I shot my free arm out. My shoulder shrieked again when I caught Daniel, preventing him from hitting the ground below.
Daniel and I swung like a pendulum. Panting, I held on to both Daniel and the outcropping for dear life.
I looked around. I clutched a stone on the edge of a roof. We had obviously fallen out of the sky, hit this sloped roof, then tumbled off it. I had barely stopped us from slamming into a sidewalk nearly two stories below us.
I’m guessing this is not where you wanted to wind up, the cloak said. I give you a five out of ten for execution. I deducted three points for showing up at the wrong place, and another two points for not sticking the landing. Now that we seemed out of danger and he wasn’t screaming like a little girl in my head, the cloak sounded like he was having the time of his life. All in all, not a bad first effort. I’ll admit you had me worried for a second or two there. It could’ve gone worse.
The mortar under the stone I clutched suddenly shifted and crumbled. The stone fell away from the roof. Daniel and I tumbled again.
We bounced off an awning. Daniel hit the sidewalk first. I fell on top of him with the Cloak of Wisdom flipped over my head. The cloak covered both of us like a shroud.
Daniel groaned in pain under me. Falling on Daniel didn’t hurt as badly as hitting the concrete sidewalk directly would have, but it didn’t feel great either. I felt bad about landing on Daniel. I also kinda didn’t. This was all his fault.
Ow! the cloak complained, as if the fall had hurt him too. “It could’ve gone worse,” I foolishly said. Me and my big mouth. I should know better than to tempt Fate. She’s probably still pissed about what I said about her centuries ago. She has the memory of an elephant.
I rolled off of Daniel. I sat up. Everything ached. I felt like an old woman. If this was what being an elderly woman was like, I didn’t want to become one. Then again, the way things had been going, something would kill me soon and I wouldn’t have to worry about growing old and decrepit. Every dark cloud had a silver lining.
I tugged the cloak from around my face. A bright yellow light shined in my eyes. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust.
We were on the sidewalk in front of a building painted a garish yellow, red, and white. I knew this place all too well. It was the iconic Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street, about a thirty-minute walk from my apartment. Ben’s was famous for its chili dogs and chili half-smokes. A half-smoke was a half-beef, half-pork, all-delicious smoked sausage popular in the District and the surrounding area. I had eaten at Ben’s many times and had a few dimples on my thighs to show for it.
Obviously, thinking about chili dogs when I’d been trying to open a portal to my apartment had been a mistake.
Though it was the wee hours of the morning, Ben’s was still open. A racially mixed group of men stood on the sidewalk near us with hot dogs and sodas in their hands. They stared at me and Daniel with open-mouthed surprise. They must have never seen a sorceress, an angel, and a haunted cloak fall out of the sky before. If they started hanging out with me, stuff like this would soon be old hat to them.
Eyes roved over me, taking in my all-black outfit, mask, and red cloak that looked like a Hero’s cape.
“Yo lady,” one of the men said. “You some kind of superhero?”
She most definitely is not, the cloak said firmly in my head.
CHAPTER 16
“Why in the world didn’t you tell me the Cloak of Wisdom was inhabited by a horny, adolescent, smart-mouthed ghost?” I demanded of Daniel angrily.
Unfazed by my anger, Daniel puffed placidly on a cigar. He leaned on the large sweetgum tree in the small backyard of the Leverettes’ house. The Ark fragment rested against the base of the tree.
It was mid-morning, just hours after we had escaped the art gallery. Birds chirped and fluttered in the branches above us. They seemed carefree. For them, it was just another day. Unlike me, they must’ve had the good sense to not get involved in a bunch of shenanigans.
It was hot, even in the shade of the tree. The sticky heat exacerbated the aches and pains I suffered in the wake of stealing the cloak. I had changed into shorts and a t-shirt. My arms and legs were bruised from last night’s craziness. I looked like a battered spouse.
The Cloak of Wisdom was inside my apartment, draped over the back of my couch. I had been tempted to stuff the mouthy thing into the garbage instead.
