by Jenn Stark
Nikki was standing outside the hotel when I arrived. She spotted me as I turned the corner, straightening and casually lifting her hand to her face, clearly checking in with Nigel. I hadn’t been followed, but I still was more grateful than I had any reason to be to see her long, leggy form in her Mission Impossible jumpsuit. She had the grace to wait until I reached her, then scooped me into an enveloping hug.
“Dollface, you do that again, I’m going to kill you myself. That is why you have team members. Not for you to go haring off to save the day. We would have sprung those kids before they ever got to any holding tank, you know that.”
“I do know that,” I said, sighing with relief as we entered the warm, dimly lit confines of the building. There were several people gathered in the main seating area of the hotel in front of a roaring fire, from fresh-faced youth to weather-hardened veteran travelers, to even a scattering of elegantly clad guests who looked like they’d just stepped off the Orient Express…one of them in a silk suit reading an honest-to-God newspaper. “And if they’d been ordinary kids, I would have let you. But they’re not ordinary kids, Nikki. They’re Connected.”
“Some of them aren’t kids at all, hate to break it to you. Their leader dude is older than you are. Twenty-nine years old, a youth minister out of Milwaukee, if you can believe that, and he had two sets of early twenty-something camp leaders along for the ride, to make sure no kids were exploited or came to harm…at least until tonight. Most of these kids’ parents thought they were going on a mission trip.” She rolled her eyes. “Then there was a whole different set that were funded by video game sponsors, of all the insane things.”
“It gets worse,” I said, thinking about the arcane web. I’d already texted Ma-Singh with the term and ordered him to find out everything he could. “But so what? Those young Connecteds haven’t had anyone stand up for them before, I don’t think. Not without expecting something in return, anyway. They weren’t poor or destitute, no, and they probably don’t even realize how lucky they are to have the mobility they do…but if things go down the way they might with Interpol and SANCTUS and—and even the Council—they may lose that mobility in a hurry. They may lose a lot of things. They should know that someone cares.”
“Yeah, well, they now not only know you care, but that you’re a badass. Good luck trying to stop the recruitment effort now.”
“There shouldn’t have ever been a recruitment effort,” I growled, quietly, I thought.
Not quietly enough, however.
“You’re absolutely wrong on that count, I’m afraid.” The elegantly coiffed man in the silk jacket shook his newspaper closed and stood, turning around to execute a perfectly sophisticated bow.
Beside me, Nikki froze, the way she always did when the Devil put in an appearance. There was absolutely no reason for her to react that way, of course. Aleksander Kreios was one of her biggest fans. Unfortunately, that never seemed to matter.
Like a champ, however, she recovered quickly, striking a pose in her bodysuit that would have put Emma Peel to shame.
“Just couldn’t stay away from me?” she cracked.
Kreios glanced casually her way, then visibly halted, staring at her with abrupt and clear appreciation. “My dear Miss Dawes,” he returned, “every time I see you, I become more convinced that you were created just for me.”
And…she was back to being frozen.
“We need to talk,” I said, glancing from him to Nigel, who’d come up to remind Nikki how to walk.
“Suite would be best,” the Brit said gruffly. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone looking for you, Sara, but that probably won’t last.”
We took the few flights of stairs necessary to reach our private set of rooms and entered the central sitting area that adjoined the bedchambers. It was a comfortable room with a large fireplace that Nigel had already lit, and several cushioned chairs around a low table. At the far end was a stocked bar, but I headed directly for the chair nearest the fireplace. I was unaccountably chilled after my experience with the children…or was it Happy Viktor and Tortured Simon that had disturbed me more?
Too many lines were converging at once, and here was the Devil, on hand to watch me sort it out.
I unslung the carrying tube I’d pulled from Simon and laid it beside the chair, loosening my jacket before I sat down. A small knot of guards entered the room from the interior of the suite, taking up position on either side of those doors under the Devil’s curious gaze. Did he know I had the wands in there? Probably.
