The Lightning Conjurer

by Rachel Rener

  Daichi, Hina, and Bo were surveying the bar, looking for survivors. Bullet holes covered the walls. Machine guns and casings littered the floor. The bartender was slumped across the bar counter. A dead waitress was lying beside his feet. No one apart from us moved or breathed.

  And then I saw it: on the far wall, opposite the entrance, a large black star had been spray-painted on the bricks. The same black star Mei showed us at the hotel. The one that was stamped on those signs at the rally. And tattooed on the back of Kaylie’s neck.

  I stood there, my feet stuck to the floor, unable to move. There was a soft gasp to my right. Aspen had pushed her way past me and Frank, holding her hands to her face. She made a choked sound like a sob. Or maybe that was me.

  “This matches the description of the other murders,” Frank muttered. “I’m sorry you both had to see this.”

  “And the attackers?” I asked. My senses were finally coming back. “Where are they?” Would they attack other Elementalists? Or treat us like friends?”

  My eyes stayed on Aspen. She was turning in a small circle, taking in the carnage. Most likely in shock. She’d never seen anything close to this. Not even the night she almost died – after all, she’d been unconscious for the worst parts.

  “Looks like they escaped out the back,” Bo replied. “There’s an exit through the kitchen.”

  “Yua and Haruto just messaged. They’re outside,” Daichi replied. “Bo, Frank, meet them by the exit and see if you can’t pursue on foot. There can’t have been more than four attackers, and one of them is still here.” He pointed to the body beside his foot. He was right. It didn’t have dozens of tattoos like the others. Just one: an angry black star tattooed over his original Asterian sigil, like an eclipse. “Hina, please do a fingerprint sweep so we can run them through the archives.”

  The three of them nodded before leaving. As Daichi used his boot to roll the body on its back, I started to escort Aspen upstairs and away from this nightmare place. A groan stopped me in my tracks.

  The Elemental supremacist wasn’t dead.

  “Oh my God,” Aspen whispered. Doctor-in-training and certified martyr that she was, she actually made a move like she was going to examine him.

  I instinctively held out my arm to block her. “Stay back.”

  Daichi knelt beside the dying man, who had at least three bloody bullet holes across his shirt. “What happened here?” he asked.

  The man on the floor coughed, splattering more blood on himself. “These fuckers started a fight they couldn’t win.”

  “Did they start it or did you?” Daichi replied. He was pressing his hand against the bullet hole on the guy’s chest. Probably trying to give him a few more seconds to talk.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the man spat. “Damn Deficients think they own this town. Without the mafia to get in our way, Asterians will step into power.”

  “Did you and your friends really think it would be that easy?” Daichi asked. Shaking his head, he added, “What’s your name? Who are your accomplices? And where are they now?”

  The man didn’t answer. His eyes had trailed to Aspen, who was standing right beside me now. She was shaking, her face as white as a sheet. Shock.

  “You,” he whispered. “You’re the reason we’re stuck underground, hiding in the shadows like goddamn cowards.”

  Her face crumpled like she might burst into tears.

  “Shut up,” I snapped at the man. “Don’t ever speak to her.”

  He laughed, then coughed up more blood. “Keres could have led us to glory. She could have lifted us up to our rightful place on this planet. Then this little bitch had to ruin everything.”

  I’m not sure what made me do what I did next. Maybe my military training finally kicked back in. Maybe it was a protecting instinct. Most likely it was the straight up idiocy of a man in love. But the second the guy’s arm moved, so did I. As he lifted the bloody Glock off the ground and aimed it at Aspen, I didn’t hesitate. My arm swung backwards as I jumped forward, knocking her to the ground so I could take her place.

  And then the bullet hit me.

