The sky just above the old Ford scrapyard was obscured by a storm system, a miniature hurricane, still large enough to loom over a dozen city blocks. A few things were particularly worrying about this. It was uncomfortably low to the ground, barely higher than some of the taller buildings in Detroit. It was rotating counterclockwise, in defiance of generally accepted meteorological science. And the frequent flashes of lightning in the churning mass of clouds flared with an eldritch, emerald hue.
I had hoped Irish and I could deal with the outlander issue quietly, before the Knights and the rest of the Arcana got involved. Looking up, watching the clouds spinning above and seeing how they were steadily picking up speed, I felt that hope wither and die. The Knight of Pentacles had just thrown his hat in the ring. Damian. He almost never left his penthouse, but then he was a thaumaturgist – he didn’t have to. With the right spell, he could hit his targets from a continent away. It might take a while to work out the spell, but he was a patient man.
Irish! Holy hell, I had to get out of here! If the Knights were here … if they found me with him, I was toast.
I snatched my Edison witchlight out of the air, killing the light and vaulting over the hood of the car. Benny hollered something after me as I sprinted away, toward the open aisle at the end of the row of fallen stacks. I wasn’t too worried about Benny just now, though. He’d hang around until I had a chance to come collect him.
My head was spinning, as implications lined up. Irish was fighting someone who was shooting back at him, so it probably wasn’t the outlander. The rubble was blocking my route back to the street, where my car was probably waiting for me. My car! Had the Knights seen the car?
My shadow fanned out, feeling for the fastest route out, but carefully, oh, so carefully. The Knights would be looking for our outlander, of course. It was what they did, and I had no way of knowing what sort of detection spell Damian might be using, so no way of knowing how to avoid being detected. Also, the shadow was sentient, which meant that if Grace was around, I had to keep my mind and the shadow’s extra quiet. Crap! It slowed us down, but there was nothing for it.
I’d made a fair distance, more than halfway from the plant itself to the far end of the yard, and the fence with my car and escape waiting just beyond, when the shadow felt/tasted that otherworldly stink again, but a lot stronger this time. It stopped me cold, and made me bend over and fight a series of dry heaves. I cloaked myself in darkness and silence, but tried to keep the effect as subtle as I could just in case, and crept away to my left. Despite my fear and my desire to get the fuck out of here, I couldn’t help but snarl as my shadow’s urge to kill the invader in our city, our territory, reared up in the back of my mind. I had to see it. I had to know what I was going to kill.
There was a big old forklift parked at the end of this row. Moving on knuckles and tiptoes, I eased myself into the shadow between the rack and the oversized tires. I could see into a sort of clearing, a place where several of the rows converged into an open space. A man was standing there, his arms held out to his sides, palm down, head was thrown back and face up towards the maelstrom above. A small black device sat on a stack of tires to his right, and from it red laser light projected an ornate circle at his feet. His feet which, incidentally, weren’t touching the ground. His tightly curled black hair was being tossed about by the increasingly violent wind, and his voice was deep and low as he chanted something in ancient Greek. It was Damian himself. Oh, joy.
And that unearthly taint was emanating from somewhere down the open row he was facing, in waves so palpable I should have been able to see it. Okay, though, that wasn’t so bad. It looked like Damian was on the job, and if he killed or banished our invader, then all right. Win/win, right? I was just about to sneak away, when I heard footsteps running up from behind me.
My shadow jerked all her feelers out of the gloom and back home to me, wrapping me up a frosty shroud of darkness. Cloaked in her influence, I hunkered down and thought hard about why I’d never gotten that invisibility ring working.
A woman jogged past my hiding place and into the clearing and I had to cover my mouth to smother a gasp, even though I’d half expected to see her here. Knights never work alone, and someone had been shooting at Irish. Tyler didn’t use guns; hated guns, in fact. He preferred to throw lightning or fire. And Grace was an enchantress, she would fight with thoughts and emotions, not bullets. But Jada Lewis, the Knight of Cups? She liked guns just fine.
Jada looked bad. She was as filthy and crud-coated as I was, and though she didn’t so much as limp, she looked like she’d been put through a thresher. Her suede jacket was all torn up, and her right sleeve was missing, revealing a network of fresh pink scars all over her arm. Her jeans were in similar condition, and her right leg also covered in scars. Blood, too, and if those injuries were still showing scars it meant the blood was probably hers.
“God, Day, are you done yet?” She flipped her long wavy hair out of her face, and I was treated to a front row seat of the mangled mess that used to be her beautiful face. Her dark brown skin was in ribbons, hanging off her skull. While I watched, she reached up and scooped a bloody mass of gunk out of her right eye socket, flicking it to the ground in disgust. A new eye grew in the empty socket, even as she lifted a section of broken cheekbone back into place beneath it.
