by Jim C. Hines
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you helped create New Millennium.”
“DO YOU TRUST DEB on her own?” asked Lena.
“Do we have a choice?” Of the three of us, she was likeliest to have been captured on camera at the Virginia prison. I’d spent most of that mission more or less invisible, and Lena had looked more like a walking tree than a woman. I’d never seen her so heavily armored, and neither had anyone else.
We’d sent Deb back to Michigan with instructions to check in with Jason Latona and fill him in on what was coming next. If necessary, she could help break Nidhi out of whatever holding pen the FBI had tossed her into. “Granach ordered her to strike back. Right now, you and I are her best hope of doing that.”
Lena rolled down the window and leaned into the desert sun. “I don’t trust her either.”
I listened to the rattle of my pickup as we crested the next hill, bringing the New Millennium complex into view. Talulah had confirmed there were no public warrants for me or Lena. Depending on how much was known about the attacks on the Kagan and Mecklenburg prison, Babs might suspect what we’d been up to. But if she was an unwilling accomplice in all this, maybe she’d keep those suspicions to herself. All I needed was a few hours.
The other possibility was that everyone knew damn well what we’d done, and were simply waiting for us to walk into their trap.
I pulled up to the security booth and rolled down my window. “Morning, Marion!”
The sparkler grinned at me. “It’s a gorgeous one, Mr. Vainio. Hi there, Ms. Greenwood. How was your weekend?”
“Refreshing. Got through three books on my reading list.” I passed over my ID and did my best to keep my thoughts calm. I had no hostile intentions toward New Millennium. Only toward a few select individuals.
“Only three? You’re slacking.”
Lena stretched past me and winked. “Believe me, he really wasn’t.”
Marion blushed and returned my badge, along with a temporary visitor’s ID for Lena. “New rule from Dr. Palmer. Everyone has to display their ID at all times.”
I checked the visitor’s badge for magic before passing it over. It wasn’t enchanted, but the plastic was thick enough to conceal a tracking chip, or possibly a listening device. Lena clipped it to the bottom of her T-shirt.
While I listed off the magic we were carrying, a human guard emerged from the booth to check the back of the truck. He also dropped flat and shone a flashlight beneath. “All clear.”
“Is everything all right, sir?” That was the empath, a middle-aged vampire with the beard and build of Santa Claus. “You’re pretty anxious.”
“We were listening to the news on the drive,” I said. “The whole world seems to be going to shit. I’m guessing the extra security measures here mean Babs is getting nervous too.”
“It’s ugly out there.” He studied me a moment longer, then waved us through.
Lena tapped her badge and raised one eyebrow.
I brought one finger to my lips. It might be paranoia, but until we knew for certain, paranoia might keep us alive and free.
I parked the truck and climbed out. We walked hand-in-hand, making small talk as we crossed the grounds. “My team has a Monday morning check-in meeting. It shouldn’t take too long. You’re welcome to wander, or you can hang out in Franklin Tower until we’re done. Vince was supposed to be getting a lion cub from Zimbabwe. I don’t know if it’s arrived yet.”
“I definitely have to meet the cub,” said Lena. “How’s Lex doing?”
“She was great when I saw her last week. I need to stop by and see how she’s progressing.”
I smiled and waved to the people we passed, all the while trying to act normal without acting like I was acting. Don’t stare at security personnel, but don’t be too obvious about not staring. Don’t look over my shoulder to see if anyone was following. Don’t talk too much or too loudly. I was overthinking things, and I couldn’t stop.
By the time we made it to the Franklin Research Tower, I’d acquired a whole new level of respect for James Bond and his real-life counterparts.
My team waited for us in the Wheeler conference room. Talulah’s privacy toys were set out on the table, their magic securing the room. I sagged into a chair and wiped sweat from my forehead.
“There are at least thirty-nine clones of Kiyoko Itô,” Talulah said without preamble. “I can’t get a location on them, and I haven’t found a way into their biological hard drives.”