I watched as Kreios sauntered deeper into the room, his appearance shifting smoothly as he walked. No longer the European aristocrat, he became dressed once more in his more usual attire, the loose, battered khakis and long linen shirt, his sun-streaked hair flowing down nearly to his shoulders, and his smile white against his golden bronzed skin. Somehow, he had supplanted Nigel as Nikki’s escort, and the two of them sat on the couch almost in one motion.
Watching them, I wondered just how much of their relationship was pure attraction and how much was legitimate connection. Nikki was the most openhearted, unfailingly generous person I knew, and she protected those she loved with a ferocity that she masked with her outrageous behavior and jaw-dropping style. Kreios didn’t deserve her, and he probably knew it.
“I assume you’re letting me see your thoughts on purpose,” the Devil said drolly, glancing up at me.
I covered my grin as I accepted a drink from Nigel, then settled back in my seat. I couldn’t decide where to begin for a moment… but there was no doubt which question burned foremost in my mind, even if it wasn’t the most important.
“What’s your game in all this, Kreios?” I asked, gesturing at him with my glass. “From the moment you showed up in Cape Town, you’ve done nothing but sow chaos into a situation that was already screwed up. Why?”
“I’m hurt,” Kreios drawled, though he didn’t seem hurt at all. “You don’t believe I have your best interests at heart? I’ve done my level best to direct Interpol toward any and all of the fake Saras roaming the globe, then have swept in with misdirection to keep them from actually arresting your doppelgängers. The one you have in Germany, by the way, is the absolute worst. Wherever Ma-Singh found her, he should return her forthwith.”
I frowned. “They’re putting themselves in danger for me. I’m grateful to any of them.”
“Well, be less grateful to her. She’s doing you no favors. None of them are really what you need, of course. They don’t know you—know your mannerisms. They’re basing their interpretation of you on videos and descriptions and sound recordings. It’s hardly enough.”
“And I don’t plan on running from Interpol for much longer, so it’s a moot point.” I leaned forward. “Plus, you’re not answering the question.”
“Oh, but I am.” Kreios favored me with a lazy smile. “I am merely considering the best way to share the delicious truth of what I know, or if it would be best for you to tell me first what you discovered behind the walls of the Boudhanath Stupa.”
He appeared genuinely curious, and I raised my brows. “You don’t already know?”
“I have my suspicions, naturally. But there are gaps in my time with the Council that were rather poorly chosen by myself. What I suspect you found in the land of Pure Light would fill in one of those gaps rather nicely.” He fixed me with a more intense stare, and I sensed his curiosity like a living thing. His curiosity, and his excitement. “I will tell you all that you ask of me, Sara Wilde. I always have. That is the contract we have shared with one another.”
“Uh-huh. And I never was quite clear what I was doing in exchange for that information.”
His smile was mesmerizing. “You merely bestirred yourself to ask. I cannot share my knowledge with the world if it doesn’t ask, now can I?”
There was something indefinably authentic about that answer that cut me to the core. Another layer of the onion-like shell surrounding Kreios slipped the slightest bit. For the barest moment,
I glimpsed the abject loneliness the most charismatic member of the Council must feel on a daily basis—wanting to spill forth so much, when so few bothered even to ask.
As quickly as it revealed itself, of course, that visage was gone, covered up in the exquisitely gorgeous wrapping of the lazy Mediterranean playboy who lounged next to Nikki.
“Okay, before I tell you what lay behind the doorway, explain to me why there was a doorway at all—what is Simon doing, creating this stupid game that’s leading young psychics into harm’s way? And why is he involving me so intimately in it?”
“What makes you think you are the star of his technological enterprise?” Kreios countered.
Nigel snorted. “I think today’s little demonstration is proof positive that these people know who and what Sara is. They want to ally with her.”
“What, ten, thirty psychics? Surely not something to concern yourself with unduly.” Kreios was avoiding the question, but I didn’t get the impression he wouldn’t answer. He merely wanted the telling to unfold in his own manner.
