say, “We’re so certain magic is safe and helpful, we’ll use it on our own family members.”
Mr. VAINIO: Maybe. You’d have to ask the selection team.
The CHAIRMAN: If magic is as safe as you’d like us to believe, why didn’t you help your niece at the time of the accident? Why force her to suffer all these years?
Mr. VAINIO: The Porters . . .
The CHAIRMAN: I’m sorry, could you please speak up?
Mr. VAINIO: The Porters—Gutenberg, really—felt that it was more important to preserve the secrecy of magic. Lex’s accident was public knowledge. I wanted to help her, but any miraculous recovery would have raised too many questions.
Mrs. BROWN: Why did Johannes Gutenberg want to keep magic a secret?
Mr. VAINIO: He was afraid of what people like you would try to do with it.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Trust is a choice. Actually, trust is more of a desperate, hopeful guess based on limited information. I wouldn’t trust me if I were you.”
“What’s your game? You’ve always had control issues, especially when it comes to the Porters. Are you trying to run things through me? To turn me into another you?”
“Heavens, no. I’m done with that circus. I’m happy to let someone else wrangle the monkeys and shovel out the elephant cages. And let’s face it, you do spend a lot of time stepping in shit. Metaphorically speaking.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Gutenberg I knew.”
“Think, Isaac. I’m not that Gutenberg. I’m who he wanted people to remember. An idealized version, if you will. I was never intended to be your personal chatbot.”
“I can send your book back to Nicola, if you’d prefer.”
“Not at all. I rather enjoy this pseudolife, though it would be nice to do more than sleep between our conversations, or to find others to converse with. Which reminds me, have you spoken with Juan recently?”
“Nobody’s seen or heard from him since last year.”
“No surprise. Juan Ponce de Leon, ever the survivor. He once hibernated for twelve years to escape the Anglo-Spanish War. If you do reach him, please send him my . . . my regards.”
“I will, but you’re evading the question. Either you are the Gutenberg I knew, in which case you have your own agenda. Or else you’re this idealized version, in which case I don’t know you.”
“You must be cautious. Not your strong suit, I understand. But the world is at a turning point. So are you. It’s what you’ve been struggling with for months, for years, really. It’s why you keep reaching out to me. You hope I’ll help you find the right answer.”
“Answers are easy. What’s the question?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll see it when you’re ready.”
“What if I don’t?”
“I suspect you’ll probably get yourself killed.”
NIDHI AND LENA dropped me off at the Detroit airport at thre
e in the morning. The next available flight to Las Vegas wasn’t until noon, meaning the only way I could possibly get back to New Millennium before my niece’s procedure was to use magic.
Given how twitchy I was, and the amount of magic I’d used in the past twenty-four hours, teleportation was out of the question. Some sort of superspeed would be marginally safer, but I was still far more likely to smear myself across a mountainside than I was to reach Vegas in one piece.
Even the tiny bit of illusion I’d used to sneak Smudge past airport security had exacerbated the ashy smears in my vision. My eyes kept shivering with the excess energy, making the whole world jump and skip like a scratched DVD.
I called the New Millennium main line and left a message with Kiyoko letting her know I’d be getting in later than expected. I thought about calling my brother next, but it was past midnight in Vegas, and I didn’t want to disturb them.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to hear his disappointment when I told him I wouldn’t be there for them. Again.
I hiked the full length of the terminal three times, trying to burn off the manic energy. I passed a number of people napping, stretched out across chairs. There was no way I’d be able to do the same, but maybe if I kept moving long enough, I could calm my nerves enough that I wouldn’t spend the entire flight bouncing and jostling my seatmate.
I finally wore myself out enough to sit and rest. I bought a newspaper and caught up on the details of yesterday’s other attacks. In each case, at least one public figure who’d been outspoken against inhumans had been killed. The attack in New York had been the worst. A pair of lake trolls had killed more than twenty-three people before being gunned down.
Whoever was behind this, they subscribed to a philosophy of equal-opportunity terrorism. Trolls in New York, werewolves in Michigan, wild chupacabras in Oklahoma, and nagas in California. I wondered if Nicola knew anything about the chupacabras. She raised chupacabra hybrids, and loved the ugly things as much or more than most people.
Three of the chupacabras in Oklahoma had escaped, as had every one of the four nagas. Had they all been mentally pushed into becoming assassins, like the Lansing werewolves?
I composed a short email on my phone, letting Nicola know about the werewolf and the traces of mental manipulation I’d seen. I hesitated, but finally added another paragraph explaining that I’d traced that manipulation to Deb, and we had her under guard. As soon as I got back to New Millennium, I intended to follow up on a lead she’d shared.
It couldn’t have been five minutes after I clicked send before the phone in my jaw went off.
“When I told you to assist with the aftermath in Lansing, I didn’t mean for you to withhold evidence from the FBI and harbor an accessory to assassination and terrorism.”
“Hi, Nicola. What are you doing up this late?”
“Damage control. Which will be completely pointless when word gets out about what you’ve done. Why, Isaac?”
She was singing under her breath, something she tended to do when she was angry or upset. But at least she was giving me the chance to explain. “Because I can do a better job of finding whoever orchestrated these attacks than the police or FBI, and we both know it.”
“And because she used to be your friend.”
I didn’t deny it. “What’s more important, making nice and playing by their rules, or stopping the people behind this and saving lives?”
“Then why tell me at all? Why put me in a position where I’m forced either to turn you in or to join your conspiracy?”