“What about the security footage at Keeler’s place?” asked Lena.
“Two intruders. Looks like one male, one female. Both wore ski masks.”
“I’ve been digging into Thomas Hayes,” said Charles. “He’s been with the Coast Guard twenty-three years. Joined up right after college. Took over as commandant two years ago. The Porters don’t have a file on him and his family, so he probably didn’t lose his wife to a selkie or anything else that would give him a personal grudge against magic.”
“DHS could have told him the sirens were a threat,” Talulah pointed out. “He might believe he’s doing his job and protecting his country.”
“Hopefully Mr. Potts will be able to answer that question, along with a long list of others.”
“Potts.” Vince all but spat the name. “He was bad enough before he was running things. Now—”
“What do you mean running things?” I interrupted.
They looked at one another. “You didn’t hear?” asked Charles.
“Obviously.”
“Nicola Pallas and Thérèse St. Pierre were both taken into FBI custody for questioning,” he said. “They’re trying to implicate the Porters in this Vanguard mess, particularly the attack on those Coast Guard ships.”
That left only Russell Potts and Heather Neuman as active members of the New Millennium board, and while Neuman was a good doctor, she didn’t have the strength of will to stand up to Potts.
Russell Potts I could handle. I was more worried about Kiyoko, having seen enough of her book to know the violence she was capable of. “Talulah, do you have any way of taking Kiyoko offline?”
She shook her head. “It’s a distributed model. There’s no ‘queen’ ruling over the hive mind. Breaking her psychic link is what causes her stuttering and physical difficulties, so if anyone has to go up against her, your best bet is to isolate her from her clones’ thoughts.”
“Any of those magic-eating pearls should do the trick,” said Charles. “We figure the real reason she wore one was to make sure nobody realized what she was.”
“What’s the plan for taking Potts down?” asked Vince.
“First, I eliminate his leverage. Then we get proof.” The pieces all fit, but I’d been sure about Keeler, too. “Vince, you said Babs had been snooping through my Gateway reports?”
“That’s right.”
“I need you to be my backup plan. If Lena and I get caught, your job is to destroy the Gateway Project.”
I left my team in Franklin Tower, ostensibly carrying on with their individual research projects. We “forgot” our ID badges in my office, just to be safe.
I borrowed a rat carrier from Vince’s work area and clipped the shoulder strap from an old laptop case to either side. It was like carrying a light, metal purse for Smudge. It would do for now.
We walked to the hospital tower without incident. Once there, we signed in at the front desk and took the elevator to the third floor.
A new sign had appeared on the door to room 318.
VISITORS: PLEASE REPORT TO THE NURSES’ STATION
NO SICK VISITORS OR STAFF
WASH HANDS BEFORE DONNING MASK
MASKS MUST BE WORN BEYOND THIS POINT
Countless nightmares flickered through my thoughts in the time it took me to open the door and step inside. My attention went first to Lex, who was curled beneath several blankets in bed. A nurse was placing a blood pressure cuff around Lex’s arm. At the foot of the bed, Russell Pott
s stood talking to Toby and Angie in low tones.
“Sir, you can’t be in here without mask and gloves,” said the nurse.
“Isaac?” Toby’s eyes were shadowed. His surgical mask muffled his words. “She’s right. You can’t—”
“What’s going on?”
He frowned. “You didn’t hear?”
“Alexis has contracted an infection of some kind,” said Potts. “It seems to resist libriomantic healing.” He pointed to the black pearl strung around Lex’s neck. “The doctors believe it’s magical in nature, and were hoping this would suppress it.”
“Will she be all right?” asked Lena.
Potts shrugged. “Unfortunately, it’s too early to tell.”
The nurse stepped toward me, keeping herself between me and Lex. “Both of you need to step through that door, use the hand sanitizer outside, then go directly to the nurses’ station for mask and gloves. Otherwise, I will call security.”
‹Talulah, we may have a problem over here.› There was no response. Either I was out of range, or else the damned pearl was blocking me.