  Chapter 13

  hings could have been worse. Yes, I was in a strange village, far from home, with an incompetent trio of half-wits getting in my way every chance they could. And yes, the villagers sitting across from us were very old, very powerful, and very much did not want us there. But we were finally warm and sitting around a huge wood fire on the floor of their quaint little conference lodge or whatever, and I saw that as a win. I just needed to take control of the situation and manage the mission at hand. Because the sooner I won these people over to our side, the sooner I’d be back home, reinstated to my rightful position as Denver’s Head Aggregator, doing what I do best: kicking ass and recruiting kickass Elementalists. Whatever happened next, whoever was voted in as Prime Minister, it made no difference to me. My job would remain the same.

  That thought in particular invigorated me as I shifted uncomfortably on the stiff straw mat that provided absolutely no cushion whatsoever. Whether I was in Denver, Washington D.C., or here in this godforsaken village, all I had to do was my job. And I was damn good at it. Knowing exactly what to say to finally get this meeting kicked off on the right foot, I rubbed my hands together and opened my mouth to speak… just as the Head Villager Guy finally opened his mouth to speak. After making us squirm though ten straight minutes of awkward silence. Clamping my mouth shut yet again, I did my best to hide my scowl by flashing him a suitably deferential smile.

  “Why have you come?” he asked in his thick Japanese accent. Like the other villagers sitting across the floor from us, he wore a simple brown tunic/kimono thing over loose black slacks. His gray hair had been combed back, displaying a sun-weathered and wrinkled face. In fact, everyone sitting on their side of the circle looked very similar. Both the men and women had gray hair, wore basic earth-colored garb, and had deep wrinkles embedded around their eyes and mouths. I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of prolonging your own life was if you didn’t bother sprucing yourself up a bit. But that was a question I could ask them later since Blondie was obviously gearing up to answer. I crossed my arms and gave her a smug look, happy to let her play softball before I came in with the world class pitches.

  She leaned in once more to whisper something to Kumiko, their tacky curtains of green and blue hair converging in the middle. After a moment, Eileen nodded to her accomplice and then started nattering off to the villagers in Japanese.

  Rude. I rolled my eyes. I mean, the guy obviously spoke English so leaving me and Aiden out was totally unnecessary. Regardless, whatever she said didn’t seem to go over very well because his bushy eyebrows became more and more furrowed as she spoke. The rest of the village elders looked none too pleased themselves; the six of them started shifting in their seats and muttering to one another behind their wrinkly hands.

  How the hell did this bottle blonde even come close to breaking my Aggregation numbers last year? Her greatest skill was looking like a stunned doe. I ground my teeth impatiently. Apparently, possessing an iota of modest linguistic talent was the only prerequisite for becoming the self-appointed leader of this mission despite my own extensive repertoire of talent and expertise.

  “Eileen-san, I don’t think that was the proper way to address him,” Kumiko fretted. “I fear you may have offended him.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Eileen whispered.

  While they sorted out their language troubles, I did my best to hold back a snicker. May as well let her flounder a little more so the Wilders would be that much happier when I finally got the chance to speak. More importantly, when Kumiko eventually reported everything back to Prime Minister Mei, she would tell her how badly Blondie messed up and how lucky it was that I was there to rectify her mistakes. I could hear it now: Savannah, you were right all along – Sequestering you was the worst decision we ever made. Would a twenty percent raise convince you to come back?

  Smiling widely, I found mys
elf looking around the room. What I wouldn’t give for a cushioned seat! How these geriatric villagers could sit on wooden floors all day with just a bamboo placemat under their butts was beyond me. It frankly didn’t seem very hospitable to ask the four of us to sit on said splintery floor after hours of trudging through the forest on snowshoes, but whatever. We finally had a fire and hot tea, which was nice enough. Of course, the tea tasted like grass clippings so I didn’t bother drinking it. But the mug felt nice between my freezing cold hands. If only—

  “Savannah,” Aiden hissed.

  “What?” My head whipped in his direction. He was sitting beside me, that gorgeous face of his sullied by his usual glower. I never understood why he couldn’t just chill out and smile more. If he did, he wouldn’t be developing that worry line between his brows prematurely.

  “Stop swiveling your head around and pay attention. You’re here to help, right? Well, in case you haven’t noticed, things aren’t going well.”

