by Eileen Wilks
“Shit,” she said, feeling sick. And turned to look at the four pretty, healthy young people as a terrible thought bloomed. “Put away your guns,” she said urgently. “If Dyffaya decides he doesn’t need those people anymore, or that they’re a liability—”
“Suicide by cop,” Ackleford said. “Got it. Sergeant, tell your men to holster ’em.”
“I was ordered—”
“And I’m changing that order.”
* * *
DYFFAYA left again. As gone as he ever was, that is. He said he was off to, “get the rest of the audience.”
Nathan felt cold. He didn’t see a way out of this. That tiny chink he’d spotted—thought he’d spotted—in Dyffaya’s armor gave him nothing that helped with this. He had Claw. He could stab the ground with it. The ground was godhead, like everything else here. But all Dyffaya had to do was pull his consciousness away from the area Nathan stabbed and the death Claw sowed wouldn’t touch him. Nathan still needed that third element. He needed a chance at one of those bodies Dyffaya wore, which concentrated more of the god in one spot.
Dyffaya, damn him, knew that. Nathan rubbed his face with both hands as if he could scrub a solution into his head.
“I could’ve sworn he meant to keep you, Nathan,” Cullen said. “He wants company, even if you are an enemy. Long-lived company.”
Nathan dropped his hands and grimaced. “I’m the stakes, I think. The risk of losing me will make the game interesting to him.” Dyffaya would consider it a small risk. That was, in part, the usual elfin arrogance that aggravated Kai so much. Nathan was no elf, but he was sidhe. Dyffaya wouldn’t believe a lupus could kill him.
Arrogant or not, Dyffaya was right . . . if Nathan fought to kill. Benedict was the best fighter he’d ever sparred with, save for that old elf. But if Nathan fought to kill, he would. His Gift was the same now as it had been when he was four-footed, the same Gift every hellhound possessed. And it was a singular Gift, in spite of what Cullen’s Sight suggested, though it encompassed a range of skills.
The Gift of killing.
“Do it now,” Benedict said.
“What?” Nathan looked up, startled.
Benedict’s face was stony. “Do it now, not as part of his damn game. If he doesn’t get his game, there’s no loser. No one dies but me.”
He meant it. “No.”
Benedict’s lip lifted in a snarl. “You’re the one with a chance of stopping him, not me. If I win—and I’ll fight to win if it comes down to that—it won’t be the end. He can just keep using Arjenie to make me do what he wants. There’s no end to her risk that way. If I’m dead before the game starts, Arjenie’s out of danger.”
Benedict’s conclusion was logical. Beautifully brave. And wrong. “Benedict, you just saw him kill four people to make a point. What makes you think he won’t kill Arjenie out of spite if you deprive him of his game?”
Benedict’s expression didn’t change—but he spun and slammed his fist into the back of the recliner. It toppled over. “I need to kill that bastard.” His voice was tight, throbbing with fury. “I need to Change. And I can’t do either one.”
Benedict was right. If Nathan won and Kai was allowed to live, it would be the most temporary of reprieves. Dyffaya had every intention of using her against Nathan. Unless . . .
“Your face says you thought of something,” Cullen said. “What?”
“Hold on. Let me think a moment.” He did that, considering the wording, looking for some angle he might be missing. It was far from perfect, but . . . “We have to refuse to fight unless he promises not to harm or kill or allow his people to harm or kill Kai and Arjenie before or during our fights, and not to kill the winner’s lady after.”
Benedict gave him a hard look. “He needs to swear not to kill them at all.”
“We can’t get that. He’s bound himself to kill the loser’s lady.”
“Bound himself?” Cullen’s eyebrows lifted. “What does that mean?”
“You must have noticed the way his power filled the godhead when he announced the bouts. The Queens and a few of the great sidhe lords can do that, binding themselves by drawing on their full power when they speak. Dyffaya literally can’t break his word when it’s given in such a way. His own power will stop him.”
