by Jenn Stark
Danae’s words were icy. “I have your report, Kreios, but your information only scratches the surface. Our research is turning up far more than demons. We’re talking creatures or sorcerers using illusion magic, animals behaving unpredictably, and mentions of supernatural creatures attacking in the night. We’re even getting stories of shifters.”
I blinked. “Shifters? You mean like werewolves? I didn’t think that was a real thing.”
The Magician finally spoke at this, his grim chuckle drawing my attention. “All stories have some kernel of truth to them, Miss Wilde. In this case, however, I think we are dealing more with deception and illusion, to stir up the faithful and distract the foolish.”
“You don’t know that,” the Emperor said, leaning forward. For the first time I noticed his energy was tight, almost electric, causing him to bounce in his seat. “This is the Moon we’re talking about here. The Moon rules animals as well as shapeshifting magic. The fact that we haven’t seen werecreatures on this planet other than in highly stratified pockets could be because the Moon has not walked the earth in so long. If she returns, it could change everything.”
“Or that could be what we are being led to believe,” the Magician countered.
“Exactly,” Danae put in virtually. “When Qadir suggested what we were seeing was likely the result of the Moon’s machinations as well as his own recent ascension, it made perfect sense.”
“You see? I am eminently sensible,” Qadir agreed, beaming as he spread his arms wide.
Danae shot him a bemused glance, then pushed on. “But it could also be someone putting these stories out there hoping to trip the triggers of people looking for the Moon and the Star. Helping us along to see what we’re wanting to see. I don’t spend much time keeping tabs on the covens anymore, but I checked, and there’s been some unusual activity there too, particularly in the northeast United States, but to some extent all over the world. More initiates seeking to join—and some long-term members expressing an interest in splintering off, forming smaller, more specialized groups, or even breaking free entirely of the coven system and going rogue. There’s just a lot of energy circulating with nowhere specific to go.”
Armaeus turned to Tesla. “Ungrounded energy is your area of expertise. Have you noticed anything unusual?”
Tesla didn’t answer at first, his gaze darting from one of Simon’s tech toys to the next with rapt fascination, but at length, he focused on Armaeus. He preened under the Magician’s attention, clearly happy to be asked. More than anyone, the Hanged Man of the Arcana Council was deeply in touch with the electrical networks of magic that circled the globe.
“There’s definitely something happening, something new,” he said softly in his rich Eastern European accent. “Not entirely of this plane. Spontaneous eruptions of electrical energy are surging along the circuits, overloading power grids and causing shorts where the weather shouldn’t be causing any issues. The two most recent flares of particular power were in southern Peru, and in Cairo.” He flicked his glance toward Armaeus. “That second energy blip shorted out quite quickly, though. The first was sustained for a longer arc, with no discernible local source. It simply…appeared. If anyone was watching, they would have noticed it, and wondered what it was.”
Armaeus shrugged, but my tension ratcheted up a notch. Too many indicators were pointing to Peru. Whoever was behind this summons, they were clearly hedging their bets. “You mean it was like a beacon? It could draw others in even if they weren’t sure why?”
Tesla spread his pale long-fingered hands. “It could, Justice Wilde. It certainly could.”
“We’ve got to get there first, then.” I turned to Nigel. “I don’t suppose you know someone in Peru we could use to show us around?”
“Of course.” He smiled with his usual offhanded unconcern, though I knew he was bursting to get going already. “I have a local man there, someone I worked with back in my hunting days, who will serve admirably. I’ve already put a call out to him, and it turns out he remembers Roland too—and has recent information on the man’s whereabouts, which were, as it happens, in Peru. We can leave at your word.”
“But to what end, ultimately?” Eshe asked, speaking up for the first time in her haunting, haughty voice. She flipped back her long braided hair with a bracelet- and ring-bedecked hand, her heavily outlined eyes wide with feigned guilelessness. “What is it you hope to find in locating the Moon, bringing her into the light? Even saying that sounds ridiculous. If she stirs, she stirs. Until she takes some action, what do we care?”
