At least, I hoped so.
I used to do this kind of thing all the time back when I was terrorizing Nicholas’s Rebel cells. But now I knew that Riordan would worry about me, that he would wonder if Ricci and his goons had gotten the drop on me. And I was worried that he would worry about me.
I was still getting used to being married.
I stepped behind Coleman and followed them into the hallway, slipping through the office door and stepping out of the way as Ricci locked it. Ricci and Coleman and the other men strode down the hall to the receptionist’s office, and I followed, invisible inside my Cloak spell. They headed down the stairs, turned into a narrow hallway, and opened a metal doorway to the alley. A black van painted with the logo of Ricci Food Services sat idling nearby.
Ricci was using his company van as he broke the law and summoned Shadowlands creatures. Either he hadn’t been that bright to begin with, or the maelogaunt had scrambled his brains.
Coleman opened the van’s side door, and I slipped inside and climbed into the back, pressing myself against the rear doors. The inside of the van looked like a typical catering van, with a row of steam trays stacked and secured against one wall, and cabinets for holding plates and silverware. Coleman took the passenger seat, Ricci the driver’s, and the other two men clambered into the van and sat on the floor.
Ricci started the van, pulled into the street, and drove away.
I sat cross-legged on the floor by the back doors, one hand braced on the walls, and I took slow, shallow breaths. Holding the Cloak spell in place was an effort, but a familiar one, and I kept my mind clear and my breathing steady. I listened to Ricci and Coleman and the others talk. It seemed that the maelogaunt had promised them all kinds of wealth and power in exchange for sacrificial victims. The maelogaunt had shown them how to summon anthrophages and wraithwolves and had promised them greater powers in exchange for more human lives.
“We’re going to need more sacrifices soon,” said Ricci.
“Yeah,” said Coleman. “Waitresses are the best. Young women who come to the city looking for work because they can’t find a husband back home. Takes longer for anyone to notice they’re gone. Maybe we should start taking kids…”
My mouth twisted in disgust behind my Cloak spell. If it came to killing, and I was pretty sure that it was going to come to killing, I would try to take Coleman first.
“No,” said Ricci. “The parents will notice they’re gone. Or the teachers will report them truant. No, we should focus on young adults who don’t have families of their own yet.”
“Yeah,” said Coleman. “If we start thinking long-term, at the end of the year the men-at-arms will end their terms of enlistment. We can grab a few of them quick before anyone notices.”
Ricci grunted. “Doesn’t sit right with me, taking veterans.”
Coleman snorted. “We’re all veterans, aren’t we? We all saw the Shadowlands. It’s a dangerous place, yeah, but they’re all afraid of it. We saw the truth. We saw that you can find power and riches there if you’re bold enough.”
“The book showed us the way,” said Ricci. He rubbed his jaw as we came to a red light. “Damnedest thing, you know? I don’t usually buy that kind of thing. Antiques and old books and shit. But one of my ex-wives was into antiques, and I started decorating the restaurant with them. Must’ve been fate.”
I wondered if Ricci had always been the sort of man to kill in cold blood. Maybe not. Maybe he had been dumb enough to summon up the maelogaunt, and it had corrupted him and started feeding on his mind, twisting him into something worse. But there were good reasons humans were forbidden from summoning Shadowlands creatures.
We drove for about a half hour. At last, traffic began to ease, and we picked up speed. I focused on my Cloak spell and watched through the windshield, and I saw the lights of MacArthur Airport come into sight. Ricci slowed and turned, and the headlights illuminated a chain link fence and a concrete yard full of stacked pallets. Beyond the pallets stood an ugly-looking warehouse with a corrugated steel roof. A black sign with orange letters proclaimed NO TRESPASSING.
Ricci stopped the van before the gate. “Get it open.”
Coleman grunted, climbed out, and unlocked the gate. He slid it open with a rattle, and Ricci drove the van into the yard. He stopped before the warehouse, the headlights illuminating a pair of steel truck doors locked with chains and padlocks.
And as the van came to a stop, a nightmare prowled into the glow of the lights.