Damian looked over his shoulder at her, and flinched, but other than that he didn’t move. “Jada! What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m running on fumes, here, and that damned Irishman just won’t stop! Day, this guy’s not vanilla human. He’s got some kind of magic.”
“He’s a healer, too?”
She laughed. Rather than bother holding the tatters of her cheek and brow together, she was just pulling off anything that was loose, and forcing new skin to grow in place. And she laughed while she did it. Jada scared me sometimes.
“No, but he’s something. He’s going toe to toe with me, and giving as good as he gets. We got some bad intel on this Order – they aren’t all ordinary hunters.” She gestured at her much-improved face, and her tattered clothes. “He threw a forklift at me, Day.”
Damian looked pale, but still didn’t move. He was holding the spell, of course. It was a knack of his that I envied. He could start a spell and set it aside, ready to be finished later, like an equation with a variable or two left out.
“And now? Did you get him?”
“Um, no. I don’t think so. I left him under a ton of scrap metal, but it won’t hold him long. I tried that a couple times already and he would just turn up in front of me a few minutes later. I don’t think he’s going to give up.”
“Cover me, then. I’ll finish this fast.” He went back to his chanting, and the projector sent ruby-etched runes of laser light dancing in motion around the increasingly complex circle.
Jada suddenly stiffened, and sniffed the air suspiciously. That was my cue to leave. I inched backwards, until I was out of her line of sight, and trusted the violent wind to obscure my scent. The shadow eased up on my coverage so that I could better see where we were going. I’d managed to get a few hundred yards away when a big hand clamped down over my mouth and I was seized from behind.
Irish hissed in my ear, “Alice. I’ve been all over this damn yard and I haven’t seen one dog-monster, but I have been fighting for my life. Did you lead me into a trap?”
“Crr-mmphsmph,” I said. He still had his hand on my mouth. He removed it, grudgingly. “Cur-ruptions. ‘Cause they’re Corruptions, and curs.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and sighed into my ear. “Sometimes I hate you so much, Alice. Now is one of those times.”
I kicked his shin, hard, but he didn’t let me go. “It wasn’t a trap, you idiot. I’m trying to get out of here before those two realize I’m here and kill me! And you didn’t see any of the cur-ruptions because while you were off playing whose-is-bigger I killed fourteen of them, okay?” I nodded away from the clearing, “Come on, the car is over there!”
“Fourteen? Where are the bodies?”
“Maybe twelve. I was busy not getting ripped into puppy chow, it was hard to count. And they’re burned, and under the rubble over there.”
“Convenient.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “That woman. What is she? She heals like a vampire, but a stake through the heart didn’t kill her.” He still hadn’t let me go, and in fact his grip had tightened. My shadow was curled into a small ball in my mind, and for the millionth time I wished she wasn’t so scared of him. “Tell me, Alice. Is she Corrupted, too? Is she responsible for this?”
“If I tell you, will you let go of me?” He nodded. “Fine. She’s a magician, like me.” His grip tightened again, and my ribs creaked. “Aaaa! Stop that!” I hissed.
“Yer lying to me.”
“I am not! I make artifacts, right? Well, she’s a healer. And keep your voice down, will you? It’s windy, but she has really good hearing.”
“A healer.”
“Yes! Look, that means that she can do some really impressive things with the human body, okay? Especially her own body. She has incredibly acute senses, and her bones are as hard as concrete. Her muscles are dense, knitted like Kevlar. She can control her own glands, too, crank up her adrenaline, extra endorphins so she can’t feel the pain. Hurt her, and the wounds heal so fast that it’s like they never happened. Sound about right?”
He grunted, and nodded again. “Yes, that explains a lot.” He still didn’t let me go, though.
I let out a little purr, and wiggled my ass against him. “You know, I’m starting to like this, Irish.” I don’t know who was more horrified, Irish or my shadow. They both gasped in outrage, him in my ear and her in my mind, and he let go of me so fast I nearly fell on my face.
“You…!” he sputtered. I turned around, smirking, and stopped when I saw him. His coat was torn and punctured, though not as bad as Jada’s outfit. He had a black eye, and a split lip, and his nose was twisted, as though it had been broken and set badly before it healed, years ago. But half an hour ago, it had been perfectly straight.
“She hit you?” I stepped forward, and touched his face. His nose wasn’t tender, though he didn’t like me touching the swollen tissue around his eye.
“Yes. So?”
“So I’ve seen her put her fist through a car door. Why aren’t you dead?”
He smiled. “I am wrapped in the Armor of God, Alice. Mind you, she hits hard, I’ll give you that. But there is no power greater than that of the Almighty.”
