by Eileen Wilks
“Yeah, well, here’s something that I know matters. Why aren’t we all under compulsion?”
That startled Cullen into silence, but it didn’t last. “Good question. Can we be sure we aren’t?”
“I’m not,” Nathan said. He didn’t know why compulsion didn’t work on him, but it didn’t. The Eldest himself had confirmed that when he and Winter were negotiating for Nathan’s assistance on Earth. “Oil on water,” his Queen had murmured, as if that made sense to her. Probably it did. “Of course, I could be under compulsion to tell you that I’m not, so my saying so proves nothing.”
“Reassuring,” Benedict said, bone-dry.
“He’s probably telling the truth.” Cullen sounded gloomy. “Hellhounds are supposed to be immune to compulsion. Doesn’t help the rest of us.”
Nathan couldn’t help smiling. Cullen chose the oddest things to be troubled by. “Maybe it will help to know that I haven’t smelled beguilement except for that once, when Dyffaya was soothing Britta.”
“That’s supposed to help?”
“Eh. I keep thinking you know things you don’t.” Cullen was amazingly good for someone who was basically self-taught, but there were gaps. “Beguilement is a form of compulsion. It has a strong, distinctive odor when it’s laid. I think Dyffaya renewed it, there at the end.”
“What does it smell like?” That was Benedict.
“Somewhat like a mixture of cooked peas and spoiled apricots.”
Benedict’s voice sharpened. “With a metallic undertone? Hot metal, not cold.”
“That’s it.”
“Huh. I smelled it, too. Didn’t know what it was. I didn’t smell it on Britta before that.”
“The scent doesn’t linger—at least, not to my nose. I’ve only smelled it when someone was actively laying or refreshing a beguilement. Other compulsions have a similar scent, with different notes.” Which got him thinking . . . why had Dyffaya beguiled Britta so completely?
They all die. That’s what Dyffaya had said, and his pain had been real and deep at that moment. Sooner or later, they all died. Who were “they”?
And why had he not beguiled anyone else? Nathan was immune. Cullen might be—his shields were amazing—but the god might be able to overwhelm them. Benedict was obviously vulnerable. Nathan wasn’t sure about Dell. The familiar bond should confer a good deal of resistance, but resistance was not immunity.
And yet none of them had been beguiled. Other types of compulsion could be difficult to spot, but beguilement was easy. For Nathan, anyway. A lot of elves could use it, so he’d learned to spot the signs ages ago.
Why hadn’t Dyffaya beguiled any of them?
Maybe he could guess.
Or maybe he was making a connection where none existed. There was a word for that, though he couldn’t recall it at the moment. Might be a dragon word. He never could hold onto much of their speech, constructed as it was out of thought-engrams. But minds love connections and were prone to creating them on the spot whether they were accurate or not. That was one thing every sentient he’d ever met had in common. But this connection . . . this felt right.
Nathan returned from his reverie and realized that the other two had fallen silent, too. Following their own connections, maybe, or hunting for them. Or thinking about the lovers they’d been so abruptly parted from . . . .
Kai. Her name went through him like a blade made of longing instead of steel. Stay well. I’ll come back to you somehow. “He wants to keep us.”
“What do you mean?”
Without looking over his shoulder, Nathan couldn’t see Benedict’s scowl. But he heard it. “Dyffaya. That’s what I’m thinking, anyway. He’s feeding us. Not properly, in your case, but there’s every chance he didn’t know what happens to lupi who go without meat. Your people are new to him. He’s provided the basics for sustaining life; therefore, he wants us to live. He wants to keep us.”
It was Benedict who saw the connection Nathan had spotted. “‘They all die.’ That’s what he said. He wants people around who won’t die on him anytime soon. But why us? We’re his enemies.”
“Because his followers die.” This was Cullen. “Followers or lovers—I’m not sure he sees a difference, and that’s what he meant, isn’t it? Those who love him die.”
“Or those who’ve been beguiled into loving him.”