It was about the size and shape of a human man, but it was gaunt and lean with dull gray skin. Black claws topped its fingers and toes, and black fangs filled its mouth, dark spikes rising from its spine. The creature’s eyes were a venomous yellow, and instead of a nose, it had a black crater in the center of its face.
The thing was an anthrophage, a creature from the umbra of Earth in the Shadowlands. They were malicious and cunning and clever, and the older ones could use magic and disguise themselves as humans. They would eat any kind of meat, but their favored prey was living humans. I knew that well. I had been devoured alive by anthrophages again and again and again, and I remembered their claws slicing through my skin, their fangs plunging into my body and ripping away chunks of flesh…
Rage boiled through me, and the shadows in my mind shivered. I wanted to kill the anthrophage, to kill Ricci and all his men, to burn the warehouse to ashes and slaughter everything I saw…
Long practice forced the anger back, and I got to my feet and followed the other two men out the side door of the van. I slipped to the side as they slammed it shut, and Ricci unlocked the warehouse door and opened it. He reached inside and flipped a switch, and arc lightning came on, illuminating the interior. The inside of the warehouse was empty, but I did see a dull gray glow radiating from the center of the concrete floor.
That would be the permanent summoning circle Ricci had made for calling up creatures from the Shadowlands.
I also saw a half-dozen more anthrophages, and a pair of creatures that looked like giant wolves covered in plates of armored bone, their eyes burning like dying coals. They were wraithwolves, creatures from the deep Shadowlands beyond Earth’s umbra. Anthrophages were vulnerable to bullets. But creatures of the deep Shadowlands were immune to guns. You needed magic to kill wraithwolves.
Fortunately, I had magic. Maybe more magic than all but a few other humans.
I backed away, looking over the warehouse and its yard. No security cameras that I could see. Not that Ricci would need them, not with his bound anthrophages and wraithwolves wandering around inside the fence. Ricci shut off the van’s engine, and the yard plunged into darkness as the headlights went out. He and Coleman and the others walked into the warehouse, not bothering to close the door behind them.
I walked back to the gate, still holding the Cloak spell. Coleman had closed and locked the gate after him, so I climbed up one of the stacks of pallets next to the chain link fence. I looked around, nodded to myself, and dropped the Cloak spell. At once I cast a spell of telekinetic force, seizing a streetlamp in an invisible grip. I jumped over the top of the fence, using my grip on the lamp as a fulcrum, and came to a (mostly) gentle landing twenty feet away.
My eyes stayed fixed on the gate, but there was no sign of alarm from either the anthrophages or Ricci’s men.
I tapped my earpiece. “Hey. You guys there? Sorry I disappeared.”
“Nadia?” said Riordan at once. “You’re safe?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I hitched a ride in the back of Ricci’s van. I’m standing outside now.”
“We’re about five blocks away,” said Nora. “Just driving past the airport.”
“I saw Ricci’s summoning circle,” I said. “He’s also got anthrophages and wraithwolves patrolling the place.”
“You think we should take him here, boss?” said Nora.
“Maybe,” said Riordan. “We’ll talk it over. Stay where you are, Nadia. We’ll pick you up.”
“Acknowle
dged,” I said.
I waited, watching the warehouse and the yard. I half-expected the anthrophages to come out and follow me, but they didn’t. Likely Ricci had instructed them to patrol the yard, but not to let themselves be seen. The stacks of pallets lining the fence would make it almost impossible to see the creatures from the street, even during the day.
I started to shiver beneath my coat. I was holding my magic ready, and that often leached away my body heat. Headlights appeared in my peripheral vision, and I turned my head and saw a gray panel van approaching. It pulled up to the curb next to us, and I watched the warehouse, but there was no response. There was probably enough traffic here that the anthrophages wouldn’t pay attention to individual cars.
Or maybe Ricci hadn’t thought to tell them to watch the street.
The van’s passenger door opened, and my husband walked around the front of the van.
