She had to work quickly before her follower intervened. She ducked around the corner and into the shadow of a minaret. Momentarily out of his sight, she snapped the bracelet. This released the magic that had sustained the dead grasses; the sundered bracelet browned and withered even before it hit the ground. The grass puffed out a little cloud of silvery seeds as it crumbled to dust. They drifted to Jordan’s feet, tickling her toes just as her follower turned the corner.
Surprise creased his face. “What the hell?”
For a moment, Jordan feared the spell had failed, and that he was alarmed to find her standing ready to confront him. Her hand went to the scimitar. But then he frowned and sprinted to the end of the alley, the breeze of his passage fluttering the hem of her shawl. She counted sixty seconds after he disappeared around the corner. Then she doubled back. The concealment glamour cloaked her even in bright sunlight, rendering her shadow a gossamer silhouette. She was almost atop the Cairo ley line.
The dowser brought her halfway down the street to a sun-bleached wooden door that had once been painted a mesmerizing azure like the doorways of Mykonos. She knocked. No footsteps echoed through the house; nobody called out. Jordan knocked again, more loudly. Still no answer.
She bit her cheek until the iron tang of blood mingled with the saltiness of the charm beneath her tongue. Then she worked up a good bit of saliva and spat on the lock. Her spittle, foamy pink with blood, sizzled on the escutcheon. The brass filigree corroded. A moment later, there came from inside a metallic clunk suggestive of a brass doorknob hitting the floor. The door swung open at the touch of her fingertip.
Gabe turned the corner into an alley. He’d unfolded the Cairo street map from the breast pocket of his shirt. The accoutrements of a tourist were a flimsy disguise, but better than nothing.
The shopkeeper had vanished as if swallowed by the sun. But halfway down the alley he now saw two men lugging crates from the back of a truck through what appeared to be a service door. Gabe passed them without stopping, too engaged in berating his map to pay them any notice.
One of the men was the Mossad officer from Gaza.
Okay. This is good enough, Gabe told himself. You found them. You can pin this place on a map. And you’ve pushed your luck to within a hairsbreadth of reckless. Time to go back to Cairo Station and share what you’ve learned. Let the people who really know this city do their thing.
He stopped where the alley merged with a crooked lane. And sighed. Why do I never listen to good advice?
He doubled back. The men were gone, but the truck hadn’t moved. The keys were still in the ignition.
Also on that same ring? A key to the service door.
Jordan was grateful for the lingering effects of her enhanced vision. The building had no windows, no skylights—even at midday it was dark as sin. No mere house, this place—it fairly thrummed with the power of the ley line running directly through its foundation. If this were an Ice property, she’d have known about it before now. That pointed to Flame. And the site was well-suited to major works of magic. Her magicked ears twitched at the faint murmur of voices emanating from beneath the floorboards. Of course. Whatever they were doing, they’d want the figurine as close to the power source as possible.
Like her shop, this place had been built over a cavern hewn into the ancient bedrock of an ancient city. The stairs didn’t creak; these, too, had been hewn from the bones of the earth. And worn smooth by countless feet, it seemed, much like the marble outcrops of the Acropolis. Still wrapped in gossamer shadow, she reached the bottom lightly as a cat, then crouched behind a pillar that had probably been supporting the roof of this chamber since Tutankhamen’s grandfather was a newborn.
Half a dozen men and women milled about a long, low wooden table in the mustard-yellow lamplight of the chamber, clearly waiting for something. Each corner of the table sported a shackle on about a foot of chain. On an adjoining plinth sat the clay figurine stolen from Jordan’s shop. A pick poised to strum the ley line.
The ages of the assembled Flame sorcerers ranged from mid-thirties to just shy of crumbling dotage. Jordan didn’t recognize any of them, but she could speculate about the oldest person in the room. His age and accent clued her in: Terzian, an Armenian who’d been a noteworthy Flame acolyte decades ago. She’d heard of him over the years—every Ice sorcerer in this part of the world had heard the terrible stories—though few claimed to have ever seen him. Ice considered him a unicorn.