“Hmm.” Cullen thought that over. “I’ve never heard of beguilement shortening anyone’s life expectancy, and it’s not one of the things you said operated differently in a high-magic zone.”
“I haven’t heard of it doing so,” Nathan said, “but we shouldn’t rule that out. I’m thinking, though, that maybe something about Dyffaya himself makes it work out badly for anyone he beguiles here. Here in the godhead.”
“Which maybe doesn’t tolerate dead things,” Cullen said slowly.
Nathan nodded. “And Dyffaya himself isn’t exactly alive, is he?”
* * *
EVERYTHING is relative, Kai thought as she knelt on the ground near the hobbit house. No one had shot at her for over an hour, and she’d recharged enough for her headache to subside. Enough to do little stuff like this, too, though it didn’t look like she’d get much from it. Come on, she told the pretty lavender fragment hiding in the vines. Come on out where I can . . .
“What in the world are you doing?”
The voice made her jump. And lose the fragment. She huffed out an annoyed breath and looked up. Franklin Boyd stood a few paces away, frowning at her. José stood just behind him, looking apologetic.
Kai heaved a sigh. “Do you ever talk to Special Agent Ackleford? Because he could tell you what I’m doing. He might also mention that it’s painstaking, tedious work and I hate being interrupted.”
“Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You know that I see thoughts, right? As colored patterns.”
“That’s what you said.”
“Lies are snot green.”
His discomfort was more obvious in his colors than his expression. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’d still like to know what you’re doing.”
Kai reminded herself that it was usually best to get along with local law enforcement. “I told you that when magic is used intentionally, it usually leaves fragments of that intention behind. Fragments I can see. I’m collecting them.”
His eyebrows lifted. “That’s pretty amazing, but what do you do plan to do with them?”
“Reconstruct as much of the original intention as possible.”
“And what will that tell you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. It’s like crime scene people vacuuming up everything. You don’t know what will be useful, so you get everything you can. Look, I explained this to the special agent earlier. Why don’t you . . . hey, there,” she said as Arjenie rounded the corner of the hobbit house, followed by the three guards who’d been with her. “That is not your ‘tired but triumphant’ face.”
“No, this is my ‘curses, foiled again’ face. I’m not going to be able undo it. Cullen might, but I can’t. It’s strong, I can tell that much. And it’s not a—what did you call it? A lockdown ward. I checked that by pushing a piece of paper through it. Nothing happened, so it’s probably keyed to living things, but I don’t know what it does to living things. I’m pretty sure I could cross it without triggering it, but if it isn’t triggered it won’t dissipate, so the guys couldn’t go with me. Which really bugged them, so I didn’t. I thought I’d see what you think.”
“Is there a compelling reason to check out the first floor?”
“Other than the fact that it’s warded?”
“There is that.”
Arjenie had found two wards. The external one seemed to be a simple alarm that covered the entire house, but it had already been triggered. Some wards evaporate after being triggered; this one hadn’t, but neit
her had it been reset. Arjenie thought it was safe to cross, so she’d gone inside to check out the house. She’d found the second ward stretched across the stairs that led to what used to be the first floor.
“I’m not following you,” Boyd said. “I know you found a ward on the outside of the house. That’s why no one’s supposed to touch the house, though apparently it’s okay for you to do that. Now you’re saying there’s another one?”
Arjenie nodded. “Inside, on the staircase.”
“Which you’d know,” Kai said, “if you talked to Special Agent Ackleford. Arjenie told him about it.”
Boyd ignored her. “And you were considering crossing it? Don’t.”
Arjenie’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh? And you’re in charge here now, not the special agent?”
He had put Arjenie’s back up, hadn’t he? Kai decided to let her handle it while she went back to coaxing out the fragment of intention Boyd’s appearance had startled her into letting go of. This one was badly faded, but it had a lot of silver threads, which suggested it might be an important part of the overall pattern.