Daniel blew a smoke ring. He watched it expand as it wafted heavenward, perhaps thinking he would be joining it soon. Daniel responded, “I believe he was eighteen when his spirit was bound to the cloak. He was an adult, not an adolescent.”
“Don’t bandy words with me. That is not the point, and you know it. The point is you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. I just failed to disclose certain facts.”
“You’re as slippery as a politician. You should run for Congress.”
“I already did. I served in the Second Continental Congress for almost a year after the Declaration of Independence.” Daniel shook his head at the memory, then winced in pain at the movement. He was even more banged up than I was. He had a big bruise on the side of his face that looked like a giant inkblot. “Politics wasn’t to my liking. Too much talking, not enough doing. Much like now. Shouldn’t you be inside, working with the cloak to figure out how to find the Spear of Destiny? For all we know, Millennium is closing in on the Relic as we speak.”
“If the Spear’s been hidden all these years, it can stay hidden a few minutes longer. I’m still waiting to hear why you didn’t tell me everything you knew about the cloak.”
“If I had told you, would you have put it on?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
Daniel shrugged, and winced again. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
I stepped closer and got in Daniel’s face. “You listen to me, and you listen good. When I’m in the field, what I don’t know could get me killed. I need to know everything you know if we’re going to continue to work together. It’s too dangerous otherwise.”
“If memory serves, it was you flying off the handle and smashing the case which activated the golems, not me not gossiping like a school girl about the cloak.”
He certainly had me there, but I was in no mood to admit it. “I’m not going to tell you again: No more lying or not disclosing information.” I poked Daniel in the chest with each word for emphasis. I took sadistic pleasure from the fact he winced as I did so.
Daniel brushed my hand away. He looked irritated. “There’s far more at stake here than the fact your tender feelings are hurt because I withheld information and because the Cloak of Wisdom did not speak nicely to you. Stop being childish. The end goal here is to find and secure the Spear of Destiny before Millennium does. The Cloak of Wisdom can help us do that. It’s already proved its utility by helping us escape from the golems.” He jiggled the coins in his pocket. “The divine compulsion for me to move on is getting stronger. I’ll have to leave the city soon. Who knows when I’ll be able to return? Millennium will have the Spear long before then. So how about you stop wasting time, go inside, play nice with our new friend, and use him to figure out how to get the Spear? I’m paying for results, not your griping.”
I wanted to slam Daniel’s head against the tree so badly, it was almost a physical ache. “No more lies or omissions,” I insisted. “Promise me right now, or so help me, I’ll quit. You can find your precious Spear all by your lonesome. I don’t need your money that badly.” I did need it that badly, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Very well. No more omissions. Everything I know, you’ll know. You have my word.” He grinned, then made a motion on his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I felt like I was being mocked. The indulgent smile on Daniel’s face was more than just a little patronizing. I yearned to wipe it away with a tree branch.
“When this is all over, you and I are going to have a long talk,” I vowed. “And there's not going to be a lot of talking.”
<
br /> Still smiling, Daniel blew another smoke ring. The threat did not seem to concern him. "Looking forward to it."
Unsatisfied with the exchange but not wanting to beat a dead horse, I turned away from Daniel and started back toward my apartment. If Daniel was an angel, angels were more disappointing in reality than they were in theory. Then again, who wasn’t more disappointing in reality than in theory? My father was the only person who had never disappointed me.
On the way to the stairs to my apartment door, I noticed movement between the slightly cracked curtains on one of the Leverettes’ second-floor windows. Since Mr. Leverette still worked part-time and therefore wasn’t home, I guessed it was Mrs. Leverette, spying on me. Using Daniel’s retainer to get up to date on my rent clearly had not also bought me privacy. Mrs. Leverette likely thought she was watching me and Daniel post-booty call. With all the bruises on our bodies, she probably thought we were real freaks. We were, just not the kind of freaks she thought.
I waved and blew a kiss at the window. The curtains flicked closed. The real-life soap opera is over, I thought to Mrs. Leverette. Go back to watching your TV ones.