I thought about that, and suddenly felt a kind of nervous energy that I decidedly didn’t like. I had so few remaining allies in the world of any Connected merit. Armaeus, of course—but even he was doing so at great cost to his role in the Council, a cost that might prove too high, eventually. Simon now appeared to be deceiving me, and Kreios and Death and maybe the Hierophant were apparently in collusion in their own twisted side game. The other members of the Council—both current and potential—were too peripheral to trust one way or the other.
And then there were the Houses of Magic. Gamon could not currently be listed as my number one fan in any dimension. Mercault was barely Connected enough to matter. And Rangi was possibly borderline insane. Not super helpful.
Kreios was leaning forward now, his eyes dark, almost electric as he stared at me. “Your thoughts are blocked to me, Sara Wilde, when all I want to do is open your eyes to what is truly happening with the Council.”
“But can I trust you?”
The question was out before I could stop it, and the sudden panic that gripped me was not because of any perceived social gaffe. The Devil wouldn’t expect anyone to trust him, least of all me; he wouldn’t take offense. No, the stress I felt was that I really, truly, didn’t want to know the Devil’s response to my question. I didn’t want to imagine a world where this being was allied against me. I’d rather stay in the dark on that than face the inevitable conclusions that such a terrible reality required.
Kreios drew in a deep, satisfying breath, the sensual fulfillment on his face at once uncomfortable and mesmerizing to watch.
“Can you trust me?” he asked, relishing the words. “In truth, I am the only member of the Council you can fully trust to say exactly what is accurate and to share it with you fully, if perhaps not all at once.”
“Okayyyy…” I narrowed my eyes. “Why don’t you prove that to me. Tell me something I need to know about the Magician—something he hasn’t told me.”
“Ah!” A flash of excitement skittered across Kreios’s face, and once again, I was aware I was playing a very dangerous game here. Inciting the Devil to spill his most delicious secrets seemed to give the demigod an almost ecstatic energy, and I was reminded again that the truth could sometimes be far more devastating than any lie.
“The Magician,” he said, seeming to taste the word as he said it, ladling out the syllables like rich, heavy cream. “The Magician is terrified of what he might do to you. Far more than he’s ever admitted.”
I scowled at him. “I already know that. He thinks he might kill me.”
Opposite me, Nigel went suddenly still, and Nikki pulled herself rigid. So I might have forgotten to mention that detail to them, maybe.
Kreios was shaking his head, though. “It’s not a peaceful death he worries most about, exactly. The Magician would never harm you intentionally, but he lives in horror of the harm he might do you through the magic coursing through his body—harm that may not leave you dead, but so filled with darkness that you wish you were.”
I frowned. “Explain that.”
“Like his predecessors, when Armaeus Bertrand shouldered the mantle of Magician, he became far more than he seems, particularly when the very depths of his magic are loosed within him. He is more powerful than any of us—save myself, of course, and, I do believe, Death—ever believed he could be. The Magician is a role most shrouded in secrecy, almost the whipping boy of the Council with his constant nattering on about balance. But make no mistake…his desperate preservation of that balance is for far deeper reasons than merely the peaceful coexistence of disparate magical abilities in this world. If the world is in balance, he cannot reach the true limits of his own abilities. He’s blunted in his strength, his focus. If the world is in chaos, and if he has access to the darkness he’s tried so diligently to shut away from himself…” Kreios shrugged. “All bets are off. He will do anything, use anyone to achieve his goals. Even you.”
That…certainly was a variation on the problem I hadn’t fully considered, and I nodded. “Fair enough,” I said. “But if you’re his friend, his ally, why are you seeking to sow chaos in the world?” I pointed at the tube on the floor, the tube containing the scroll of enlightenment. “You knew that by sending me to find the cylinders, I’d run across the case for that thing. The empty case. And that was your real goal, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, the wands of life and darkness can be quite remarkable, in the right hands. Your hands. I certainly wanted to do my part to equip you for the coming battle. But no, the goal was never the cylinders.” He stared at me, hard. “The goal was the scroll you’ve now secured. And bringing back together what the Emperor wishes most fervently would stay apart.”
