Days 24-25: 4,701 words; 41,727 total

Part 9: Bringing down the house

Maps turn even the coziest, darkest alleys into lines and letters, clean and sharp and all too simple.

I've never trusted them.

I didn't intend to start so now, even though everyone else seemed hell-bent on running over my intended route until they could run it backwards and blindfolded themselves. I saw no point to it. I knew where I would have to go.

For a moment, I toyed with the idea of not following the route at all. There were enough empty cellars in that corner of New Granada, enough places where no-one would hear screams.

Can it, Rachel, I told myself. You know the vamps are way better at torturing people than you have any hope of being.

Arthur was in his element as he walked around the parlor and made sure everyone remembered their roles. He even had a reed to wave around. I was tempted to find a shako for him.

He saw me looking at him. "Are you sure of the power balance?" he asked. "I would prefer if you had two bodyguards and arrived there in a car."

I searched for printable ways of telling him to stop questioning me. Finally I settled for a shrug before I turned on my heel and slunk off to rejoin Kirill by the wall. Arthur commenced another re-run of the plan, stopping every once in a while to question someone about their role in it. He made sure to pick on other vampires more often than on the werewolves in the room.

"You won't tell me to rethink this?" I put my head on Kirill's shoulder. With yesterday's whirlwind pace, neither of us had felt like talking it all through the night before.

"I trust your judgment." His fingernails scraped my neck, just sharp enough to make me shiver. "I know you don't take unnecessary risks."

"I did get away from the suckers once."

"They will be alerted." He lowered his head until he could whisper directly in my ear. "Their agents in the Alhambra will have told them of your role in the investigation. They considered you a danger even before."

"And they were right." I barely bothered to vocalize, trusting his vampire ears to hear me either way. "How do you know there are spies?"

"That's what you think, isn't it?"

We shared a smile as I realized that Kirill had been the one to talk Arthur into not involving any Alhambra presence in the plan, even before I could get to them. "Stop being so damn sweet," I hissed. "You're making me blush."

"Is that possible?" He was close enough that I could see every individual eyelash as they fell down over his eyes. Suddenly he looked serious. "Don't get distracted."

"Never." I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

Then I walked out. I wondered how long it would take everyone to notice the action had started.

Simon caught up with me before I'd gone past the front door, of course. It takes a lot more than a head start to shake loose a werewolf, and Simon was completely psychotic on top of that.

His empty head made a nice ringing sound as I knocked it into a wall. He must not have expected that, since he just blinked and grinned.

"Paws to yourself," I hissed.

He took it in stride and bounced up to my side again. I hoped he would be just as untiring in worrying at our enemies. Virgil swore up and down Simon was his best wolf, but I've never trusted him farther than Anton could throw him, which amounted to about forty feet the last time we carried out that particular experiment.

A click of heels announced that Genevieve was at my back as well. I threw her a pair of shades, heard the impact of plastic on leather as she caught them in a gloved hand.

"They'll have our descriptions, and they'll know we know they have them," I explained as I put my own pair on. The world took on a faint golden sheen. "Let's look like we're trying to pass under the radar."

"Hello, fieldwork pro." Genevieve's laugh was bright, infectious. "So what now, do we hold hands?"

"You two, yes." This deserved doing it properly, so I took out the knife from my forearm-sheath and sliced a shallow line across the back of my hand. "And don't look away from me, no matter what happens. Get ready to run."

Mind, sight, words. "Lady of the Labyrinths..."

The streets of Clearview were not the perfect place to get lost, but it's been a long time since I needed to be that literal, not with time and a clear mind to guide me. I imagined the labyrinth on the pavement in front of me, lines crossing and curving and disappearing into the mist that was my thoughts.

And then I stepped forward.

Foot over foot, and then both of my feet in the air at the same time before hitting pavement, cobblestones, rushes. The crackle of bones, a bird skull crumbling, and I almost fell, but the momentum held. Following my nose, my mouth open in a soft u, directing air to olfactory cells that had vanished several evolutionary steps ago.

Behind me, Genevieve's heels and Simon's Docs, and his mouth would be open the same way, I knew.

Steps, crumbling stone and then iron, and wood that threatened to give in under my feet. I felt an instinct to jump, and in the next moment it was sand, sliding and slipping down the side of a dune, and I took a deep breath and felt it.

The entertainment quarter smelled of sweat and blood and opium smoke, olfactory shorthand several centuries old. There had been a Chinese prostitution district large enough to rival San Francisco's, I remembered, and there was still one boarded-up house where disease of the brain reached through a century of death and pushed everyone away, leaving the ghosts of the whores to rest where they had fallen.

We hit the ground running, and I was pleased to see that I'd aimed it well, an empty alley three blocks to the south of Charlie's place. I let Simon and Genevieve catch their breath as I licked the blood from my hand and wiped the droplets from my face.