Riordan was a foot taller than I was and strong enough that he could lift me over his head without much strain. (I had asked him to do it once, and he had actually done it, much to my amusement.) He had close-cropped brown hair and eyes the color of expensive bookcases, and he wore a dark shirt, black cargo pants, black steel-toed boots, and a tactical vest and harness. A pair of pistols rested on his hips, and he had both an M-99 carbine and a sword slung over his back. His expression was grim as always, but as he looked at me, I saw the relief flood over his face for just a second before his control reasserted itself.
I felt bad that he had been worried enough to feel relief. He had come by the fear honestly. His first wife had tried to murder him, and he had very nearly lost me. And given how…um, erratic I could be, it was perfectly rational for him to be worried.
But I was glad to see him.
“Hey,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for following me.”
I heard Nora snort. “Tigress, he’s got a great deal of experience at that, doesn’t he?”
I sighed. “Thank you, Nora.”
Nora got out of the driver’s side. She was a big woman, but tall and muscular rather than fat. I was pretty sure she could also have lifted me over her head without much difficulty, though I definitely did not want her to do that. She had dark skin that made for a stark contrast with the white teeth in her cold smile, and she wore black clothes and tactical gear similar to Riordan’s.
“Well,” said another man, his dry voice marked with a faint Scottish accent, “we wouldn’t want to lose the boss’s wife, would we?”
A third Shadow Hunter got out of the van. He was a lean, strong-looking man, with graying dark hair and a close-cropped beard. The third Shadow Hunter had cold blue eyes, his lips set in a perpetual faint smirk. I didn’t like him at all. The Shadowmorph symbionts of the Family of the Shadow Hunters fed on life force, and that meant the Shadow Hunters were often incredibly attractive on a subconscious level. Riordan was a man of rigid self-control. Alex Matheson, by contrast, was the sort of man who exploited his Shadowmorph to bed as many women as possible. If I hadn’t been married to Riordan, Alex would have tried to seduce me, and he would have been aggressive enough that I probably would have used magic to stop him.
His smirk widened as I looked at him.
“Yes, ace,” said Nora in a dry voice. She just found Alex amusing. “We want to find the boss’s wife, especially since she could make your head explode like a melon.”
Alex smiled at her, but it didn’t touch his eyes.
“You can banter later,” said Riordan. Both Nora and Alex subsided at once. Nora liked to call him the “boss,” but Riordan actually was in charge. Seniority among the Shadow Hunters was determined by how long they had carried their Shadowmorph, and Riordan had borne his for decades. “Nadia, what did you see in there?”
“Wraithwolves and anthrophages,” I said. “They’re patrolling around the warehouse. And I know that Ricci has summoned at least one maelogaunt. He and the men with him were talking about the maelogaunts, how they want to summon up another one.”
“Swell,” said Alex. “I’ve never gone up against a maelogaunt.”
“I have,” said Riordan, voice quiet. I had been with him at the time. “They can feed off life force and pain, but they also feed off memories. A maelogaunt can also edit and erase the memories of its victims. Makes it easy for the creature to twist humans to its purpose. Probably that’s what happened to Ricci and his men. We’ll have to take the maelogaunt down as well.”
Alex frowned. “Our writ of execution is for Paul Ricci.”
“You’re going to have to kill him, too,” I said. Alex’s hard eyes turned towards me. “The maelogaunt’s got its hooks into his head now, and he won’t ever stop. On the way here, he and his men were debating whether it would be easier to kidnap newly-discharged veterans or children to use as sacrifices for the summoning.”
“Veterans, obviously,” said Alex. “Young adults with no families yet. Or neglected children. It’s a lot harder to simply buy children for nefarious purposes in the US than it is in certain parts of Africa or Asia, but with the right contacts…”
“Whatever Ricci is planning to do, it stops tonight,” said Riordan. “We’re going to take Ricci, his followers, and all the creatures in the warehouse.”
“Good plan,” said Alex. “Just how are we going to do that?”
“We’ll go through the gate,” said Riordan, reaching over his shoulder for the M-99. “We can shoot the anthrophages. Ricci didn’t think to give them guns, did he?” I shook my head. Ricci had ordered a bunch of guns, but he hadn’t given them to the anthrophages yet, at least that I had seen. “We’ll need to use our Shadowmorphs to deal with the wraithwolves.”
