“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to.” He stood up. “Go on, get dressed. You have to go, right? I’m not Bulldog Johnson, so what in the hell do I matter?” The bourbon had been a mistake. Anger edged his thoughts. Her shock—the regret on her face, when she’d learned she’d slept with the wrong Artist—bit him.
She got off the bed, fear in her eyes.
Good.
He wouldn’t hurt her. But he could humiliate her. Like how he would humiliate Niko Black, if they ever fought.
Andrew grimaced. “Battle Artist fans are the worst. You only go for the big names, you only care about the fame. Oh, you were loving me when you thought I was on a big TV show. But when the truth came out, then it all changed.”
She was throwing on her clothes. That fear was subsiding because she thought she was free. He strode in front of the door. “You don’t care about technique. You don’t care about talent. It’s only a goddamn popularity contest to you. Oh, does he have a show? Does he have a book? Does he have the title? Then you’re ready to spread your legs at the drop of a hat.”
She glanced at the phone on the nightstand. Then the window. She was trying to find a way out because she couldn’t get past him out the door. She scooped up her purse. She would have her own phone, but could she get to it before he got to her? Not likely. He was a skilled Battle Artist. She was nothing.
He channeled prana into his fists to make them glow red. He was powerful. He could scare her. It felt good.
She was disheveled but dressed.
“I shouldn’t be too pissed off,” Andrew slurred. How drunk was he? “You didn’t know my real name, and I forgot yours five seconds after you told me. Because you don’t matter. I do. I’m Andrew J. Coffey, and yes, things are bleak now, but things are always bleak before the big win.”
She pointed at the door. Her voice came out pinched. “I’d like to leave now.”
He didn’t have to let her go if he didn’t want to. He was in control. “Say please. And thank you.”
Her face was down. “Please. Thank you.” The words came out low and pained.
“Good girl.” He stepped to the side.
She moved quickly past him. Her perfume wasn’t so sweet anymore. It was as stifling as it was pathetic.
At the door, she turned. “I’m Marla J. Jones. I might be a nobody, but it sounds like you are too. Maybe you shouldn’t be such an asshole.”
She slammed out of the hotel room.
He laughed. He thought about yelling after her, but that wouldn’t do.
More fears snuck into his mind. Would she report him? Would she tell her friends? Would he lose fans?
No, those fears were ungrounded. She’d be ashamed at herself for getting drunk and finding herself in bed with the wrong Battle Artist. He hadn’t tricked her; he just hadn’t corrected her. He might have been mean, but that wasn’t against the law.
And if she did come forward? He would say she was just a disgruntled, crazy fan. It actually might help him. Any publicity was good publicity, especially when he was scrambling for his life.
That was the truth of it.
He walked back into the room. Her vodka and cranberry sat on the table, barely touched. He finished it off. Might as well get good and drunk now.
The morning would come, more meetings, and he might send Barton an email. In the blaze of the alcohol, an idea came to Andrew. It was a desperate plan, but it might be just what he needed to make Barton take him seriously. The Premiers could help. By bleeding for him.
The idea of fighting Niko Black was growing more appealing. He just might fight that little prick, not for professional reasons, but for personal ones.
They would call it a slaughter, a bloodbath, a massacre. And everyone would be talking about it.
Better bad press than no press at all—infamy was far better than obscurity.
The Blame
MONIQUE SAT BETWEEN the head of marketing, Geri Poulson, and Steven Yang, the CIO. They weren’t friends, but they were better than the men across from her, Alvin Fujimori and Phil Lord.
It might as well have been the three of them, alone, in the boardroom at SoulFire. The sun outside was a pale cold thing. Snap your fingers, and Bay City could become a freezer in seconds. Inside the executive conference room it wasn’t much warmer. Monique thought of making a joke. Any SunFire in here that could warm us up a bit?
Geri Poulson was, but she wasn’t going to turn on the prana and disrupt the terrible, terrible things they were talking about.
“Monique, you made yourself the scapegoat,” Fujimori said pointedly.
Monique knocked Steven Yang with her elbow. “He means me. He thinks since I’m the CBA, I should take the fall. Ironic, since I was the one who insisted we hunt the thing. You all thought I was crazy. And then, when the first three people were killed in the Devil’s Edge, I said we needed to bring in the authorities. And you all said we needed to wait. Well, we waited. Three more people are dead. I was not going to keep quiet. And now the truth is out. I think we’re caught up, yes?”
Phil Lord loosened his tie. Or was he adjusting it? Either way, he didn’t look good, pale and wan. “Alvin has a point.”
“We should have prepared a formal statement for the press,” Poulson said next to her. “You knew better than that.”
“I’ve known better from day one,” Monique insisted. “But I was willing to play along. Yeah, I’m not playing again. If we’d gone wide with the news, three people would be alive.”
Phil cleared his throat. “The past is the past. We need someone to fall on their sword now. It should be either me or you, Monique.”
She tilted her head. “Not Alvin? He’s the one who first tried to block my hunt, then wanted to bury it.” She locked eyes with the snake. “You, Alvin, should step down. We could do a severance package. And by the way, I have a handicapped father, but you have the full family. You’re the one who could use the family excuse... as in, SoulFire’s Chief Operating Officer, Alvin Fujimori, has stepped down to spend more time with his family. There’s a headline we can all get behind.”