He spoke now to a woman perhaps twenty years Jordan’s junior, in a voice like the creak of a sepulchre door. But the ley line had Jordan’s enhanced senses crackling.
“I envy you, girl.”
The woman closed her eyes and dipped her head low, a gesture of humble thanks. “I’m honored, sir. But this should be your moment. You’ve worked toward this for so long . . .” She trailed off, the unspoken conclusion hanging in the air between them.
“Too long. The decades weigh too heavily. I wouldn’t survive the procedure.”
Procedure?
That was the end of their conversation, for then two men descended the stairs, each carrying a chest. Jordan held her breath, but the newcomers walked past her hiding spot without twigging to her presence. When they joined the circle around the table, she recognized the pushy “scholar” who’d been visiting her shop.
“Just got off the telephone with Rome and Peking,” he announced. “They’re in position.”
This catalyzed the group into action. Terzian went around with a knife and a cup, collecting blood from all the acolytes. The new arrivals opened the chests and distributed charms to the assembly. The accumulated power of the objects, exponentiated by the ley line, imbued the chamber with an almost unbearable physical pressure. The woman to whom Terzian had spoken lay upon the table. Two others snapped the shackles around her wrists and ankles, while another gently placed a leather bit in her mouth. She worked it around a bit, then gave him a sharp nod.
Jordan had never heard of any ritual like this. Something the upper echelons of Flame had been pursuing for decades. That wasn’t promising. The figurine was apparently the lynchpin of the operation. She gauged the distance from her hiding spot to the plinth. Could she sprint across the room and smash the clay before they tackled her? Proximity to the ley line had turned her simple concealment spell into a cloak of shadow darker than the finest sable—
The chanting began the moment the subject was settled on the table. The syllables of a nameless language reverberated through the stone chamber, strumming the ley line and assaulting Jordan’s enhanced senses like knitting needles jammed into her eardrums. Now was her chance, while they wove the basis of their spell, before the intended effect took place. But eavesdropping on the chant was like peering through a thick fog—it afforded glimpses of something hidden, a sense of the sorcerers’ intent.
No, that can’t be right. That’s not possible. Surely even Flame isn’t this reckless?
She prepared to hurl herself across the room. She crouched, pulling into herself as though her entire body were a spring. She visualized the choreography, the last actions she’d ever take. Leap out of hiding, shove him aside, vault that table, grab the figurine and hurl it to the ground . . . She could do it, though she would have felt more confident had she been fifteen years younger. She made her peace, drew a calming breath, and counted. One. Two—
From behind her came new footsteps and a sharp inhalation. The man who’d followed her from the Haret El-Yahud—he might have been an American—sidled down the stairs. Jordan tensed. But the look on his face made it clear he wasn’t a part of this. And the scent of his sweat told her he didn’t understand what he saw. It frightened him.
It scared Jordan, too, because she did understand what was happening. Even if she couldn’t quite believe it.
The chanting reached a crescendo. The magical call and response lured something unfathomably ancient from the bones of the earth. The lamps flickered in a nonexistent breeze. The universe convulsed.
Something entered the chamber.
Terzian lifted the clay figurine in his left hand. A hollow figurine, Jordan remembered. She’d never put any significance upon that, until now. His other hand held the knife. He raised his arms, brandishing both over the woman on the table. Jordan had the gist of it—the ceremony was akin to a magical blood transfusion. But the clueless American didn’t understand.
“Holy shit,” he blurted.
Part of Gabe wondered how his report would go over with the station chief when he got to the part about cultists and human sacrifice. At the very least he was looking at a six-month psych eval. The rest of him knew the worry was moot because his chances of getting out of this room had just taken a torpedo below the waterline. They’d heard him. And, as one, they turned to stare at him. Even the poor woman on the table, the whites visible in her terror-widened eyes.
“Kill him,” said a man who looked old enough to be dirt’s older brother.