  I gave him an incredulous look. “How the hell am I supposed to help when Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb are over there babbling in a foreign language? I signed up to Aggregate, not translate.”

  He took a deep breath, as though I was the one being unreasonable. “Listen to me. Look around the room. The atmosphere is not good. These villagers look extremely uncomfortable. Some even look pissed. So, we need to stop persuading and start listening.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “You said they knew Barish, right? So, why don’t you start there? See if we can’t bond over a mutual friend.”

  “Fine,” I muttered. Probably should have thought of that myself. But who could blame me for being a fraction of a step behind when my stomach was empty and my body temperature still hadn’t risen above ninety? Not all of us were hotblooded Pyromancers, after all.

  When Blondie finally took a breath from whatever she was trying to say, I took the opportunity to speak up. “Teriyaki-san,” I started, being sure to use the weird honorific they stuck at the end of their names.

  Eileen and Kumiko stared at me as though I’d just hurled a rotten egg at his face. “It’s Teruyuki,” Blondie hissed. “And you can’t call him by his first name! He’s the chief!”

  “Yes, at the very least, you must call him by his family name, Yasutake, and add the reverential “-sama” at the end,” Kumiko added, casting him anxious glances all the while.

  Yeah, no. There were far too many syllables in that for me to remember. “Sir,” I amended with an extra polite smile. The man was watching me frostily. Whatever Eileen and Kumiko had been rattling on about for the last ten minutes had clearly been a total waste of time. Well, no matter. It was my job to sort everything out, and that was precisely what I was going to do. I flashed Aiden a confident smile before addressing the village council. “It would seem we have a common friend. Barish Hayatcı? He told me he knew you well.”

  Teru, as I called him in my mind, gave me a long look before speaking. “I knew Barish-san very well. He was a good friend to our village. We taught each other many things. Did he send you? Why has he not come to greet us himself?”

  “I’m very sorry to say that Barish passed away several years ago,” I replied extra delicately. “But he was practically a second father—”

  Wait, no, that made me sound too old.

  “—Er, grandfather to me, so I hope you and I can pick up where he left off.”

  Teru bowed his head. “I see.”

  Taking his hand in hers, the woman beside him also dipped her head as an air of sadness seemed to settle upon all seven of the elders. I stifled a sigh. It sure would have been nice if Mei or someone had sent them a card or something to let them know that Barish had died. Then again, they hadn’t been aware of his relationship with these Wilders. …Oops, I grimaced. That might have been on me.

  After another long moment, Teru finally lifted his head. “May he come to eternal rest,” he said softly. “I am sorry to hear he has passed. We did not agree on many things, but we shared a mutual kinship and respect.”

  Ah. Here we were. An entry point! “And we are so very sorry as well,” I murmured with appropriate solemnity. “I know that Barish, my dear friend, would have wanted us to come together. It’s good that we have the opportunity to honor his wishes. Now, we have much to—”

  “What is your name?” Teru interrupted.

  “Savannah,” I replied. “And of course, that’s Kumiko, Eileen, and to my right is Aiden.” I flashed the latter a wide smile. And they all thought they didn’t need me! This was going fantastically.

  “What is your family name?” Teru pressed in that gruff tone of his.

  “You mean Clarke?”

  “Clarke-san,” he straightened as he spoke. “My people have been here for many years. My wife,” he gestured to the old woman beside him, “my daughter,” he gestured to the slightly less old woman beside her, “and I have been here the longest, seeking serenity in these mountains. For one hundred and twenty-seven years, I have watched over this village—”

  “What?” My jaw dropped. “But that would make you—”

  “Shh!” Eileen hissed under her breath. “Don’t interrupt him!”

  I shot her a dirty look.

  “Yes, Clarke-san,” he continued, clearly unfazed. “I have been on this earth for many years. I have seen great powers come and go. Great men rise and fall. Your own leaders have come to us many times, drawn by the power that dwells in these waters, in our blood.”