Correction: The soap opera was over for Mrs. Leverette. Not for me.
I went into my apartment. I was vaguely disappointed the Cloak of Wisdom was still on my couch, right where I had left it. Nobody had broken in and stolen it. People broke into my place when I didn’t want them to, and they didn’t break in when I did want them to. Perverse.
I sighed in resignation. I didn’t want a snarky and condescending voice in my head again, but I did want to hurry up and find the Spear of Destiny so I could pay off the wererats and get back to a normal life. Well, as normal as my life ever really got.
Feeling like a superhero cosplayer getting ready for Comic-Con, I draped the cloak over my shoulders, closed the eagle clasp, and cast the spell to activate it.
Oh, it’s you again, were the first words out of the cloak’s invisible mouth. The tone was that of someone who had slammed his front door on Jehovah’s Witnesses, only to open it again to find them still there. Where are we? This place is a dump.
It was going to be a long day.
“This is my apartment in Washington, D.C.,” I said, keeping my voice calm and level. I was not going to be baited into arguing with a piece of clothing again.
You should hire a maid, the cloak sniffed. Better yet, a team of maids. Or rent a flamethrower and start over from scratch.
I bit back a caustic response. I was going to be the adult in the room if it killed me. It might since I wasn’t used to it.
“I feel as though we got off to the wrong foot before,” I said diplomatically, in disbelief I was sucking up to an article of clothing. Next, I’d be assuring my panties I loved them just the way they were and that they were so much prettier than their Size Small cousins. “I’m sorry about that. It was my fault. Let’s start from scratch. First, thank you for your help in us getting away from the golems. My name is Sage Hawthorne. What’s yours?”
The cloak hesitated for a beat, then said dramatically, You may call me The Caped Crusader. I got a vivid mental image of the cloak standing on top of a skyscraper with the wind rustling the folds of its fabric, somehow managing to look heroic as the sun’s rays glinted off it.
I swallowed a snort. “I’m not calling you The Caped Crusader. What’s your name? Your real name.”
You’re the biggest wet blanket I’ve ever met. And that’s saying something because I’ve been around for a while. His voice was surly. Fine, have it your way. My name is Puck. Like the sprite in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That character is named after me, you know. Will never did give me a penny of the royalties the way he promised he would. Writers can’t be trusted. They’re almost as bad as lawyers.
“You're some kind of sprite?”
Of course not. He sounded offended. I’m a spirit imprinted on a cloak. Do I look like a fucking sprite?
“No cursing.”
Why?
“Why?” My patience was slipping. “Because I said so, that's why. You’re in my head, not the other way around. I make the rules.”
You can take your “I said so”s, fold them up until they're all sharp corners, and shove them up your prissy ass. You're not the boss of me. I don't take orders from somebody who can't even cast a simple portal spell without her hand being held.
My resolve to be the bigger person crumbled. My fingers fumbled at the clasp around my neck. “I don’t have to put up with this. I tried being nice to you, and this is the thanks I get. Goodbye, and good riddance.” I’d just have to find the Spear of Destiny without this smart aleck’s help.
Wait! Hold on. Don’t take me off. I’ll be good, I promise.
The fear and panic in Puck’s voice made me hesitate, staying my hands. “Why? What happens when I take you off?”
When I’m not bonded to anyone, it’s like I’m in a dark, cold room. Like solitary confinement, but worse. No light, no sound, no anything. It’s been years since anyone’s worn me, and I think I’ll go crazy if I have to go back there. Please don’t make me. He sounded like a little kid now, both scared and powerless. Maybe I was the world’s softest touch, but I felt sorry for him.
“All right, I won’t take you off right now. But if you’re going to be in my head, we both must make an effort to get along. The first step is no cursing. I don’t want that kind of language in my head. How does that work anyway, you being in my head? Can you read my mind?”