One nice thing about talking to Nicola: she didn’t mind silence. She was content to wait while I pondered that question and dug at my own motivations. “Because you have a different perspective on things, and I trust you to rein me in if I go too far.”
“I notice you didn’t give me the chance to rein you in before you confronted Ms. DeGeorge.”
“Yah, well, I tend to get caught up in the moment.”
“You don’t say.”
“Give me time to piece this together. Someone did a lot of work to coordinate these attacks. They had to build each team, and at least here in Michigan, they had to hire a third party to brainwash that team into finishing the job. There’s a bigger pattern here. We can’t see it yet. Too many missing pieces. Too many questions. Why limit each team to a single type of inhuman? Why arrange the attack for a time when the FBI was en route? That reminds me, do you know the response time at the other attacks?”
“The state police were already on site in Oklahoma,” said Nicola. “Someone had called in a bomb threat. In California, the attack took place less than ten miles from an FBI field office.”
“They wanted the authorities to arrive quickly. Were any of the attackers captured alive?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
“All right, I only have one more question for now. Do you trust mundane authorities to handle this?”
It was Nicola’s turn to think in silence. I drummed my fingers against the chair until she finally said, “Keep me informed. You understand that if this goes badly, the Porters won’t be able to protect you? McGinley at DHS is determined to make an example out of anyone involved.”
“Understood. Thanks, Nicola.”
“I hope everything goes well with your niece.”
“Thank you,” I said, more warmly this time.
“I’m sorry you missed your flight out of D.C. I know you wanted to be there.”
“I needed to be in Lansing.” I sighed and checked the information screen mounted on the wall. I needed to be in Vegas, too. I trusted the New Millennium medical team, but I was the one who’d assured Lex and her parents that it wouldn’t hurt, and that everything would be okay.
Toby had never forgiven me for letting Lex suffer all these years. What would they think when I wasn’t there for her in the morning?
I managed a forty-five minute nap on the flight before jolting awake when the plane touched down in Vegas. I sat up and rubbed the drool from my cheek, texted Lena to let her know I’d arrived, and gathered my carry-on bag of books. The rest of my luggage was back at the hotel in D.C.
I picked up an overpriced coffee from one of the half-dozen airport Starbucks and hiked my way to long-term parking where my pickup truck awaited. I made the slow drive east through the city on mental autopilot. It was almost two o’clock when I finally left the worst of Vegas traffic behind, and another half hour to reach my destination beyond the city limits.
The New Millennium Complex looked like a cross between a medieval fortress and a space station. Seamless stone walls surrounded roughly fifteen acres of land. Four gleaming, glass-walled towers rose from within those walls, as majestic as anything you could find on the strip. Though the New Millennium towers lacked the garish colors and lights of the casinos.
The entire population of Copper River, Michigan could have fit inside our compound, and you’d still have room for our former neighbors from Tamarack.
The Porters had purchased the land ten months ago through a series of deals and negotiations with Las Vegas and the state of Nevada. The amount of paperwork involved made the Wheel of Time series look like flash fiction, and there were at least five separate legal battles currently in play about everything from zoning requirements to air rights.
Coming here from Michigan felt like traveling to another planet, a hot, arid world where the spectrum of visible light had boycotted the color green. Patches of dark scrub along the side of the road came close, but for the most part, the landscape was all browns and tans and yellows. The first time Lena visited, she’d remarked that the lack of trees made the land feel like a graveyard.
There were no protesters at the front gates today, but it was obvious they’d been here recently. The desert plants and flowers by the entrance were trampled into the dirt. I kept suggesting we replace them with cacti. New graffiti denounced us as witches and demons and Satanists, which always amused me. I’d heard the same accusations about role-playing games when
I was a teenager.
Visible security measures included cameras and electrified wire along the top of the wall and guards at the large, arched gate. Other protection was embedded within the stone. The wards looked like braids of barely legible text forming a black fence inside the wall, with a thinner framework stretched overhead: an invisible dome designed to block out aerial cameras and worse.
I pulled up to the small booth at the gate. A metal sign warned: YOUR THOUGHTS MAY BE TELEPATHICALLY SCREENED FOR HOSTILE INTENTIONS. Several paragraphs of fine-print legal jargon followed.
Technically, it was more of an empathic screening than a telepathic one. We were more interested in hatred and rage, unusual levels of fear and anxiety, that sort of thing. I hated the mental intrusion, but the Director of Security had insisted. After they caught three different would-be attackers in the first month, including one with a trunk full of fertilizer-based explosive, I stopped protesting.
I rolled down my window and handed my ID to a middle-aged woman in a turquoise New Millennium polo shirt. “Good afternoon, Marion.”
Marion was Sanguinarius Meyerii, from the Twilight series. Her particular species of vampire was better known as sparklers. Marion had been a diehard fan of the books, no pun intended. Last year, after learning magic and vampires were real, she’d snuck across the border and paid a Mexican vampire nest to convert her.
She was damn lucky she hadn’t gotten herself killed. Sparkler venom was nasty, dangerous stuff.
Her life as a vampire hadn’t worked out as well as she’d hoped. Skin that glittered in the sun wasn’t easy to hide, and she soon lost her job as a middle school English teacher. She’d ended up working at a junkyard near Reno. When New Millennium announced we’d be hiring humans and nonhumans alike, Marion was first in line with her resume.
She was a pleasant enough woman who’d taken it upon herself to organize a weekly BINGO game among the staff. She was also strong enough to flip my truck one-handed if she decided I didn’t belong here.
Marion glanced at a second vampire behind her. My head throbbed softly as he checked my emotions.