“As with all things, the goal of the Arcana Council is to ensure the balance of magic,” Kreios put in when Armaeus didn’t speak. “If the Moon does step out of the shadows, we’d do well to make contact with her before anyone else can.”
“I don’t know, I think I agree with Eshe,” the Emperor protested. “If this ancient Arcana Council member proves a threat to the Council, then yes, there is some reason for concern. But there’s no need to ambush her, or show our hand prematurely. Let her come to us. We’re the ones who’ve sat atop the hierarchy of the Connected all these long centuries. We’re the ones who’ve done the work, while she hid herself away. We bow and scrape to no one.”
“That’s not the point, though, right?” Simon said, swiveling around to frown at the Emperor. The sharpness of his tone made me blink. “We’re a team—one team. We’re the Council. If one of our own comes out of the woodwork, we’re not going to sit back and say, ‘Hey, good luck following the yellow brick road to find us, watch out for the flying monkeys.’ We’re going to turn out to welcome them.”
“And I’m sure having you there to welcome an ancient sorceress of the Moon’s status will make her want to join the ‘team’ right away,” the Emperor scoffed. “No. We should assess the danger she represents—and the opportunity—and take best advantage. This…sorceress, for lack of a better word, has remained hidden for thousands of years. We know nothing about her. We should hold the power position, not her.”
The High Priestess folded her hands upon the table. “Bring her here, yes. But Viktor is right. If you treat this random stranger like our master, she will quickly ascend to that level, whether we want her to or not.”
“And if you treat her like your slave?” Armaeus asked quietly. “Will that be to our benefit? Or merely chase her back into the shadows?”
Viktor muttered something beneath his breath, but no one else spoke for a long minute. I studied the assembled Council with growing trepidation. A break was coming here. I could feel it. A break that had potentially dire complications. But would these demigods actually go to battle against each other—some of them aligning with the Shadow Court? Was that even possible?
I didn’t have time to chase those errant thoughts further as the Devil turned to me. “Justice, assemble your team. You’re going to Peru.”
“On it.” I tapped my pocket, triple-checking that the Moon’s ring was still there, and bit back a smirk as Nigel managed not to sigh too audibly in relief.
Kreios glanced around the room. “Armaeus, I need you here to work with any deeply buried memories Qadir may still have left over from the previous Sun, but the rest of you, the choice is yours. There are now likely a half dozen teams of hunters who have taken up this quest, so we have to move fast. Who wishes to go with Sara to find the Moon, bearing in mind that none of us in this room is unkillable?”
I slanted the Devil a sharp glance as his words echoed my own earlier thoughts. The Council seemed unimpressed with the warning, but it was Nikki who stepped forward first.
“Done,” she said.
Nigel chimed in right behind her. “Of course.”
But over all of them came a third voice, hard and clear and more resolute than I’d ever heard it.
“Count me in,” the Fool said.
17
We decamped for the Council’s jet. By the time we completed the approximately eight-hour flight to Peru, it was full dark. We arrived in C
usco as the bars and nightclubs were hopping, and I could tell from the gleam in my traveling partners’ eyes that this was not going to be an early night. The energy of the high-altitude city beat like a living thing. Everywhere we went, I could sense the excitement of the hunt mingling tight with the celebration of simply being.
“You know it’s not an easy hike to Choquequirao,” I warned, though my heart wasn’t really in keeping anyone from a beer.
Nikki scoffed. “Yeah, I bet the hike is a bitch for ordinary hikers, what with the two days through the jungle, wild animals and bugs the whole way. If only we had a hike leader who could throw fireballs from her hands to clear our path. And you know as well as I do we can cover that ground in about thirty minutes if we wanted to.”
“Which I, for the record, still want to,” Nigel put in. This had been a point of contention nearly the whole flight down, with Nigel and Nikki advocating for the fastest approach to the hidden city that his contact had named as Roland’s last known location, while the Fool maintained a steadfast insistence on reaching the city on foot. As we approached the brightly lit nightclub closest to our hotel, Nigel continued his lament anew. “We can be careful not to land anywhere we shouldn’t, but we have the advantage here, and we should use it. We can even drop in close to Choquequirao without actually landing square on top of it. We’ve done it before.”