  “Power?” I repeated. I mean, I knew these guys had a powerhouse or two, but…

  “Eight Polymancers, as you call them, live in these mountains. Nineteen of my villagers can wield more than one Element with ease. Even the legendary Pentamancers, lost to your own civilization, have called these mountains home as recently as last century.”

  Holy shit. I must have looked as stupid as the rest of my group, because all I could do was gape at him wordlessly. Pentamancers? As in, more than one? And within the last hundred years? I pressed my knuckles to my mouth to keep my jaw from falling open.

  “Unlike you Asterians, we do not judge our merit by the number of Elements we wield, nor do we desecrate our bodies for the sake of ego, as you do.” He eyed my tattoo with disdain. “We are one with the Elements, invigored and strengthened by them; in return, we are the stewards of our Elemental hosts. We keep our waters untarnished, our air pure. We do not destroy or take from nature. Because of this, we have been blessed with abilities that far exceed yours. When we die, we will humbly return what we’ve borrowed, merging once more with our Elemental spirits.”

  “Yes, sorry, but did you say ‘Pentamancers’?” I pressed. There was no way he was getting away from that topic so easily.

  Teru gave me a long look but didn’t answer. “Clarke-san, once Barish stopped trying to take and use and eventually started to give and provide… it was then that we became cautious friends. Then, twenty years ago, two women came to our village. They announced themselves as friends of Barish – but they were no friends of ours. Blood was spilled… and trust was forever broken.” I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate, but his mouth just pressed into a thin line.

  I privately wondered if one of the two women had been Victoria, an extremely powerful Electromancer who’d once served in the Inner Circle. Many years ago, she’d invited Elizabeth Fulman, Rowan’s mother of all people, to serve beneath her as sub-Prelate. When Elizabeth declined – a first in the entire history of the Inner Circle, the massive dolt – Victoria took Keres under her wing instead. The two of them became inseparable and power-hungry… until Victoria mysteriously died in her sleep one night. That’s when Keres swooped in to take her place. If the two of them had shown up to Shirakawa-go twenty years ago, that was bad news – not just for the villagers back then, but for this whole mission, today. Because chances were, if Keres knew about this group of Wilders, then Kaylie probably did as well.

  All the more reason to scooch this along a bit.

&
nbsp; “Sir,” I began, “I’m so very sorry to hear about that, but I wonder if we might be able to discuss these Pentamancers—”

  Something sharp jabbed me in the ribs. Before I could snap at Aiden and ask him what the hell his deal was, a stranger strode into the room. He was dressed like the council members but actually looked young, maybe only a year or two older than my extremely well-preserved three and a half decades (and change). His long shaggy hair fell over his face as he leaned down to speak to Teriyaki or whatever his name was. As he whispered, the old man’s face contorted, first with shock, and then with anger. Ouch, I winced. Someone in their village had definitely messed up, and I didn’t want to be around when the chief dealt with them.

  “Kumiko,” I heard Eileen whisper. “Can you make out anything they’re saying?”

  She shook her head. “No… but I think something is very wrong, Eileen-san.”

  Unconcerned with the squabbles of tribesmen, I scraped away a fleck of chipped nail polish, frowning. Those gel manicures were supposed to last at least two weeks… but maybe that wasn’t taking avalanches into account.

  I glanced up as the young man abruptly rose to his feet, followed by the surprisingly spry elders. Judging from the looks on their faces, they were not happy with him. One of the women – Teru’s granddaughter? – was actually crying while his wife comforted her.

  “You are very lucky that we once had a common friend,” Teru said, directing his words at the four of us. His voice was low and full of gravel. “Or else you would not have the privilege of receiving this warning.”

  “Come again?” Aiden demanded.

  Teru’s granddaughter let out a dramatic wail as his wife and another man quickly escorted her away. Once she was out of the lodge, his eyes caught mine. “We have just heard of your attack in Shinjuku – the senseless deaths your Asterians inflicted there. Among them, my granddaughter’s daughter, killed in cold blood as she worked!”