“You always say that.” I waved his words off as pure foolishness, although I have to admit, I was starting to wonder. An artifact would explain things, but I’d never sensed one on him before. “You’re bleeding,” I pointed out, and gave him a quick frisk under the pretense of checking for wounds. Physical contact might help me tell if he had an artifact on him. I might be able to feel the current of power.
“Will you stop that?” He brushed my hands away, annoyed, and blushing, too, I think. Hard to tell in the dark.
“Oh, stop being such a prude,” I rolled my eyes and moved behind him, running my hands across his broad shoulders and down his back. There was a tear in his coat, and there was gravel ground into a huge scrape down his shoulder blade. The other shoulder had been protected by the scabbard he wore under his coat. I brushed the grit out of the wound, and blood flowed. Despite the nose, he didn’t seem to be healing with any kind of supernatural speed.
“Ow!” He shrugged my hand off, and when he did, I caught a flash of color from under his shirt.
“Hold still!” I snapped, and grabbed the edges of his ripped shirt. He pulled to get away, just as I thought he might, and the shirt ripped some more. I could see the edge of a tattoo on his back. Some kind of stylized cross, I thought. “Hey, I didn’t know you had ink.”
I barely touched it, fingers brushing over the edge of the tat as he slipped my grip, and a shock ran all the way up my arm.
Jackpot. That was an artifact, all right, embedded right into his skin. It was a strong one, too.
He shrugged me off again, and turned to face me. “That is none of your business, witch!”
I held up my hands, and looked as innocent as I could. “Okay, fine! Look, can we go now?” My mind was racing, though. No wonder I hadn’t sensed it before, the damn thing was a part of him! It could explain so much, too – the Ordermen’s reputed resistance to magic, his combat prowess, maybe even the way he resisted the explosion in front of my shop earlier. I had to get a better look at that tat. The shadow whimpered, registering her vote that we avoid it and him at all costs. Overruled, shadow. This is too big.
“Go?”
“Yes!” I whispered. “Depart, amscray, vamoose, skedaddle! There are two Knights of the Arcana over there dealing with whatever slipped in from the utangards! If they can’t handle it, they can call in more Knights. A lot more! The problem is as good as dealt with! I got the cur –” he glowered at me again, and I revised it to “ – the dog-monsters, so that issue is a done deal, too! Good guys win! Let’s get out of here, alive, and go have a beer!” He frowned, looking back toward where Damian and Jada were. “Come on, man,” I implored, throwing up my hands in the universal gesture for what else could you possibly want? “It’s Miller Time!”
“No. You can go, but that woman saw me. The witch dies tonight.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not you. Her.”
“Her name is Jada. She’s a nurse, and a healer. She saves lives, Irish. Leave it be, and let’s go.”
He looked at the ground, and heaved a sigh. After a moment of silence, he fished around under his jacket and pulled a flask out of his back pocket. “It’s not that simple, Alice. She’s seen me. She’s fought me. She knows too much about me and, by extension, she knows too much about the Order. If all of that gets out …” He took a long drink and grimaced. “There are people who would die. People I know, and complete strangers. Brothers-in-arms in other cities and other countries, and innocents whose only crime was that they recognize my face. Your Arcana has done it before, under similar circumstances.”
There wasn’t a lot I could say to that. It was true. The Arcana didn’t mess around, or play it safe. With something like this, something that involved the Order of St. Heinrich… oh yeah. Scorched earth all around.
He took another drink, and put the flask away. Finally, I shrugged.
“I know all that, too, Irish. Maybe more.”
“Aye.” The look he gave me was very cold, very calculating. Even with the black eye he managed a stare that said explicitly that I was already dead. Judgment had been made, and the sentence just hadn’t been carried out yet. “Don’t remind me, Alice.”
A quip. Now would be a good time to say something endearing and funny so Irish and I could laugh this off and go our separate ways … My mind raced.
I had nothin’.
Irish’s glare softened, and if anything, he looked a little sad. “I am sorry,” he said. “I wish… I mean…” His hand waved a little at his side as he searched for words. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
The shadow swelled in my mind, intent on cloaking me and the whole area in darkness. We had to run! Flee! Wordlessly, she screamed in terror and urged me to get as far away as I could, as fast as possible. It was all I could do to clamp down on her with my will, hold her still and prevent anything from happening that Irish could see. The effort made my brow bead with sweat.
Sure, that’s it. It was the mental strain and not my own stark terror adding to the shadow’s fear. Sure.
Suddenly Irish was moving. I had time to squeak and trip over my own heels as he lunged at me, reaching out to me and drawing his sword with his other hand.
Table of Contents / Chapter Nine >>
Black Alice by Marci Sischo and James Agle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
SiteMeter.com:
People Are Saying...