Simon shook his head. “And I’m telling you, you’re missing the entire point. I’ve done an extensive study of the secondary stream of glyphs that were on you, Nigel, beneath the message to come save this Roland guy, as well as the ones Armaeus viewed on Douglas Fricker. Both of them are chock-full of warnings not to cut corners. There are a half dozen lost cities that people are going to be descending on—maybe more. It wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve got competition here, though I’m thinking most of them would head for Machu Picchu and the temple of the moon there, not Choquequirao, no matter where Roland ended up. Doesn’t matter. If the other hunters see us tearing off out of Cusco like a bat out of hell, it’s going to tip them off.”
Nigel arched his brows. “I have never rushed off anywhere like a bat out of hell,” he informed Simon coldly. “Discretion would, of course, be paramount.”
The Fool waved him off. “This isn’t your typical hunt. The players or the Connecteds behind them are all going to be higher level, and they’ll be attuned to any magic in play. If they detect a disturbance in the Force, they’re gonna follow it.”
“Enough. We go on foot, as stealthily as possible,” I finished the argument when Nigel opened his mouth again. He rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue anymore.
“Then tonight, we have a drink,” he announced, as if that logic followed. “I’ve staggered my way through more jungles than I can count half looped out of my mind. I don’t need to be sober for this one.”
“And we need to meet our guide anyway,” Nikki said, the soul of reason. “We don’t know, he may want us to take off tonight.”
“Perish the thought,” Nigel muttered as two young women passed us, laughing and jostling each other as they entered the bar. He glanced their way, and Nikki grinned.
“I don’t need to be a psychic to know you’re not getting lucky tonight, buddy, so you can give up that idea right now. What’s our guide’s name again? He’s meeting us when?”
The two of them continued their banter as they entered 7 Angelitos, one of Cusco’s most famous bars. As had been clear from some distance, the place was rocking with an ebullient band at the front of the building space, while cheek-to-jowl dancers filled every open square foot inside. I could sense the haze of magic in the air as well, a fluttering energy that seemed to shift with the rising tide of humanity.
The Fool noticed it too. “Those are protection spells,” he said. “Very low level, frankly, barely more than a mist of Lysol. But effective.”
I nodded. The world had become a much deadlier place over the past few years, with illnesses of every stripe striking the unsuspecting. Those establishments that had the ability to keep their clientele safe had become very adept at it. Their methods weren’t exactly ones that could be adopted as government policy, but arguably, they should be.
All further conversation among us ceased as we stepped into the chaos.
The place could have been any bar in any city, with loud music, dancing bodies of all ages, and alcohol flowing at an ever-increasing pace. The cool temperatures of southern Peru were nowhere in evidence here, and the sultry air of the bar hung close. Nikki turned to Nigel and pounded him on the shoulder.
“Go take the kid to the dance floor,” she said, hooking a thumb toward Simon. “Don’t get into any trouble I can’t get you out of.”
“Hey, you know I was born before either of you assholes, right?” Simon pointed out, but Nigel just laughed and grabbed him by the shoulder, urging him deeper into the room.
“That should prove to anyone that we’re here having a good time,” Nikki mused, and I glanced around as casually as possible. We’d already drawn the attention of several small groups of people. Their focus became heightened as they tracked Simon across the room.
“There are so many of them,” I muttered. “Who the hell thought summoning all these hunters was a good idea?”
“Someone looking to understand the playing field.” Nikki somehow had already managed to score two beers.
“Yeah,” I agreed, taking one from her. “This does have all the hallmarks of a player who hasn’t been paying that much attention, but who now wants to get up to speed quickly. Trouble is, that introduces almost as many questions as it settles. Why was this agent so out of the loop? Why the rush to get up to speed? Who’s behind all this?”
The Fool had given us the rundown of possible kingpins from his review of the Shadow Court, but those agents didn’t seem to be in motion. This was a different group, I was pretty sure. Or at the very least, an additional group.
