“Usually both,” his uncle said.
Chapter 46
The shit hit the fan two days later.
My plan to confront Ashvial didn’t survive the meeting with ‘older and wiser heads’ at Osiris’s office. Not only did everyone there think it was a bad idea, but both my grandmother and Whittaker ordered me not to do it.
So, I was puttering around the office without much to do when the first word of the demon invasion came in. Someone turned on the large screen in the main office to the media reports. Whether it was hundreds or thousands of demons was unclear.
“The last I heard, the Rift was sitting in the middle of the Bay,” I said to Mychal. “It had to move for demons to come through.” Most demons didn’t like water. Among the issues fire and frost demons had with water was that they didn’t float, and they did require oxygen. But reports were that some new aquatic monsters had come across.
He was listening to his phone. “It seems to have opened in the Waste.”
Wonderful. No sane human being wanted to enter the area that was still radioactive after multiple nuclear bombings of Washington. The demons didn’t care, of course, and had turned it into the largest demon slum on the East Coast.
My phone rang. I saw it was Olivia and moved away from the crowd watching the screen so I could answer it.
“Hi, what’s up?”
“A lot of things. Three of our ships have been hijacked by pirates in the Pacific. Our offices in Vancouver are under attack by what appears to be a force of mercenaries, our air terminals in France have gone dark, and I’m getting reports of a large force of demons rampaging up the west bank of the Chesapeake. Anything interesting in your neck of the woods?”
“I’ve been watching media reports of that demon invasion.” My phone beeped, telling me I had another call.
Mychal tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hang on a minute,” I said to my grandmother. “What?” I asked Mychal.
“Kirsten says there’s a Rifter riot downtown.”
“Wonderful.” I looked at my phone’s screen and saw the other caller was Kirsten. “Grandmother, there’s also a riot downtown here, and I need to go help Kirsten.”
“Call me when you can. And be careful.”
I hung up and switched the call to Kirsten. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but it’s pretty scary down here. I closed the shop and have my wards set, and I turned on your little box things. But I’m afraid to leave. I don’t suppose I could talk you into an escort out of here, could I?”
“What happened to your security team?” I asked.
“They called for backup, and were told the cops aren’t letting anyone go downtown. I was hoping you might already be near.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Come to the back door.”
Mychal waited for me at the door and fell in beside me as I trotted to the elevator.
Figuring the motorcycle would be better than the car if the streets were blocked, I headed for it. Mychal got on the back.
“I don’t have a helmet for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can cover the whole bike with an air shield.”
We roared out of the parking garage and down the street in the direction of the harbor. Mychal monitored the situation on his phone and twice redirected me to avoid trouble spots. It was kind of unique to ride the motorcycle with no wind. I could easily hear him speaking to me.
A couple of blocks from Kirsten’s shop, I cut down an alley and followed it to the gate in the wall enclosing the shop’s backyard. As soon as we pulled up, the gate opened, and I gunned the bike through the opening. The gate swung shut after us.
I wanted to get a picture of what was going on around us, and that wouldn’t be possible from inside the shop. So, instead of going in the back door, I took the outside stairs to the roof. I could hear a lot of noise coming from the street in front of the shop, including glass breaking and the distinctive sound of magitek riot-control audio weapons. I stopped and plugged my police-issued ear protection into my ears, then resumed my climb.
The audio guns, emitting a painful noise just at the top end of human hearing, were doing their job. When we reached the roof and looked down, the street was mostly clear of anyone not wearing a cop uniform. I say mostly, because there were a couple of dozen people lying about, either hurt or dead—impossible for me to tell.
Beyond the street in front of us, I could see evidence of continued rioting in other parts of the harbor area. It appeared that some humans were involved, but most of the beings I could see were either vampires or minor demons. Normally, you wouldn’t see either of those groups out during the day, but it was completely overcast and threatening to rain.
“Distraction,” Mychal said.
“Yeah. I wonder from what.”
“The demon invasion from the Rift?”
“Possibly,” I answered, “but I bet it’s something closer.”
A massive explosion knocked both of us off our feet. When the shaking stopped, I looked up and saw a cloud of smoke and dust rising into the sky.
“What the bloody hell?” Mychal struggled to a sitting position, and then the world around us suddenly calmed. I realized he had cast an air shield around us.
“Let’s get inside,” I said. “Grab Kirsten and Julie, and get the hell out of here.”
I jumped up and headed for the stairs but ran into something invisible and solid. I had to wait for Mychal to catch up to me and move the bubble we were in before I could go any further.
Kirsten and Julie were waiting for us when we descended the stairs.
“What was that explosion?” Kirsten asked.
“The Palace of Commerce,” Mychal answered, looking at this phone screen. “Someone set off a magitek bomb.”
I gaped at him. “The place is warded, and the walls are magikally enhanced.”
“Yeah, that’s why I think it was a magitek bomb. Reports say there’s extensive damage and casualties.”
The Palace of Commerce was where the Families regulated and tracked trade. The Families, and anyone wanting to do business with the Families, negotiated and filed contracts there, and that was where the Families adjudicated disputes with one another. I couldn’t imagine who would want to bomb the place. It would throw the whole world into chaos.