I stared at Potts. “What have they tried so far? If I could see a copy of her chart—”
“Her doctors say the best thing for her right now is rest,” Potts said firmly. “Give it time to see if the magic-damper helps.”
“I’m surprised to see you here, Mr. Potts. Medical isn’t really your area.”
Toby frowned. He’d picked up on the edge in my voice.
“With Thérèse and Nicola unavailable, I have broader responsibilities now,” said Potts. “The most important of which is the health and safety of our patients. Wouldn’t you agree?”
A soft click told me Lena had shut the door behind us.
I’d left my jacket and most of my books behind, because I thought it would be too suspicious. I had only a single paperback tucked into the back pocket of my jeans. I’d brought it along in case I had trouble getting my family out of here.
“They’re talking about moving us into quarantine.” Angie sounded numb. To finally see her daughter healed, only to watch her succumb to an unknown illness . . . it was enough to break the strongest spirit.
The nurse started toward the phone. Lena moved to block her way.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Nobody told me. When did she start feeling ill?”
“Early this morning,” said Angie.
Potts stepped closer to Lex and her pearl.
“What’s going on?” demanded Toby.
Lena hadn’t brought her bokken. Wooden swords were too conspicuous. Instead, she reached beneath the back of her T-shirt to unsheathe a wooden dagger the size of a Bowie knife. The edge sharpened in her hand.
“Are you threatening me?” Potts snapped.
“Are you threatening my niece?” I replied, my words deceptively calm and cold. “Take that damned pearl off of her so I can read what’s happening to her.”
Potts didn’t move. Angie ripped the pearl necklace from Lex’s neck and took it to the bathroom in the back of the room. I heard and felt its influence being flushed away.
“You’ve been working with Vanguard,” Potts said. “We suspected as much. What do you hope to accomplish? Will you kill me the way you killed those people in Michigan?”
“You have a problem, Mr. Potts.” I split my attention between him and the nurse. “I’m relatively certain everyone in this room cares more about the welfare of that little girl than they do about you or me. And now that the magic-damper is gone, I can see exactly what you had done to her.”
To Toby and Angie, I said, “Magic couldn’t heal her, because she’s not sick. She’s been cursed.” The pearl would have suppressed the symptoms, but it couldn’t destroy the underlying cause, any more than it could permanently change Lena’s nature.
“You’re insane.” Potts started toward me.
A wooden knife thudded into the floor between his feet. Lena tightened her fist. Oak spikes grew from the knuckles.
I yanked off my glasses and studied Lex’s leg. The curse was centered on her knee. Tendrils spread to the foot and up her thigh toward the hip, like a weed taking root.
Lex groaned and opened her eyes. “Uncle Isaac? I don’t feel good.”
“I know, kiddo. I’ll fix it.”
“Smudge is glowing. Is he hungry?”
“Not this time.” I ripped the magical portion of Lex’s curse aside and crushed it into nothingness. That didn’t repair the physical damage it had done. “Lena, do you have that healing cordial?”
She handed me the crystal vial without a word. I placed a drop on Lex’s tongue.
“What now?” Potts demanded. “Will you kill me, too? Murder me in front of your poor niece? It won’t help. You can’t hide what you’ve done.”
“How does that feel, Lex?”
She made a face. “Better.”
The nurse stepped closer. I nodded, and she began checking Lex’s vitals.
“You suspected me, but you weren’t certain.” I needed to move, to pace, to do something to suppress the need to physically throw Russel Potts through the window. “You didn’t know how much I’d uncovered. So you cursed my niece, just in case you needed leverage. That was a serious error in judgment.”
I pulled the paperback from my pocket: an old copy of Renfield. “Tell me, Russell. How do you feel about eating bugs for the rest of your life?”
I didn’t turn him, though it was damned tempting to let him live out his days as one of the inhuman creatures he’d helped to persecute. Instead, I turned to a passage describing the Renfield’s ability to influence minds, and used that to put him into a more suggestive, agreeable mood. He sat on the floor and looked up at us, a relaxed, ridiculous smile on his face.