She’d stabilized the fragment already so it wouldn’t fade any further. That wisp of power would answer her call. She held out a hand and lightly brushed the sliver of lavender she could see. “Come on,” she whispered. It did, but grudgingly. It wanted to stay stuck to the vines. So had most of the others she’d found. Maybe the vines were imbued with a type of magic that attracted them. She fed a smidgeon more power into the coating she’d used to stabilize it . . . careful, careful, too much and it would simply burst.
Here it came.
She reached out with her left hand and picked it up. Not that her hand really did anything, but it made a great trigger for her Gift. She knew her hands could pick things up, so her mind automatically followed their lead.
Yes, lots of silver on this one. Maybe that would help. She tugged on the thin power cord where she’d hung her collection of fragments—a tattered collection of small lavender and silver blobs fixed to the cord like fish on a stringer. A dab of “sticky” power added the new fragment to the rest.
“That is the damnedest thing,” Boyd said. “Like watching a mime. I take it you’ve got your, uh, fragment?”
Kai nodded and stood, then twisted. Her back was stiff.
“So you found plenty of intention stuff here. That means someone did this on purpose.”
“Yes. We suspected that, of course, but until I found evidence of intention, the possibility remained that this was a random occurrence. We’re dealing with chaos, after all. Randomness must be part of the package.”
“Funny how different today’s incident was from the one at Fagioli. The attack here wasn’t magical. Any idea why someone would shoot at you?”
His colors were nowhere near as casual as his voice. Did he think he was asking a trick question? “I’ve certainly wondered about that. Why me? That’s what everyone asks when random badness strikes, but this wasn’t random.”
Arjenie spoke. “Just because he was aiming for you, that doesn’t eliminate the ‘random badness’ explanation. Maybe you were a random target. We’re talking about a god of chaos, so maybe he just wanted to stir things up. He tried to snatch you before, so why would he be trying to kill you now?”
“He didn’t kill her, though, did he?” Boyd observed. “Maybe the shot would have missed even if Mr. Alvarez hadn’t tackled her.” He looked at Kai. “Could be someone wanted you scared, not dead.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” José said from behind Boyd.
Boyd snorted. “What, you saw the bullet whizz past?”
“I saw where the cop was hit.” José tapped his head just behind the temple. “He’s the same height as Kai. If the sniper just wanted to scare her, he’s an idiot. An intentional near-miss on a head shot . . .” He shook his head. “If she moves even a little when he’s pulling the trigger, she doesn’t end up scared. She ends up dead.”
Arjenie frowned. “I’m wondering why there was a target at all. Why would anyone be shooting at anyone?”
Kai’s mouth twitched. “Oddly put, but it’s a good question. Why a sniper? Why switch from magical hijinks to material mayhem? Who does that benefit? And why wasn’t anyone snatched this time?”
“All good questions,” Boyd said dryly. “Got any answers?”
“No, but . . .” She sighed. “I probably ought to tell you something, though I don’t see how it fits. Or if it fits, for that matter. Ruben Brooks thinks I’m somehow key.”
Boyd frowned. “Brooks. The head of Unit Twelve. He’s some kind of precog.”
“Yes. And I don’t know why he thinks that. He doesn’t know why he thinks it. He also said that the probabilities are all messed up because of the introduction of chaos,” she added, “so he might be wrong.”
Arjenie tossed up her hands. “I can’t make sense of any of it. But this has to be another chaos incident. Transforming a building that way has to mean chaos energy was involved, so it’s still all about this chaos god and what he wants.”
The obvious reached up and smacked Kai in the face. “Oh. Shit. Yeah.” When the others looked puzzled, she explained. “He’s already got Nathan, but he’s not finished, is he? Revenge isn’t all he wants. Maybe that isn’t even his primary goal.”
“What he wanted before,” Arjenie said slowly, “was to enter our realm. To get a living body so he’d be fully alive again.”
They looked at each other. “I don’t see how—”
“Doug’s back,” José said. The big wolf trotted into view, trailed by his temporary official partner. Doug sat next to José and made a low, whining noise. “Can’t Change back yet?”