“Why would he bind himself?”
Nathan grimaced. “I suspect he’s making the bouts more interesting by ensuring he can’t tinker with the outcome.”
“You think you can get him to agree,” Cullen said.
“It won’t be easy, but yes, I do. We have one advantage. He’s bored.”
Benedict’s eyebrows expressed his opinion of that as a bargaining chip.
“No, Nathan’s right about that,” Cullen said as if Benedict had spoken out loud. “Elves will do the damnedest things if they’re sufficiently bored. Remember that sidhe lord I met who’d gone walkabout? He gave up his land-tie to travel here even though Earth was still interdicted at the time. He did it out of sheer boredom.”
Nathan nodded. “Some of the older ones are like that. Not all, but for some, a malaise sets in. Still, Dyffaya won’t give in easily. He’ll try to get us to back down, and his methods of persuasion are apt to be rough. We can expect him to hurt us. He can’t use body magic on us, or anything we agree to is null and void. Technically, he can’t use torture, either, but there are ways around that which I can explain later. He can also threaten others. Can you watch him send assassin’s fire onto some poor innocent on Earth without giving in?”
Benedict’s voice was flat. “I don’t give my word unless I know I can keep it. I need to think. I won’t go far.” Abruptly he launched into a run.
“He thinks better when he’s moving,” Cullen explained.
The land here at the top of the cliff was fairly flat, sloping down gradually until it met the forest of impossibly tall black trees. Nathan watched Benedict lope toward the distant trees. “We need to have this settled before Dyffaya returns, and we don’t know when that will be.”
“Benedict knows that. He said he wouldn’t go far. I’ve been thinking about what Dyffaya said while his power was flooding everything . . . and what he said after he’d pulled it back.”
Cullen had spotted that, had he? Nathan gave him a quick, sharp nod. “It makes some difference because he isn’t bound by the latter terms. That doesn’t mean he won’t abide by them.”
“True. Still, it’s something to keep in mind.”
Which part, Nathan wondered, was Cullen keeping in mind? The part where Dyffaya said that Cullen wasn’t to help Benedict? Or the part where he said that both women would die if neither Nathan nor Benedict killed the other? “I’m wondering what it looked like to you when Dyffaya drew on his full power.”
“Lavender. Blinding, blazingly lavender.”
“Is his power always lavender, then? What did it look like when he threw assassin’s fire?”
“The same color, not as bright.”
“You saw that in the display?”
Cullen glanced at him, frowning. “Yes.”
“Ah.” Briefly he considered not drawing Cullen’s attention to that small chink he’d spotted in the god’s armor, in case the sorcerer was minded to try using it to help Benedict. But only briefly. He continued carefully, mindful of the possibility the god was listening. “I’ve reason to believe that Dyffaya didn’t see what you did in the display.”
Cullen’s gaze turned questioning, then sharp. Nathan could almost see the gears turning in that keen mind. “Ah,” he said—and idly rubbed his wrist. His left wrist. Kai wore the amulet on her left wrist. “They do say no two people see exactly the same thing. A god might see something quite different than I do when I look at the color lavender.”
“I imagine he does.” Nathan paused just long enough to emphasize that. “Especially in the display. The first time he
showed it to me, he had to adjust something for it to work for my kind of sight. It makes me wonder about his vision. Does whatever body he’s using give him the same kind of vision I have?” Vision like Nathan’s would be keen . . . and lack the Sight.
Cullen’s smile was tight and feral. He was following Nathan’s meaning nicely—and leaping ahead. “His vision should be very much like yours, even though the bodies he uses aren’t made of the same stuff.”
“You think so?” Could Dyffaya have lost the Sight when he died? It was a wild notion. Why would a god lose his Sight just because he lost his body? There were disembodied beings who possessed the Sight. “Of course, some beings don’t need bodies to see.”
“So I’ve heard. It would be interesting to find out how Dyffaya’s vision differs when he’s using a body compared to when he’s disembodied.”