“Or my magic,” I said.
His dark eyes shifted to mine. “I’d like you to Cloak and go inside the warehouse.” He took a deep breath. “And then when we hit the anthrophages and wraithwolves in the yard, I want you to distract Ricci and the maelogaunt until we arrive.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can do that.”
Nora frowned. “Isn’t that putting her at a great deal of risk?”
I shrugged. “No more than the rest of you. I can keep the maelogaunt and his pet restaurant owner occupied until you show up to help.”
“Not that I want to criticize your wife,” said Alex. He never referred to me by name. I was always the boss’s wife or Riordan’s wife. “But Ricci has three men with him, and the maelogaunt, and probably some other creatures. That would be a little much for one woman.”
“I can handle them,” I said. It wasn’t bravado. Truth be told, I could probably wipe out every living thing in the warehouse. But any number of unexpected things could happen, especially if I was dumb enough to go in without backup.
And I didn’t really want to kill anyone. Not that I had a problem killing. It was just that I could do it too easily and without the slightest regret, and I didn’t want to make a habit of it. I had acquired so much magical power, and I even had something like legal authority to go with it now. There had to be lines I would not cross. I didn’t want to become a monster. Besides, I wasn’t even part of the Family of the Shadow Hunters. I was here to help Riordan carry out the writ of execution, not to kill Paul Ricci.
Though I had no trouble helping Riordan and his team kill Ricci. Or killing him in self-defense.
And I had absolutely no compunction against annihilating the creatures of the Shadowlands. Not after what I had endured at their hands.
“If Nadia says she can distract them, she can distract them,” said Riordan. He looked calm, but I could tell what it cost him to send me into danger. But I could protect myself much more effectively than any of the others.
“Yeah, I’m real distracting,” I said. “I’m going to go over the fence. Don’t wait too long to attack. Holding the Cloak spell is kind of a strain.”
“Good luck,” said Riordan.
I smiled at him, nodded, and turned on my heel and walked to the fence. I levitated over it, crouched atop a stack of pallets, and cast the Cloak spe
ll once more. None of the anthrophages prowling through the yard noticed me, so I climbed down the stack of pallets (I couldn’t use any other spells while Cloaked) and jogged into the warehouse itself.
It was a big, mostly empty space, with a worn concrete floor, corrugated metal walls on a cinder block foundation, and steel beams and rafters stretching overhead. In places stood stacks of splintery pallets, along with some old crates. A forklift stood rusting against one wall, and a flight of stairs led up to a small office. A half a dozen arc lights blazed overhead, but they didn’t provide nearly enough light to illuminate the space, and shadows clung to the wall and pooled over the floor. A pair of plastic folding tables stood near the center of the warehouse, overlooking Ricci’s summoning circle.
It had to be his summoning circle. The thing was ten yards across, and the symbols had been cut into the floor with a concrete saw. The circle and the various sigils had been filled with lead, and a faint grayish light came from them. I recognized some of the symbols as Elven hieroglyphics, and others as symbols of summoning and binding. The entire thing looked a little…crude. The danger of using summoning spells to call up creatures from the Shadowlands is that the spell creates a link between the summoner and the creature. The link was supposed to let the summoner control the creature, but if the summoner wasn’t prepared, the creature might dominate him.
Or, to pick an example totally at random, if the summoner carved a crude circle into the floor of a warehouse and used that to call something powerful like a maelogaunt, the creature might dominate its summoner without Ricci ever realizing it.
Ricci, Coleman, and the other two men stood at the table. An old-looking hardback book lay open before them, its pages full of diagrams of summoning circles. It was a copy of the Summoning Codex. About two hundred years ago, a former member of the Wizard’s Legion had joined the Rebel groups of the time, and he had wanted to work out a way for all humans to use magic, just as all Elves had a natural magical ability. He had decided that summoning spells were the easiest way to do that, and so had secretly published the Summoning Codex. Copies had been circulating ever since, and sometimes the copies had errors in them.
Cloak of Dragons Page 2