Nah, it doesn’t work like that. When you cast the spell that bonded us for the first time, I downloaded a bunch of information from the Wernicke and Broca areas of your brain—cultural references you understand, colloquialisms, that sort of thing—so you and I can communicate effectively. The fact I can project images into your mind helps with that. But it’s not like I have access to your thoughts or memories or anything like that. The same thing happened with my last host, Ichiro. I couldn’t speak a lick of Japanese until I bonded with him for the first time.
“The Wernicke and Broca areas of my brain,” I repeated slowly, stumbling over the unfamiliar terms. “I don’t know what those are.”
Oh wow, someone who doesn’t know how to open a portal and who lives in a sty a pig would be ashamed of isn’t an expert on brain anatomy? Imagine my surprise.
“Sarcasm? I thought we were going to be nicer to one another.”
You’re right. My bad. It’s hard for me to communicate with lesser minds without sounding condescending. I’m a genius, you know. He didn’t say it boastfully. It was more like him saying “The sun is hot.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was stating a fact that should be obvious to everyone. Not only is my IQ off the charts, but I have an eidetic and photographic memory. Even at the tender age of eighteen, when my consciousness became bonded to this cloak, I was the most gifted magician of my generation. Over the centuries I’ve bonded with dozens of magicians of various disciplines. Since they wore me to help them create and cast spells and do magical research, thanks to my perfect memory, I know just about everything they knew. I’m the closest thing the magical world has to a Library of Alexandria.
I didn’t know what the Library of Alexandria was either, but not wanting to be ignorance-shamed again, I kept my lack of knowledge to myself. “How did your spirit get bound to the cloak?”
It’s a long story, Puck said in a tone that made it clear he was not interested in telling it. He changed the subject. While you’re wearing me, I hear what you hear, see what you see, feel what you feel. He hesitated. Speaking of feeling things, are you by any chance a lesbian? His voice was hopeful.
"No."
A shame. I wouldn’t mind having a front row seat to some girl-on-girl action. Bi?
"No."
Bi-curious?
"No. And even if I were, I wouldn't satisfy any such curiosity while wearing a cloak.”
Ooooh, I’m intrigued. What would you be wearing instead? Speak slowly, and don’t leave out any d
etails.
“Um, no.” I shook my head. If someone had told me two weeks ago I’d be discussing my sexuality with an article of clothing that had the brainpower of a mystical supercomputer and the maturity of a horny 16-year-old boy, I would have said a meteor must’ve hit them in the head. “Daniel and I didn’t take you out of the Sackler Gallery to discuss the intimate details of my life.”
And by “take,” you mean steal. Not that I’m complaining. Even though this is a dump—no offense—it’s still light-years better than being draped over some dumb mannequin’s shoulders and trying to stave off going crazy by replaying past experiences repeatedly in my mind. Puck chortled. The Conclave’s Magic Suppression Division must be tearing its hair out trying to explain away camera footage of a bunch of statues coming to life.
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly more uncomfortable than I already was at the mention of the Conclave. The faster I found the Spear of Destiny, the faster I could do something about the Conclave investigation into my First Rule violation. Well, the violation they knew about. Thank God I’d been smart enough to wear a mask to the Sackler Gallery.
I told Puck about our quest to locate the Spear of Destiny before Millennium did. And, since presumably Puck would not be bonding with anyone else anytime soon, I went ahead and completely spilled the beans about the madhouse that my life had been lately, starting with the gargoyle attack at the Institute of Peace and everything that followed thereafter. I figured the more he knew, the more he could help me.
It was the first time I had told anyone everything that had happened to me lately. Honestly, I found getting it all off my chest was a bit of a relief. Maybe that old cliché was true. Maybe a problem shared really was a problem halved.
Puck whistled when I finished my tale of woe. Well, you’ve been quite the busy beaver. He giggled lewdly, tickled about the vulgar double-meaning of the word. I’m not gonna lie—part of the reason you’re in this mess is you’ve got some deep-seated anger and impulse issues that need to be addressed.
“I don’t have anger and impulse issues,” I protested. It was one thing for me to sometimes think I did; it was quite another for an uppity cloak to tell me I did.
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