Was Cullen suggesting that Dyffaya only lacked the Sight when he was using a body? “I’m not sure how we could find out.”
“Ah, well. It’s hardly the most pressing question before us.”
By which, Nathan assumed, he meant the opposite. “I have to agree.” He paused. “Benedict’s on his way back.”
Neither of them spoke again as they waited. A few moments later, Benedict reached them. He stopped in front of Nathan. He held Nathan’s eyes with his. “I’m in. Do it.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
THEY got the four persons of interest to the police station without anyone dying. Kai’s headache dissipated along the way. She was still low on power, but she had enough to make a start. Untangling the complex weave of beguilement and compulsion gripping the minds of their witnesses was going to be a slow process.
By the time they arrived, however, two more reports of human spontaneous combustion had come in. Possibly three, but one was iffy. An entire car had gone up in flames, and assassin’s fire didn’t work on inanimate things. Kai had suggested the investigators try to determine if the fire started with the driver.
One of the burnings happened just outside the Fowler Building—the place named by the young Hispanic man. That had occurred before Ackleford ordered the building evacuated. The convenience store had been easy to empty of people, and Tuttle Park was small enough that the police in El Cahon had gotten everyone out. There’d been a problem at the airport. The guy in charge had argued about whether Ackleford had the authority to order an evacuation. It was underway now, but would take a while.
None of them had any idea why Dyffaya was burning up random people from the inside out. Of those two assumptions—that the victims were truly random and that Dyffaya was doing it—Kai was sure of the latter. The Bureau and the SDPD would be digging into the former, looking for anything that linked the victims.
The four followers of Dyffaya were mobile, fortunately, as long as someone tugged them along. They’d just been taken off to some kind of detention room when yet another report came in.
Turned out that the Fowler Building had been scheduled for two events, not just a single burning.
“How many?” Ackleford asked his phone. A long pause. “We have to find out if anyone’s missing.” He scowled impartially at everyone—Kai, Arjenie, and the nearby cops who’d been listening every bit as intently as the civilians. “Right. We’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Well?” Kai demanded.
“Spiders,” he said tersely. “Big green spiders the size of a tarantula. They started pouring out of the vents in the Fowler Building along with the air conditioning about twenty minutes ago. Lots of people bitten. They don’t have a firm count, but maybe thirty or forty. No obvious symptoms other than some redness at the bite.”
“All spiders have venom,” Arjenie told him, “but very few have enough to be dangerous to humans.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Dupree, keep a suicide watch on my witnesses.”
Kai frowned. “I thought the Fowler building had been evacuated.”
“They’d started. A lot of people didn’t see much need to hurry. Let’s go.”
“I need to stay here,” Kai said.
“And I need you with me. I don’t know shit about magic or chaos gods or any of this shit.”
“There are two of us experts, you know,” Arjenie said.
“Arjenie,” José said, worried. “I don’t like splitting up.”
“I understand,” Arjenie told him sympathetically. “But the special agent needs someone to advise him, and Kai needs to help those poor people so they can tell us things.”
Kai really hated asking Arjenie to go out there when Kai was the one with the antifire amulet, but Arjenie couldn’t use the amulet. She didn’t see what else to do. “I hope you aren’t an arachnophobe.”
“Oh, no. Did you know that only about a hundred people in this country died from spider bites in the entire twentieth century? That’s a lot less than are killed by pet dogs or bees. Bees kill fifty or more people every year. Spiders are pretty interesting, actually. They—well, you don’t want to hear all that right now. Special Agent, I’ll go with you and do what I can.”
Kai spoke to José. “Leave one man with me, so I’ll have someone I’m sure isn’t linked to the god. Take the rest to guard Arjenie. She’ll be a lot more exposed. Arjenie, you’ll be, uh, hard to spot as much as possible, won’t you?”
“When I can,” Arjenie assured her.