My phone rang.
“James,” I answered.
“Are you all right?” Whittaker asked. “Is Novak with you?”
“Yeah, we’re okay. We’re down at the harbor. How about you?” Metropolitan Police Headquarters was only a block from the Palace.
“We’re fine. The bomb went off in front of the Palace’s main lobby. Danica, we could use both of you. There are a lot of people trapped in the rubble, and hopefully some of them are alive.”
“We’ll see you soon,” I said and hung up. Five faces stared at me. “Whittaker says they need Mychal and me for search and rescue. Can you guys get to our place if we give you a police escort to the freeway?”
We buttoned up the shop, and Kirsten cast additional wards on the greenhouses. Mychal and I accompanied the two women and their Findlay escorts to the edge of the downtown area and onto the freeway, then turned back toward police headquarters.
What we found there was an apocalyptic disaster. The Palace of Commerce was constructed in a U shape, consisting of a wide center building with two wings. The bombers had driven a truck into the middle of the complex and detonated it. The center section was reduced to rubble, as was part of the north wing. The south wing was still standing, but most of the windows were blown out.
Whittaker was leading the effort to find and extract anyone who survived the collapse. We found him—dirty and harried—at the disaster command center under the portal of the Arcane Division wing of Police Headquarters.
“About time you showed up,” he said when we presented ourselves. “Novak. There are collapsed floors. I need you to work with the other aeromancers to try and lif
t them so rescue workers can go in to find any survivors.”
He turned to me. “Dani, I don’t know what you can do, but anything will be appreciated.”
I turned around and surveyed the scene. There were a few bulldozers and cranes, with more arriving as I watched.
“Boss, Mychal and I speculated that the riot downtown might be a distraction. Have you thought about what this is distracting you from?”
He barked out a laugh that ended in kind of a sob. Taking a deep breath, he said, “No, I haven’t thought of that.” He picked up a phone and spoke into it, telling one of his captains to organize a war room to collect reports and track what was going on in the Metro area.
When he hung up, he said, “Next?”
“Your aeromancers should be used for macro lifting. If they combine their efforts, they should be able to lift entire floors. I can work with the machinery operators to enhance what they can do, help on a micro level digging through the wreckage between floors.”
I saw his shoulders sag. “You can do that? Work with machinery in real time?”
“Yeah. But I can work with only one machine at a time. Try to pull in all the magiteks you can. I know everyone’s in a hurry, but you’re going to have to be patient.”
Chapter 47
“Your mother is on the phone. She’s worried about you,” Kirsten said holding my shoulder and shaking me awake. “Tell her you’re all right.” She shoved the phone in my hand. “And when you’re through talking to her, your grandmother has called half a dozen times. I can’t put her off much longer.”
“What time is it?”
“Two o’clock in the afternoon. I tried to let you sleep.”
I had dragged in at five o’clock in the morning, bone tired, hungry, and feeling like I’d been beaten. We had pulled hundreds of bodies from the rubble, and far too few wounded.
“Mom?” I said, trying to open my eyes.
“Are you all right? I’ve been trying to call you, and you don’t answer. I finally called Kirsten.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, just tired. I was working all night.”
“My father called. He extended an invitation for you and me to come stay with him. They’re worried.”
All of a sudden, I was wide awake. If the Fae were worried, things were far a lot worse than I thought.
“You should go,” I said.
“Right. And leave you behind without even a bolt-hole? Level with me. What in the hell is going on?”
I took a deep breath. “Mom, I don’t know. Findlay is worried about a war with Akiyama. Ashvial is involved, but no one knows how or what his interest is. Some of the Hundred Families seem to be in the process of evening scores. There was a major incursion of demons through the Rift yesterday. The Palace of Commerce was bombed, and everyone assumes the bomb was magitek enhanced. There have been attacks on Family holdings and Rifter riots all over the world. So, you tell me what in the hell is going on.”
Silence on the other end of the line. The three smartest people I’d ever known were the people responsible for my existence. Dad I barely knew. I’d always considered it a toss-up as far as intelligence between Olivia and Mom. Very different interests and priorities, but minds as sharp and quick as anyone’s in the world. Definitely smarter than me. I waited, hoping she would suggest something different than my own dark thoughts. I waited quite a while.
“War,” she finally said. “Dear Goddess. The demons have convinced some of the Families to ally with them. I can’t believe they’d be that stupid.”
I felt a wave of cold numbness flow over me. What she said made too much sense, and I had been shying away from the same conclusion.
I worked through the implications in my head. “Akiyama must think that they won the Rifter War, and when they gain ascendancy over the other Families, they can subjugate the demons again,” I said.
“You know, your father would be proud,” Mom said. “That sounds about right, which proves that you’re smarter than the Akiyama leadership. I wouldn’t bet the demon lords learned nothing from the last war. Ashvial is at least as smart as any human I’ve ever met. If any of the Families are betting that way, then they’re idiots.”