Doug shook his head and pawed the ground once with his right foot.
“He thinks it’ll be another hour,” José explained. “Doug’s got a great nose, but he can’t Change too often, not without a boost from his Rho or Lu Nuncio. But we’ve got a few signals he can use to tell me some basic stuff.” He looked at the wolf. “Tell me what you smelled.”
Doug sniffed loudly and nodded firmly. He tilted his head to the left, flattened his ears and lifted them, then raised his right rear foot and held it in the air briefly.
José spoke. “Doug got a solid scent. The smell is new to him, female, and . . . our designation is ‘other,’ meaning not animal, lupus, or human.”
“Female?” Boyd said sharply, at the same moment Kai and Arjenie repeated, “Not human?”
Doug nodded vigorously.
“He didn’t recognize the scent,” José said, “so we can’t get much more information from him until he can Change and tell us more about—”
“Michalski!” Ackleford yelled from across the street. “Fox! Get over here.”
Kai rolled her eyes. “I’m not your subordinate!” she called back.
“Get your butts over here anyway.”
Kai scowled and glanced at Arjenie, who shrugged. “It must be important.”
So they headed for Ackleford, who was talking into his phone, though he did put it up when they reached him. “We’ve got another chaos incident. This one with casualties. Someone’s taking credit, and they want to talk to you.”
TWENTY-THREE
“IT’S beautiful,” Arjenie said quietly. “Vicious, but beautiful.”
Kai nodded as she looked out at the beach.
Out on the clean white sand was a monster. Inanimate now, but monstrous. And, yes, beautiful. It looked like a serpent, that long, glittering strand, like a serpent made from gems and light. But it was glass, not jewels, thrusting up from the sand. Thousands of shards of colored glass made up that long, undulating shape. Big ones, little ones, glass in every color of the rainbow.
Sharp, sharp glass.
From here on the boardwalk, Kai could see two large red splotches on the sand. There were more, she knew, but she couldn’
t see the others, perhaps because of all the thought bubbles—hundreds of them, it seemed, remnants of horror ripped from the minds of those who’d been here.
“You see any of that intention stuff?” Ackleford asked.
“I can’t tell from here. There’re a lot of remnants to sort through.” She didn’t dare dial her Gift down as much as usual. Someone had tried to kill her once today. People who claimed they were connected to this chaos event insisted that she be brought here to talk to them. It didn’t take a genius to wonder if the idea was to give the shooter another chance. Her Gift might give her a bit of warning. Not that there was a pattern for, “I am about to kill you,” but she could watch for compulsions.
Something tugged at her consciousness. She turned, frowning.
They’d followed Ackleford here, parking the big Lincoln and the guards’ Toyota amid all the official cars. Their eventual goal was the main lifeguard tower farther down the beach, but Kai and Arjenie had wanted to see the scene first. To reach the boardwalk they’d passed through a parking lot crowded with people who’d been present or nearby when the chaos event hit. They’d drawn some stares. Doug was still a wolf.
A whole slew of police officers were on the scene, many of them busy interviewing the witnesses, one-on-one. One of those witnesses suddenly had Kai’s complete attention.
“. . . chased us! I never saw anything like it. Then that piece, that blue piece, it just pushed right up. You can see it, right next to the part that looks like a grape popsicle, only sharp. Phil didn’t have a chance. It was just there, pushing into him, and . . . will he be all right?”
The speaker was young. Sixteen or seventeen. Tanned and fit, he sat hunched over on the low wall that separated the boardwalk from the sand. He was shirtless and barefoot, with khaki shorts of the saggy, baggy sort young men his age were so fond of. Heavy blood spatter decorated one side of the shorts.
“He’s at the ER by now,” the uniformed officer with him said soothingly. She was young, too. Not as young as her witness, but not that much older. Her hair was blond and shiny. “They’ll take care of him. I need your name and address.”