Phil Lord fiddled with his tie more.
“You could take that off, Phil,” Monique suggested.
As for Fujimori, his face was the color of a plum. He fought to keep the anger out of his voice. There was a guy who needed some cycling and Vicodin. “Ms. Lamb, the board chose me from among a dozen candidates. More than that, this fell under your department. This has been your responsibility from the beginning.”
“My responsibility.” Monique nodded. “And yet, at the crucial decision of releasing news to the press, you all decided on a course of action I disagreed with. If it was anything else, and if my circumstances weren’t what they were, I would have resigned immediately. I’m the best chance you have of catching this thing. And when I catch it, SoulFire will get some very good press.”
“But the damage has already been done.” Fujimori’s jaw muscles clenched. “We need you to step down, immediately.”
“Like clean out my desk, the security escort down, and some tearful farewells immediately? Or can I have a few weeks to gather my things and debrief my team?” Monique felt all the adrenaline in her, and she let it go. It was her natural flight or fight instincts, only, this wasn’t the Arena, she wasn’t being hunted by a tiger, and no one was trying to kill her.
Kill her career? Yes. Fujimori had his katana ready to sever her from her job. That would make things difficult. And very interesting.
She breathed out and let go of the fighting, and the flighting, and all those natural instincts.
She would live. She would survive. This wasn’t the Underbelly; she wasn’t ten years old. Dealing with Fujimori was a lot easier than dealing with Calabra. Or her father.
“Immediately.” Fujimori said.
Monique laughed, but it wasn’t bitter—there wasn’t a trace of tragedy in it. It was a chuckle. “Okay, Phil, this is your chance to be CEO. If you tell me to
gather my things, the gathering will commence, posthaste.”
“A censure. A leave of absence, unpaid of course, pending a full investigation.” Phil nodded. “That’s the best I can do.”
“I get a black mark on my record that I don’t deserve.” Monique knew she wasn’t going to get a better deal. And she knew they had to be careful with how they handled this. It was unfair, and she could fight it. If only one of these people in the room sided with her. If she could gather enough supporters, they could change the story, and then they could go after Fujimori. The idea of vengeance was appealing. And yet, in A Princess of the Changing Winds, there was a whole subplot on revenge and how vacuous and unfulfilling it was in the end. And self-defeating. And kind of sad, all the way around.
If she managed to end Fujimori, that would only hurt her spiritual practice. And dammit, she had superheroing to do. That made her think of Aleksy. This wasn’t going to be easy on him.
It was colder in the room than ever.
“We’re sorry, Monique,” Phil said.
“I know you are, Phil, but Fujimori isn’t. This is all very unfortunate.” She paused. “You do know I’m not going to quit until I find this thing. It knows I’m hunting it. There’s an intelligence there. And it has a Battle Sign, Erosion. It used Negation Pinch. The chochlik is growing in power, becoming more distinct. Even if you pull me, I won’t stop.”
“We will not be calling it the chochlik,” Geri said next to her. “That is a terrible name.”
“Racist,” Monique joked. “What do you have against Polish people?”
Geri hissed and sputtered.
Fujimori stepped in. “Monique, even with you on leave, your team will work with the authorities, local law enforcement, U.S. government agencies, and the Coalition of United Countries. The Coalition has expressed great interest in this matter.”
“The Coalition?” This was something Monique hadn’t expected. The Coalition of United Countries was a multinational body that helped with international disputes, crises, and disputes. It had little power, militarily. Its true power lay in gathering information and writing reports. Which few people outside of the Coalition actually read.
“Yes.” Fujimori glanced at his watch. “We need to end this. I have work. We all do. So, Monique, are you going to leave peaceably?”
Monique smiled at him. “Will I go on unpaid leave peaceably? Yes. Will I accept your censure? I’m still fifty-fifty. As for the investigation into my wrongdoing? Well, if I’m anything, I’m a woman of truth. I welcome the investigation, though I don’t think it will shine a very flattering light on me.”
She threw her arms around Geri and Steven. “Thanks, guys, for standing up for me. Your support means the world to me.”
She stood up. “If you need me, I’ll be out there, trying to find the chochlik. And when I bring it in, I expect to be the superhero you need, not the one you deserve. Or something like that. I think Bulldog Johnson said something like that on Zodiac Overmen. Anyway, before I go, shame on you all for being moral cowards. Trust me, this job isn’t worth your good opinion of yourselves.”
She walked out of the room. She found a cardboard box and did the load the desk thing. There was a good chance she wouldn’t be back. She wouldn’t be the first person to be fired unfairly. They didn’t call security to escort her out.
She rode the elevator down with Aleksy.
“This is utter and complete BS.” Aleksy seethed—another person who could use a good dose of cycling to calm himself. Spiritual practices were not easy. It was why Twelve Leagues was so popular. That, and prank, and Irish whiskey.