Jordan knew a second chance when she saw one. She leapt from her hiding spot, elbowing a Flame sorcerer in the neck as she strove to cross the chamber. It was like trying to dive into molasses. The summoned entity carried massive metaphysical heft, which pushed against Jordan’s concealment spell like a magical headwind. She vaulted the table—“Oof,” said the woman chained there—swung her legs up, and kicked.
Just as Gabe turned to run, a shadow streaked across the room. But this shadow was a physical thing, and it lashed out at the earthen doll in the old man’s hand.
The heel of Jordan’s boot connected with Terzian’s outstretched hand. The clay shattered.
The old man opened his mouth to rage, but the destruction of the spell’s focus released the accumulated magical potential in an instant. To Jordan, it was as though she’d bitten a live wire. Her concealment spell shattered. But to the Flame acolytes blood-bound into the magical weavings, it was a metaphysical hand grenade. They collapsed, a roomful of marionettes with broken strings. The chamber reverberated like an overstretched drumhead, crackling with a vast store of dangerously unconfined magical potential.
I’m going insane. One moment there was a roomful of cultists getting ready to murder him, the next moment they were sprawled on the ground moaning, while the woman from the shop appeared out of nowhere. The intended victim was out cold.
Three things happened at once. Jordan turned to grab the interloper and flee. But the idiot American stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs, apparently intent on freeing the shackled woman. And the inhuman entity became an intangible maelstrom as it ricocheted through the chamber, seeking a host it could no longer perceive. So it tried to wedge itself into the nearest healthy body.
The American arched his back and screamed.
Jordan caught him before he cracked his head on the floor. She was tempted to leave him there. She couldn’t afford deadweight—by tomorrow morning, every Flame acolyte within two hundred miles would be searching for her. But she knew they’d torture the foolish American, running enchanted flensing knives through his soul until there was nothing left of him but a drooling, quivering heap, all because of her careless mistake.
Jordan lugged him up the stairs. He improved, slightly, with distance from the ley line. She dragged a yammering madman into the sunny alleyways of Cairo.
3.
Žižkov District, Prague
February 8, 1970
Gabe convulsed. The golem’s touch turned the crackle in his head into a full-blown electrical storm. The taste of metal filled his mouth, the smell of ozone filled his nose. The seizures made it impossible to speak. It was as though the golem and the hitchhiker were opposite magnetic poles desperate for fusion, and their only obstacle was Gabe. Something invisible wormed deeper into his mind, en route to the golem.
His scream filled the graveyard. The police shouted to each other, blew whistles. Flashlights approached.
Jordan took his free arm and pulled. But she might as well have been a newborn kitten trying to nudge a boulder.
Words filled Gabe’s head. Words from a language he didn’t understand, but which he somehow knew was older than his species. Alien language spilled from his mouth. Meaning, comprehension, discretion—none of it mattered. Only giving voice to ancient truths. He became their vessel. His lips, tongue, teeth, throat, and lungs worked of their own accord. The words couldn’t be whispered; they had to be yelled. They left an ashen taste in their wake.
Jordan wound back and slapped him across the face hard enough to snap his head aside. It should have hurt, but all he could feel was razor-edged syllables shredding his vocal cords. He spoke a curse and tasted blood.
“Shut up,” she hissed, “and help me free you.”
He tried to say, “I’m trying,” but all that came out was “G-g-glarghgghghunngg.”
The crunch of footsteps on gravel approached from the fog. Jordan released him and scrambled from the hole. She crouched behind a grave marker and hefted the shovel like a baseball bat. She wound up like Babe Ruth.
Alestair emerged from the swirling fog. The steel ferrule of his umbrella clicked lightly on the gravel as he paused to survey the situation. He tipped his hat to Jordan.
“Miss Rhemes. A pleasure, as always.”
He crouched at the grave’s edge. The shouts and whistles drew nearer, as did the flashlight beams lighting up the fog. Alestair looked at Gabe, then to the inhuman hand holding him fast. He clucked his tongue.