He eyed me with a meaningful glance. “We ignore our true selves at our own risk, wouldn’t you say, Sara Wilde?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I slid a glance to Nikki, but she was watching Kreios with a frown on her face—a general frown. She hadn’t picked up on the Devil’s subtle dig about Sariah, and I didn’t have time to explore the wound he’d exposed so neatly. Not quite yet.
First, I needed more answers.
“How did you know the scroll was missing in the first place?” I asked. “Did the librarian tell you?”
“The librarian.” He shivered with pleasure. “Now that is a fine specimen—”
It was my turn to lift a hand. “I don’t even want to know,” I said succinctly. “You knew she was missing the scroll. How?” I put forth my most dreaded supposition. “Did Simon steal it?”
“Simon! No, he would have made a terrible finder,” Kreios said dismissively. “Viktor had that artifact stolen from the Library in the mid-1970s, by a much younger, highly skilled Connected. She never quite recovered from that job, but she also never lost the taste for the godhood she glimpsed while working in his employ. She still hasn’t.”
I blinked at him. There could be only one person that fit this description. “You mean Gamon? She was working for Viktor?”
“You surely noticed that she is exceptionally skilled. She didn’t come by that naturally—or even with the advantage of technoceuticals. She was helped. Between that and the nature of the jobs Viktor sent her on, her mind suffered greatly. Her hatred of the Council is well-founded, for all that it allowed her to become what she has become.”
“But how did Armaeus allow that to happen?” I demanded. “This was all going on below his very nose.”
“It was a difficult time in many respects for Armaeus.” Kreios waved the question off. “The Empress had recently ascended, he was still searching for his Fool, and he was dipping into his own studies for long stretches where we wouldn’t see him at all. It was the seventies. Nobody was having an easy go of it.”
“So Viktor got the scroll, unraveled it—”
“Not right away. He could not—he needed the help of another Council member who could keep his secret, and the
Empress was not strong enough, though she was a natural patsy for his scheme. No, he needed to wait. When Simon came to power in the eighties, he was already groomed by the Emperor. Handpicked, you could say.”
“So Simon unraveled it.”
“One of his last acts before ascending, I believe,” Kreios said. “Viktor knew he couldn’t attempt it himself. He didn’t understand the full ramifications of doing so, though he suspected that it would demand a piece of whoever tried to read the sacred words. But he also couldn’t step away. The cracking of the seals of the scroll opened up a pathway into the realm you visited today. And into that realm disappeared the scroll—the scroll, and, I believe, a piece of Simon and Viktor. A shard, if you will.”
I thought of Happy Viktor and Tortured Simon. “And they got to choose what pieces.”
Kreios’s eyes leapt with curiosity. “So you did see them,” he breathed. “I was right.”
I didn’t bother answering that. Instead, I pointed to the scroll tube. “We’ve got them all together now. The cylinders and the scroll. What does that get us?”
“On a large scale? I’m sure I don’t know. On a small scale, there remains nothing to bind either soul to its holding place anymore. Presumably, Viktor and Simon can be made whole.”
“And what exactly do you get out of that?” It wasn’t me who posed the question, it was Nikki. She stared hard at Kreios as he turned to meet her gaze. “That makes them both stronger, right? Except even if they aren’t allied against Sara, they aren’t helping her cause.”
“As to whether or not they are helping…that’s still to be determined.” Kreios shook his head. “As to stronger—yes, potentially. But also more conflicted. And conflict is the seed of creation. So if you want to know what I get, I get what I most desire: chaos. When there is chaos, there is life. When there is chaos on the Council, there is action. Action and reaction, and a spiraling of intensity.”