“I gotta tell you, dollface, I don’t like it,” Nikki said with a distinct heaviness to her voice. “I’ve been tracking what’s going on back in Vegas with Dixie and Sariah, and there’s a unmistakable sense of anxiety hanging over the Connected there too. Like something big’s about to break, only no one knows what it is. If they’re feeling it in Vegas, you can bet they’re not alone. I think we’re going to be facing some clashes between Connected groups, clashes that will eventually draw the attention of local governments, whether we like it or not. That’ll put the Connecteds of the world in danger, which at any other time would just result in garden-variety persecution. But now…”
“But now the Connecteds will be coming out in force, and they’ll be thinking they can fight back, courtesy of the Shadow Court and all the disinformation they’ve been sowing.” I blew out a breath. “If the Connecteds start a war—or if they’re outed during a public war between the Shadow Court and the Arcana Council—they’ll be annihilated. And then there won’t be any magic left except that belonging to the Shadow Court and their cronies—and those allied with the Arcana Council.”
“Pretty much.” Nikki took a long pull on her beer.
I rolled my own bottle in my hand, considering. What I’d just said was true, but it still wasn’t the entire problem. I’d been sensing it for some time, this growing sense of uneasiness, of outright anger. Some of it had been fomented by the Shadow Court, sure, but some of it went beyond the Shadow Court’s influence. There was a restlessness among the Connecteds of the world, a need to be recognized. The Arcana Council had worked for centuries, even millennia, to keep all the various Connected societies under the radar, out of the common view. But the world was a different place from when Armaeus had first taken the helm as head of the Council. Even Armaeus was a different person now, all his centuries of prudence, his careful, methodical steps, giving way to a wilder, even reckless energy. Did he know something he wasn’t sharing? And how much would my ignorance cost me?
On impulse, I reached out with my mind, the barest touch to see if I could register the Magic
ian’s presence. In times past, such an outreach would always be met with an equal and opposite force, almost too much of a force, as the Magician seemed constantly attuned to my thoughts, my movements, always wanting to understand more about me. I’d had to work hard to keep my mental barriers strong, to keep him out of my business except for when I wanted his attention. Which had been rarely.
Now, however, as had been happening more frequently, there was no sense of the Magician on the other side of my touch, no hint of his focus. I didn’t doubt Armaeus’s affection for me, so the realization didn’t make me angry; it didn’t even make me sad.
It did worry me, however. I’d seen the Magician depleted to the point of exhaustion all too recently. Was he doing that more and more? And if so, why? What pursuit was occupying his focus so much that he would allow himself to grow incredibly weak, and what would happen if I wasn’t there to heal him in a time of need? Did he even need my healing help as much as he sometimes led me to believe? He was, after all, a master of illusion when he wanted to be. It was not unreasonable to think he’d overstated his need for me, for reasons of his own.
As if this last realization finally broke through the Magician’s focus, a soft gentle laugh rippled through my mind.
“Never doubt my need for you, Miss Wilde,” he said. “You will always be my last best defense against any enemy. But look sharp, your guide approaches, and it’s…an unlikely one.”
Even as he spoke these words in my mind, Nikki shifted beside me, hissing out a low breath as a dark-haired, deeply suntanned man skulked toward us, lean, small, and feral.
“You know him?” she asked, but I shook my head. Nigel had recommended the guy, but I’d never seen him before. Still, his face brightened as he glanced our way and caught sight of us. He moved toward us with the scuttling fervor of a scorpion, and it was all I could do not to edge back slightly as he grinned.
“Good. You’re here,” he announced in heavily accented English. “I am Emilio. There are a bunch of expeditions starting out tomorrow morning, half a dozen all going the wrong direction, three more going the right one. We start early.” He narrowed his eyes at me, then at Nikki, nodded, then he turned toward the dance floor, his head moving quickly from side to side, as if he couldn’t scan with just his eyes. He stopped, and I didn’t need to follow the line of sight to know he’d pinpointed Nigel and Simon.