The Untamed Moon
Page 5
We approached a rough metal door bolted into the wall of sheer rock. Its sides were melted and warped, but the door itself appeared legitimate enough. Sariah tugged on its handle. The door opened inward toward us, revealing a smoothly efficient metal and concrete hallway beyond.
“That’s one heck of an emergency exit,” Sariah quipped as we moved into the much more official-looking corridors of what I assumed was the Newark airport. We walked quickly, not wanting to explain our presence so far underground, but we needn’t have worried. The first staircase that presented itself led up to an access doorway that dumped into a more central hallway, and soon we were on the ground floor of the airport, near the private tarmac. The gleaming black jet that waited out on the far edge of the tarmac didn’t look familiar to me, but Sariah moved toward it confidently.
“That’s Kreios’s,” she said. “He’s now the head of the Arcana Council, so of course he’s going to have a fancy jet. He’s even got the welcome wagon waiting for us.”
Sure enough, a black limo with two guards and an aviation official stood at the ready as we emerged from the gate area. We were swept into the limo and driven the short distance to the private plane. Probably not typical TSA protocol, but it appeared to work for Kreios.
He wasn’t alone on the airplane when we boarded, either. I sensed the shift of power as soon as we stepped off the steep stairway to enter the plane—which was far bigger than it appeared to be on the outside, bigger than any private jet reasonably should be. But I could only process one shock at a time.
“Armaeus is here?” I asked.
Sariah nodded, peering around with newfound irritation. “I’m telling you, something hinky is going on. I thought I brought you to Jersey on my own, but now, I’m beginning to wonder if even I wasn’t manipulated in some way. If so, that shit’s gotta stop.”
I frowned, but I didn’t have the same sense of manipulation she did. More likely it was just the Devil and the Magician taking advantage of circumstances that presented themselves to them. It was what they had done best in all the years they had worked together. The tally of those years was going on a hundred. Kreios had joined the Council in the early 1930s if I recalled correctly, whereas the Magician had been a fixture since the late 1200s. The reality of that date tugged at me. Armaeus had spent a long time as head of the Council, and he’d given up that role on a whim?
For the first time, it struck me how odd that was. Yes, Armaeus had had good reason to step down while his memories had been compromised, but why had he stayed out of the top position in the weeks and months that had followed? Was Sariah right and more was going on here than I suspected?
We reached the main compartment of the jet, and I knew one thing was certain—this was not the Magician’s private plane. While Armaeus’s conveyance was elegant, pristine, and efficient, Kreios’s approach to the interior design of his jet was entirely different. Leather seats, sofas, and reclining chairs adorned the space, each one more vibrantly colored than the last. Carpet lined the floor, the padding so thick that it was noticeable even through my boots. The windows were tinted a faint rose, so the light that filtered through the space took on a pink haze. An enormous bar took up one side of the cabin, and not surprisingly, that was where the Devil stood, regarding us with a self-satisfied smirk as we emerged from the doorway.
“Congratulations.” He lifted a glass. “Barry will have a full recovery and will go on to run the Eastern Seaboard operation of the Black Diamond syndicate. George Demopolous, meanwhile, will continue his leadership in the Sapphire syndicate. Both men are very aware of their most excellent good fortune, and understand they will be very handsomely rewarded for their interactions with the Arcana Council going forward. Meanwhile, we have secured a solid position in two prominent organizations. A job well done.”
I could feel Sariah’s irritation ratchet up with his little speech, steam trickling off her as she studied him. “So you were behind this the whole time?” she asked. “You tricked me?”
“Not at all,” Kreios said with credible sincerity. “I didn’t know where you were heading until you got there, but after I looked in on the situation, it quickly became clear how the Council could benefit. And given the givens, it’s important for us to maximize any opportunity for benefit. Time is running short.”
I considered his words carefully. The Devil wasn’t one for false alarmism. If anything, he took, well, a devil-may-care attitude toward the business of running the Arcana Council, or the business of life, for that matter. He rolled with every punch and came up not just swinging, but with a cocktail in his hand and a smile on his face. What had changed?
I had felt the tension winding tighter all around me these past several days, in the tenor of requests that I was getting at Justice Hall, the energy that jittered and skittered up and down the Las Vegas Strip where the Council made their home. But I was used to worrying. There was always someone else to find, protect, heal. None of those things were the Devil’s province.
Sariah knew it too. “Since when do you give a shit about anything but having a good time?” she asked, with perhaps a little bit less decorum than I would’ve been able to manage. “You expect me to believe that you’re taking your role as head of the Arcana Council to heart? ’Cause I’m not really feeling that.”
For a long moment, Kreios studied Sariah, his face impassive, his green eyes emotionless. Then his mouth kicked up at the corner into a smile.
“You’re quite right,” he murmured, his tone dangerously soft. “But there is one thing I do care about.”
A presence hovered in the doorway of the main cabin, and I turned as the full force of that presence struck me—crackling with energy, power, and possibility, but encased in stultifying darkness, a panic-filled chaos of fear…and even the whisper of death.
“Sara,” the Magician gasped.