“Oh, my dear boy. I must say, you are terribly predictable.”
Gabe replied, “BWLEGH PLYXCH JTCLPHVISK!”
Alestair cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed.” From the breast pocket of his suit he produced a flask.
As he uncapped it, Jordan said, “Oh, come on. This really isn’t the time—”
But instead of taking a swig, Alestair splashed the contents over the clay hand clamped around Gabe’s wrist. The fingers snapped open; Gabe tumbled backward. The thing in his head still vibrated like a bone saw poised to split his skull, but at least his thoughts were his own again.
“What the hell was that? Holy water?”
“There’s no need for blasphemy, Gabriel. Merely a dash of water from the Vltava.” He recapped the flask and tucked it back in his pocket. “I fear it’s unlikely to slow our friend here for more than a few moments.”
Already the clay fingers were wiggling. There came a scraping and crunching, too, as if the hand’s owner was clawing free of its grave. Together, Jordan and Alestair hauled Gabe from the hole.
“Well, then. Ms. Rhemes, Mr. Pritchard.” Alestair gestured with his umbrella, away from the flashlights and shouts that were moments from converging upon them. “This way, if you please. I advise haste.”
• • •
Tanya sighed when her apartment building hove into view. Or she would have, if not for the shivers racking her body. It had been a long, miserable walk from the river. Her boots squelched; she left a trail of muddy footsteps and silvery exhalations in her wake.
It was cold in the river. Very, very cold.
She lingered at a corner to let a boisterous trio of students stumble past. Better to let them go ahead; she probably looked like a river witch, complete with mud in her hair. Two women and a man crossed the street, his arms over their shoulders. One of the women happened to glance in Tanya’s direction as they passed. She was so young.
Oh, Andula. What have I done to you? Tanya started hyperventilating. What did Ice do to you? What have they done to me? What lies have I served?
She waited for the students to sway around a corner and out of sight before she walked the last few yards to her building. First, she would peel off her sodden clothing and bundle herself in every blanket she owned. And then she’d pour herself a drink. And maybe a second. And then she and Grandfather would have a very direct conversation. If necessary, she’d stay up all night interrogating the construct.
She trudged up the stairs. Staving off death from hypothermia had drained every charm on her person. And that had been a narrow th
ing. Back home in Volgograd, she’d seen men and women who spent every day in various levels of stupor, forever trying to forget the Battle of Stalingrad. And she’d seen what happened when somebody so deep in the bottle was deprived of alcohol. Tanya’s hands shook like that now as she fought to get her key into the lock.
She managed eventually, but only after a conspicuous amount of jangling, and not before spiderwebbing the escutcheon with new scratches. Once inside, she threw the locks and slumped against the padded door. Her frostbitten heart beat so hard, the pulse of blood in her ears boomed like a kettledrum. She stood there for a long moment, catching her breath, before engaging in the battle to remove her boots. Those she let fall where they might. Exhausted, horrified, and chilled to the marrow, she shuffled to her bedroom trailing articles of sodden clothing.
It wasn’t until she had dragged the covers from the bed and wrapped herself like a Bedouin when she realized that despite the late hour she hadn’t needed to turn on any lights. Not in the hallway, not in her bedroom. She hadn’t left them on when she left, had she? That was the kind of wasteful excess one expected from children and Westerners. Tanya tiptoed out of her tiny bedroom and peeked around the corner to the other branch of the hallway.
Lights blazed in every room of her apartment. In the water closet. In the bathroom. And, at the end of the hallway, the kitchen . . . whence came a faint, high-pitched warble and hiss, as of somebody tuning a radio.
Oh, no.
The warbly static from the kitchen crystallized into her grandfather’s voice, as if the person turning the construct’s dials had thrown a net into the aether and pulled his soul down to earth like a wounded bird.
“What matters should we discuss?” said the construct.
The intruder’s chuckle was terribly familiar.
The Witch Who Came in From the Cold - Season One Volume One Page 18