“You do remember who’s in charge, don’t you?” Ackleford said, heavy on the sarcasm.
Kai looked at him. “We need to get the silence lifted from those four. There are so many questions they could answer. How did they hear about the god? Where? Are there more followers? Who’s doing the recruiting or preaching or whatever?”
“How about, why did their asshole god hand them over to us? Because that’s a damned odd thing for him to do. I may not know shit about magic, but I know about perps. I’m wondering if they’ve been booby-trapped somehow.”
“Um. Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ackleford sighed heavily. Ran a hand over the top of his head. “All right. Do what you can with them, but be careful. Come on, Fox—and however many of you feel obliged to tag along,” he added with an irritated glance at José and his men—all of them two-legged again. Doug had Changed on the way here. “Dupree, give Michalski what she needs to deal with my wits, on my authority.”
Dupree was the police officer in charge at this station. Kai could not for the life of her remember his rank. Captain, maybe? He was over fifty, thin, and dark-skinned. Also annoyed. Ackleford had that effect on people. “Within reason,” he said.
Ackleford snorted. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t like me coming in and telling you what to do. Call them your wits if it makes you feel better, but give Michalski what she needs. She’s the only one who can get them to talk—and by that I mean that they won’t speak at all until she does her woo-woo thing. Mindhealing, she calls it. The way it works is, she sees everyone’s thoughts like we were scribbling in the air with colored pens. We’re not writing our thoughts out in English for her to read—she just sees scribbles. But she can . . .”
While Ackleford explained mindhealing to Dupree in his own fashion—it was pretty entertaining, actually—José moved closer to Kai. “I’m leaving Nick with you. Don’t leave the building until we come back for you, okay?”
“I can agree to that, barring a real emergency. Arjenie, you should take some of the charms.” The truth charms wouldn’t do Arjenie any good; her Gift burned them out. But the one that detected poison might be useful, and the fire charm. If you used it with the wind charm, you could spray fire for several feet. The one that detected spells? No, it was tricky to use, and Arjenie didn’t have time to practice invoking and reading it. Quickly Kai explained what was what and how to use them.
“I hope you won’t be offended, Special Agent,” Arjenie was saying as they headed for the big security door, “but I’m going to call Ruben. We need real
Unit agents here. I’m a researcher, not a field agent, which means I know a lot of facts and how to find more, but I don’t . . .” Her voice cut off as the door closed behind them.
Kai looked at Dupree. “Basically, all I need from you is a room where Nick and I can be private with one of the prisoners.”
“Persons of interest,” Dupree corrected her firmly. “Or witnesses. They haven’t been charged with anything. I can have one of them escorted to an interrogation room, but one of my officers will remain with you.”
“By ‘private’ I mean that no one has a line-of-sight on the prisoner or me. Are your interrogation rooms set up for that? The chaos god needs to be able to see someone to light them on fire. It’s unlikely he’s planted a link in any of your people which he could use for that, but not impossible.”
Dupree didn’t say anything for a long moment. “That is a very unsettling stipulation. If the Big A weren’t so sure . . . he’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid. All right.”
* * *
NO one else burned that day. Turned out the god was too busy with other things—at the zoo, the airport, a park in El Cahon, the mall, a convenience store, and the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.
“The Federal Building?” Kai repeated as she clicked her seatbelt into place. “What do you mean, it sealed itself up?”
“All the exits were sealed with this hard gray stuff,” Arjenie said. “Every duct, too. The whole building became airtight. They had to bring out construction equipment to cut their way in.”
“Good Lord. I can’t believe no one told me about that.” It was ten at night, and she and Arjenie were in the armored Town Car once more. José had just picked Kai up—but not from the police station. From the mall. “I was in trance all afternoon, but when I broke for supper you’d think they would have mentioned a chaos event at the IRS.” She’d barely managed to finish eating before the police asked for her help at the mall. Arjenie had still been tied up at the zoo.