Then he collapsed.
6
“Armaeus!” I gasped, and bolted forward.
As quickly as I moved, Kreios was faster. He caught Armaeus before he hit the floor, then eased him into my arms.
I knelt, cradling the Magician close to me, my heart in my throat. What was wrong with him? How could I help him? I was afraid to do anything without his direct request, for fear of what snarl of magic I might encounter.
The Magician of the Arcana Council had been a larger-than-life figure to me since I’d first met him, working remotely in Rio de Janeiro for the Council without even realizing it. Every time I’d seen him since then, he’d struck me all over again with the force of his charisma, power, and unreasonable beauty. Tall and sleekly muscled, with bronze skin and sharply cut features that spoke of his heritage of a French father and an Egyptian mother, he radiated sensuality and grace.
Now he looked like he’d been through a war. His sleek black hair hung lank and tight to his face, his golden-bronzed skin was sallow, his gold-and-black eyes sunken and hollow. Even his body felt deflated, as if in the few short days since I’d seen him last, he’d lost thirty pounds.
“What happened to you?” I whispered. I lifted my gaze to Kreios. “You knew?”
“Only what he allowed me to know, until about fifteen minutes ago,” Kreios said, an edge of irritation gilding his words. “With recent events involving our enemies in high places, there was a need for him to do research on the true whereabouts of the Star and the Moon, he said. A need to go deep, to seek out corners of the arcane community who would know more than anyone what was going on.”
“And you just let him go? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?” An edge of hysteria made my words sharper than I wanted. I’d never seen Armaeus so helpless looking, so frail.
Kreios held my gaze steadily. “This is not the first time that the Magician has disappeared into his work, or pushed himself too hard. I have only known him for a handful of generations. He lived several hundred years on his own before that. He has undoubtedly nearly died and come back dozens of times.”
“But it’s different
this time, isn’t it?” I asked tersely, because of course it was. The Devil wouldn’t be telling me all this if it wasn’t.
He grimaced. “It’s different. He’s no longer the head of the Arcana Council, I am. And as with every fucking thing Armaeus touches, things are not as simple as they should be on the face of it. When I accepted his suggestion to lead the Council, I didn’t ask what that would mean for him. What that would mean for you, either.”
I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Armaeus is dinking with his magic, isn’t he?” Sariah asked. “Making a power grab for him—maybe for all of you. That’s why you could get into Hell, yeah? He did something to trump the immortality clause.”
From my arms, Armaeus groaned in protest. “…stronger,” he managed.
Sariah waved him off, practically bouncing on her toes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure that’s what it is. He juiced you without you knowing it.”
I scowled, working out the ramifications of Armaeus’s actions as Sariah peered at Kreios.
“You didn’t know, though,” she said thoughtfully. “You didn’t know, or you would have gone into Hell with us. Or, maybe he didn’t give you a magical power boost.”
“I don’t need a magical power boost,” Kreios informed her coolly. “But when I watched Sara successfully enter, I knew that something had shifted. I put out the summons immediately for Armaeus, only to find out that he’d been hiding his, shall we say, magical injuries from me. There are some benefits to being the head of the Council however.”
Sariah chuckled. “Good man. You pulled rank, and went and saved his ass while we were dicking around with Barry. You totally pulled him out of whatever hole he’d dropped himself into.”
“I did, but even I didn’t know he was in this sort of shape.” As Kreios spoke, he glanced toward the Magician, who I still cradled in my arms. Armaeus’s breath was shallow, his eyelids fluttered closed, and he slumped bonelessly into my arms, as if he’d used all his energy to get from the hallway into the main cabin.
“What’s wrong with him?” I reached out with my mind, but the Magician was closed off to me. I’d always prided myself on keeping him out, and now he kept me out as well, despite his current weakness. How strong was Armaeus to be able to do so much even when he was so frail?
“I would tell you, except all the people that I would ordinarily ask, I can’t,” Kreios said.
I peered up at him. “What are you talking about? Surely the Fool would know? Eshe? Maybe Death?”
“All likely possibilities.” Kreios nodded. “Except as I was bringing the Magician here, he specifically asked me not to let anyone know of his condition or how he arrived at it.”
“This hardly seems the time for him to develop a chip on his shoulder,” Sariah observed, and I had to agree with her.
Kreios’s jaw tightened. “I’m afraid the situation is far worse than that. The Magician can’t afford to let anyone know of his condition because he can no longer judge who to trust. A shift or, perhaps better stated, a schism is taking place in the Arcana Council, and that schism could have long-term repercussions. It is my suspicion that’s why the Magician has been chasing down both possibilities and probabilities regarding the identity of the Moon and the Star. To learn what he’s desperate to know, he’s had to seek information out from some of the darkest corners of the arcane community. And do it in such a way that nobody knows.”
“But why?” I protested. “I mean, sure, some of the members of the Council can be dickheads, but do you seriously think they would do anything to harm the Council itself? That makes no sense.”
Even as I put up the objection, though, I could see where Kreios was going.