“You need to talk to Olivia,” I said. “Mom, I can’t just bug out. Findlay saw this coming, and they want me to leave the police force and work for them. They need a magitek. And if we’re right, then the Fae aren’t going to be able to passively watch. They’re going to have to take sides.”
I heard her snort. “Good luck convincing them of that. They’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this mess. You know that there’s a picture of an elven queen next to the definition of ‘arrogant’ in the dictionary.”
“And pictures of Frank Novak, George Findlay, Akiyama Benjiro, and Ashvial right next to it.”
Peals of laughter were her response. When she stopped chuckling, she said, “I’ll call Olivia. You take care of yourself, okay? You’re not invulnerable, and you’re the only kid your father sired. The one thing Olivia and I ever agreed on is that we don’t want you ending the bloodline. Before you go to hell in a blaze of glory, we want an heir. Capisce?”
“Geez, just when I think we’re on the same page, you go and pull a mother on me.”
“You bet. Take care of yourself, and if you need a place to hide, or to stash Kirsten, I’m here.”
I didn’t tell her that getting pregnant was the least of my concerns. It had been a long time since anyone volunteered to take a stab at it, so to speak.
I got up and went into the kitchen to grab the cup of coffee Kirsten had poured for me.
“Mom says that if things get too weird here in the city, you can stay with her,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’ll keep it in mind, but I don’t want to abandon all the plants in my greenhouses. It’s taken me years to cultivate some of them to the point where they’re economically viable.”
“Well, don’t go downtown today. The situation isn’t exactly stable.”
Kirsten rolled her eyes, then without a word, switched on the media screen. I watched for about fifteen minutes, then reached over, and turned it off. Unstable was an understatement. The rescue operation at the Palace was continuing. The rioting downtown had intensified overnight, though the streets cleared when the sun came up.
And then there was the demon army marching north. The police estimated fifteen hundred demons had come through, and they added to their strength with denizens of the Waste. The reports of slaughter were bad enough, but they were also taking a lot of human captives.
I wolfed down a quick breakfast and called Olivia. From Findlay’s perspective, things had gone from bad to worse. They were hiring mercenaries and were negotiating a formal alliance with Novak.
She finished her update with, “Dani, wind up your business with the police. We need you.”
Kirsten came into my room while I got dressed. “Who profits from blowing up the Palace of Commerce?” she asked. “All this chaos happening at once can’t be coincidence. The guy on the newscast said no one has figured out what set off the riots. A demon invasion through the Rift? I mean, that’s happened maybe twice in our lifetime.”
“All good questions,” I said. “Mychal and I speculated yesterday that a lot of what we were seeing was distraction, but distraction from what? And this is only the tip of the iceberg. My grandmother told me Findlay has been attacked all over the world.”
Kirsten shrugged. “Don’t you detective types have some kind of mantra about ‘follow the money?’”
I stopped what I was doing and thought. The records at the Palace were duplicated at three other locations—Prague, Nanjing, and Buenos Aires, so little would actually be lost. Families and corporations headquartered in other parts of the world would be only slightly inconvenienced. But those Families headquartered in North America would experience significant disruption.
Then there were the Rifter riots, which were happening not only in the Mid-Atlantic Metro, but in Atlanta, V
ancouver, and Detroit, accompanied by a demon army in the Mid-Atlantic. If Akiyama and Ashvial were allied, it made some sense. How much would Akiyama have to pay for that kind of help?
I went to my computer and jacked into the datanet. I already knew the paths into both the Akiyama and Ashvial bank accounts, so it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. There were some recent transfers from Akiyama to Ashvial, but not large enough to buy his allegiance. The subsequent expenditures led me to conclude that Ashvial was probably funding the riots.
A thought struck me, and I called Osiris. When he answered, I asked, “When was Akiyama Benjiro last in North America?”
“Just a minute.” I waited for two minutes. “May of last year,” Osiris said. “He was in Vancouver for a week. Why?”
“And the last time in the Mid-Atlantic?”
“Oh, hell, it’s been several years. Definitely not since he assumed the Family leadership.”
“But you didn’t know Hiroku was here.”
“Hiroku is different. I can’t track every member of Akiyama’s leadership.”
“Thanks, Osiris.” I hung up.
Ashvial told me Johansson sold Sarah Benning to Benjiro. Either Ashvial had lied to me, which wouldn’t be a shock, or I had drawn the wrong conclusion when he told me that.
I finished dressing and gathered an assortment of toys and weapons, loading them into my saddlebags. The laser rifle I slung across my back.
“Kirsten,” I called out as I got ready to leave the house, “I’m going to see Ashvial. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
I didn’t wait for her to protest or insist on coming with me. I rode past her shop on the way to Lucifer’s Lair. There was a fair amount of damage to businesses in the area, including to one of the shops next door to hers, but her wards had held, and her place was untouched by the violence.
Chapter 48
Ashvial’s nightclub, likewise, looked pristine in comparison to the damage to the businesses surrounding it. The parking lot was empty, and I didn’t see any demon guards. The rioters obviously knew it was a place to avoid. I wondered if a demon lord projected some kind of aura of power or evil that I couldn’t detect, or maybe it was because he orchestrated the riots.
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