“It’s all part of the corporate game, Aleksy.” Monique leaned into his body heat and the smell of his cologne. “Better people than me have wound up on the wrong end of the ten fifteen Wednesday meeting. I’ll be fine. I just don’t want anyone else killed.”
“But what are you going to do for money?” he asked. Spoken like the son of parents who had struggled to make ends meet.
She answered with a laugh. “Does the Fix-It Shoppe still need an on-call person?”
That got him worked up. “Yes, but you can’t be serious.”
“I’m not.” Though it might be a nice change of pace. And really, she could deal with any daemons they came across, and she knew her way around a Whitney box. “I have to find the shadow man and his little snaky friend. To do that, I’m going to need your help. And I need you to dig into something. The Coalition is interested in the chochlik. This might not be the first anomalous daemon they’ve seen. Any information you can get would help.”
“Sure. Fine. You know I’ll help you, on the clock or off it. I’m half-tempted to quit in protest. Again, what are you going to do for money?”
Monique leaned into him again. “In this day and age, money is easy. I can take out a line of credit on my condo. I can stop paying my bills and wait for the creditors to show up. You’d think it would take only a matter of weeks for me to lose everything. Actually, it can take years. The world is cracked, and most of the time, that’s a sad thing, but sometimes, it’s helpful. I’ve found homes before in the cracks. If I did it once, I can do it again.”
He was looking at her with something like awe. “You don’t care.”
“About my job?” She puffed out air. “All jobs are temporary. You work at a 7-Eleven for a single night shift. That’s temporary. Fifty years cataloguing books in a library? Temporary. Five years as the CBA of a Fortune 500 company? Temporary. Either you quit, get fired, or die. Don’t get too attached to anything, Aleksy. Or do, but keep a loose grip. I thought I’d gotten pretty good at surrendering to life’s flow. I was right. I like being right.”
He didn’t respond. Poor guy was trying to wrap his head around her serenity. It would take some major effort, because her inner peace was miles wide and oceans deep.
The elevator dinged open.
She walked out. “I’ll be in touch. Call me with any news. You’re my eyes and ears inside now. I do care about one thing... no more murders. We have to find the chochlik and stop it.”
He nodded, about to say something else, but the doors closed. She wondered what it had been. Well, if it was important, he’d contact her.
She walked out into the cold. She breathed in the city’s smell. All these people, all their temporary lives, it was a swirl of wonder and energy. Life was precious. She had hers.
And she was determined to make it count for something.
She knew a great deal about the Arts, but there was one person who knew more than she did. Cheryl Betheson.
Back at her apartment, the day nurse wasn’t expecting her. Obviously. The girl was sleeping on the couch, and Logan was nowhere to be found.
Monique woke up the young woman. “I think we can assume you’re fired. I should know. I kinda got fired today. Not that I’m returning the favor, mind you, it’s just sleeping on the job is like a key thing you shouldn’t be doing. I’ll walk you down. I have to find my father.”
The girl blushed and gathered her things, and Monique tried to chat with her on the elevator down. She soon gave up. Losing a job didn’t usually make one chatty. Especially with the person who sacked you.
Monique transferred what she owed the girl, and then they were done.
She hurried to the Apollo Coffee Shop, and there she found Logan, on his phone. He was perfectly lucid. He didn’t see her.
Monique used Wind Walk to take off from the ground, swept around, and came down behind him. She plucked the phone out of his hands.
He’d signed into a bank account, and there, sitting in his accounts, was all of her money. Logan, her father, had stolen everything from her.
He glared at her.
Monique was used to that. “If only I could fire you,” she said, trying not to smile.
A second later, his account locked her out.
Getting his username and password just might kill them both.
No, not her. That was not how she wanted to die.
The Help
NIKO STOOD UNDER THE entryway of South Valley Med’s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. Rain pattered on the driveway, on the cars packed into a parking lot, and the Pig. Water streamed down from the gutters. He loved the wet smell of the pavement and the plants. The air vibrated around him, since Radiance was at its zenith. He could feel the energy.
Things in his life were looking better. Teddy was home. Things were good there, and he’d visited his friend whenever a call took him even close to Teddy’s parents’ house in East Apricot. Teddy had given up on his own apartment. It was going to be a long recovery.
Teddy slept, mostly, and on the rare occasion he woke up to talk, he asked Niko about Bonnie. Niko quickly changed the subject. He’d rather talk to Teddy about the Arts, or the history of Battle Artists, or “what could be.” Teddy was a master at “what could be.”
However, most of the time, Teddy either slept through the visit or was barely awake, nodding, his head bound for his chest.
Talking with Teddy was easy. Niko had two hard conversations in front of him. One was with Aleksy. The other? Bonnie.
Danette hadn’t heard from Barton. Niko got a message from Andrew every now and again. Most of the time, it was in threatening capital letters, lots of misspellings, and some sentences that defied grammar. It seemed Andrew liked his wine more than he’d let on that first night. Never drink and internet; that was the lesson there.
Fright Night was four weeks away. The main cards were set. There was one open slot, another Saturday afternoon, and Niko had hopes to fill that. Barton had promised. Too bad he wasn’t a man of his word.
Aleksy hurried out of the rain and ran up to Niko in the entryway of the clinic.
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