“Who killed Alexander Keeler?” I asked.
“Kiyoko thirteen, and a vampire we hired in D.C. I don’t know the name.”
That didn’t make sense. “His wife and children were incapacitated by libriomancy.”
“By a recording of libriomancy. One of your incident reports talked about Nicola’s ability to incapacitate a man via cellphone, suggesting that magic could be recorded and duplicated electronically, albeit with some loss of power.”
Clever. How many such recordings had they made, and how many times could one be used before it lost its potency? “The sirens. Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?” asked Lena.
“Kiyoko. Lawrence McGinley.”
“Secretary of Homeland Security?” said Angie. “That Lawrence McGinley?”
Potts nodded happily. “The one and only!”
Throughout our questions, the nurse had been dutifully examining Lex. Now she turned to Toby and Angie. “Her heartbeat is steadier and stronger. It may be an hour or two for her fever to come down. That’s normal after most magical healing. It takes time for the body to realize it’s better.”
“But she is better?” asked Angie.
“I think so, yes.” She glanced at me. “Can I go? I have other patients . . .”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Tamika.”
“I see two choices, Tamika. I can adjust your memory of what happened here. That would probably be safest for everyone, especially you. If Potts and the people he’s working with think you’re helping us—”
“What’s the other choice?” She folded her arms and lifted her chin.
“Helping us. I need to get Lex and her parents out of here. That would be easier if she wasn’t on quarantine.”
Tamika nodded. “I’ll update her records with a note that you cleared her ‘infection.’”
“Doesn’t a doctor need to sign off on that?” asked Toby.
“I’ve been working in hospitals for twenty years. I think I can forge a doctor’s scrawl.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll make sure Potts doesn’t remember anything that happened here.”
“Give me ten minutes, then you get that little girl somewhere
safe.”
Once she’d left, I turned back to Potts. “Who else is involved?”
“McGinley has contacts with people in China, France, Britain, and Afghanistan. I don’t know names.”
“What does he want?” whispered Toby.
“To form an alliance of nations to control the use of magic throughout the world, with us on top,” said Potts. “Once we bring the Porters down for working with terrorists, DHS will take over operations of New Millennium, using it as a central hub of magical research and intelligence.”
“Keeler wrote about another attack, something big,” I said. “What is it? Does it involve the sirens? The Gateway Project?”
Potts gave a clumsy, exaggerated shrug. “Nobody told me the details. We were worried you might catch on and read my mind. What you’re doing is illegal, by the way. I should arrest you.”
“What’s going on, Uncle Isaac?” Lex was sitting up. Her color was better, and her voice stronger.
“You were sick because of me,” I explained. “Because this man wanted to use you against me.”
“Are they going to take my leg away?”
“No way, kiddo. I promise.” I turned back to Potts. “Where’s Darlene Jackson-Palmer?”
He shrugged and chuckled. “Kiyoko thirteen picked her up after she went to Keeler. I don’t know where they took her.”
“What about Nidhi?”
He shook a finger at me. “That wasn’t us. The FBI wanted to question the lead Porters. Doctor Shah was brought in because she’d worked with one of the other council masters. The one from Bangladesh, I think.”
I blinked. “So she’s safe?”
Potts shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. One phone call from McGinley, and she’s rotting away in a secret prison for the rest of her life. Or maybe we’ll just burn down your lover’s oak instead. We have lots of ways to hurt you, Isaac.”
“How many prisons do you have like the one in Virginia?” asked Lena.
“Four in the U.S. Several others overseas.”
“Do you know when this big attack is supposed to happen?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I imagine it will be soon though, thanks to you. If McGinley thinks he’s been compromised, the best play is to launch the attack and make sure you Porters take the blame. That way, whatever you say ends up sounding like a desperate attempt to blame someone else for your crimes.”