“The Shadow Court,” I said, referencing the organization most likely to deserve a boot straight into Hell—if only we could pin them down long enough to aim correctly. “You think some of the Council are going to break ranks and join them? But why? We’ve beaten the Court at every turn.”
“We have beaten them at every turn, but at every turn, they’ve gotten a little stronger now, haven’t they? Strong enough that someone already chafing at the bit to break from the Arcana Council might decide to make their move? Strong enough that such a Council member could be lured into outright betrayal? We have located the missing Sun, but there’s still the Moon and the Star who remain hidden to us. What if those two former Council members are looking to recruit their own Council? Or at least take down the existing one by joining ranks with the Shadow Court?”
“You’re asking these questions because you don’t know the answers,” Sariah challenged. “This could all be bullshit. Has Armaeus told you anything for certain?”
The Devil shook his head. “He hasn’t. These are all possibilities, different threads that he has tugged from the weave of the world. They could all lead to nothing.”
“Useful, as always,” Sariah said.
He ignored her, glancing my way. “I’m going to arrange for our flight back to Las Vegas, taking a rather circuitous path. I don’t know how long it will take Armaeus to recover, but I’d rather not be where anyone can see us when that happens.”
Sariah threw up her hands. “Wait, you’re going to go all Snowpiercer on us? We’re just going to go around and around and around?”
The Devil regarded her with an arched brow. “You have someplace else you’d rather be?”
The question was so laden with meaning that I blinked and slanted a quick glance to Sariah, surprised to see her redden and turn away. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut, but I was distracted almost immediately by Armaeus shifting in my arms.
“Sara,” he murmured again. I leaned down toward him, settling him more heavily against me. As glad as I was to hear his voice, I hated him calling me by my name. It meant he was hurt far worse than I wanted to think about.
“I’m here, Armaeus,” I whispered. “I’m right here.”
“Good,” he said. “Heal me.”
I blinked, jerking my gaze up to Sariah. She stared back at me with equal surprise.
“Has he done that before?”
I shook my head. That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t helped Armaeus heal, but this was the first time he’d ever made the explicit request of me, I was pretty sure. Was that important? Knowing the Magician, was it some sort of test? And if so, was it a test I wanted to pass?
I leaned down to his ear, holding him tight, hoping he didn’t take my question the wrong way. “Why?”
Armaeus smiled, a sad, knowing smile, aware even in the depths of his injury of all the various nuances between us.
“Not a test for you,” he assured me, though it looked like the effort to talk cost him. “For me.”
I bit my lip and looked again to Sariah, who’d strode halfway across the room toward me. Now she stood battle ready, her hands down and loose at her side, a gunslinger ready to draw at the slightest provocation.
“He’s not screwing with you, is he?” she asked. “Some sort of postjuicing gotcha?”
“I don’t care,” I admitted, and I didn’t. I returned my focus to the Magician, opening my mind to him as well as my heart as he seemed to collapse further into himself, his eyes drifting shut and his mouth going slack. I pulled every vestige of energy that I could from the core of my being and sent it pulsing out through my fingers as I gripped his arms steadily. I could feel the jolt of electricity as it moved along my nerves, gaining strength as all my energy, my power, all my everything poured into Armaeus.
And pour it did, since there was nothing there to stop it, no slightly burning synapses, no faintly glowing embers. The Magician had been wiped clean of his very essence, it seemed. He was an empty well that accepted my energy without reaction, so drained that he couldn’t even assist with his own healing. I stared in horror at the wreckage of Armaeus’s circuitry—the shattered nerve endings, the burnt-out filaments. I knew him as well as I knew myself, but how…how could I put him back together from virtually nothing?
I heard Sariah speak at one point, but I couldn’t respond. My hair felt like it had become electrified, my skin was hot, my blood practically bubbling in my veins. Energy built around us in a spiral, hemming us both in, but Armaeus didn’t move. I talked and coaxed and cried until I was hoarse—and nothing.
At some point, I slept.
I had to have, because when I came awake seemingly moments later, the two of us remained on the floor of the jet, blankets and pillows piled over us, as if they’d been tossed from a distance. I blinked and saw Sariah lying boneless on a far couch, while Kreios sat close to her head, his elbows on his knees, his eyes focused on Armaeus and me.
“Do you know what he did?” Kreios asked, the words so silent, I imagined he spoke in my mind. He slanted a glance toward the sleeping Sariah, and I realized he didn’t want to wake her. I shook my head the barest fraction. I couldn’t speak—my throat was parched, every ounce of moisture in me wrung out.
“He surrendered to you,” Kreios said. “He allowed himself to be weak and for you to make him strong. He pushed himself that far, dismantled himself completely, then forced you to put him back together again, all by sheer instinct.”
He spoke with a heavy weight to his words, and I squinted at him, trying to understand. “So?” I croaked.
“So, two things. One, your powers are amplifying, Sara Wilde. You are blending the yin with the yang, the new with the old. As Armaeus would say, this is a skill that bears much study. Second, you and Armaeus are tied together now completely, indelibly. In short, he cannot live without you. And should he die, when he dies, if you’re still among the living, every last shred of his power will accrue to you.”