"What a way to fly." Genevieve looked a little rankled. "You do that often?"

"Comes in handy if you can't hail a cab." My thoughts were elsewhere. "Let's hit it."

I didn't wait for their confirmations before I set off. I caught the rhythm of the crowd quickly: Friday night on St Germain, any sin and any fun you care to name and a host you'd rather not. A punk bumped into me, I let loose a stream of Yiddish profanities that got me an applause from a working girl, a guy in a checkered shirt took offense with the punk, I ducked the melee and went straight into a break dance shout-out on the sidewalk, battle of the bands with joint damage optional. They whistled at me as I pranced through, and Gloria Estefan invited us all to do the conga. Kids.

I skipped the line at Charlie's again, blew Rocky a kiss and endured his ribbing on my tastes for undead bloodthirsty jailbait. I got offended on Anton's behalf, though not enough to make me stop.

It was pushing on the witching hour, and the club was rocking. The cages were full now, girl- and boy-flesh flexing in the strobe lights, flashing red and green and purple like a circle of hell for the discerning customer.

I felt drunk, high on noradrenaline and the white heat that came from being in action.

I was keeping my eyes out, but Leslie found me first. "Nice to see you. Does this mean it's over?" Leslie held me close enough to kiss, but I didn't protest, since that was about the only way bar shouting to be heard above the music, which was building up to a crescendo. "You here to have fun?"

"Mostly, yeah." I flashed a grin, then perched on the bar. I felt an urge to go up to the cages and ask for amateur night, but I told the snake to go stuff itself with its own tail. I pitched my voice high enough to carry over the din. "It's all over save the sweeping up. They won't know what hit them."

The music ended abruptly, and my last words rang out over the club. I took stock of the heads that turned my way rather than towards the buzz-cut man who'd pulled the plug on the DJ's equipment and was grinning like it was the funniest thing he'd ever done.

Good doggie.

"Bitch," Leslie hissed. It looked like Simon was right about being a known face in the crowd at Charlie's.

"Wolf," I corrected.

"I know what I said."

It looked like Rocky was on the job, or at least on top of Simon, trying to drag the werewolf out of the club. Simon wasn't exactly cooperating.

"Sugar, I think you're calling the wrong person 'bitch'." This was Genevieve, shimmying up to me and giving Leslie a taxing look. "How about the babe that asks someone to go to a club with her, and then breezes through security while leaving me to eat dust with the rest of the plebes?"

"Shouldn't have got left behind, then." Instead of introductions, I just waved between them, leaving them to exchange pleasantries as I flagged down a bartender and ordered drinks all around.

"Here's to cases solved." Genevieve's teeth reflected the cycling strobes. "We've earned it."

Through the bottom of my glass, amber rainbow of flickering light, I met a guy's eyes. He was trying hard not to look interested, but he should have worn shades like I did. Too much desperation there, painfully obvious now that I was riding the noradrenaline wave, relaxed and ready to strike.

And maybe bite, and that thought came at the same moment that the scuffle near the DJ's booth became a full-out brawl. I made a note to make sure anyone Simon bit or scratched got the dose of antibiotics that would mean they wouldn't have to howl at every full moon, and then I was moving. Genevieve's hand slipped from my arm. Leslie was gone, pushing through the crowd in the direction of the manager's room. Such loyalty, Charlie commands.

Which reminded me. I owed them both something nice, once this was over. Dinner? Roses?

I ducked between confused dancers, let the undercurrent carry me towards the door. Leaving the club just like anyone who doesn't want to get caught in a Friday night fight, and Mr Desperate-Eyes was right behind me. Talking on his cell phone. I wished I were closer.

Did you know you can cast spells through a phone? And people wonder why I screen my calls.

The air outside was October-chilly, but not for my skin, still warm from the club. The people dispersed into all directions; there are rules and rituals to a New Granada Friday night, and none of them includes hanging around until the police arrive. I ducked into a squalid alley - I remembered the clean orange line on Arthur's map, more fool it - and a shadow behind me turned the same corner.

Steady, I thought.

"Mal?" The voice was unfamiliar, though the name was. Then again, half of the mages I knew in NG called me that - 'Rachel' is for vampires and work, in that order - so it wasn't anything anyone couldn't have told them.

I made a puzzled 'uh' noise as I stopped and half turned, as if I weren't sure he was addressing me.

"There's some people who want to talk with you," he continued. Tall, business suit. Desperate Eyes was hovering at the corner behind him.

I let my body curl in, edges out, full fight or flight response. "I don't think so."

He went for his neck - an amulet - ready for the spell he knew I was about to cast. Casting takes words and gestures, weaving the magic, and good warding's just activation, so defense is always faster.

And then I turned and ran.

His footsteps echoed in the alley only seconds after mine, and soon they weren't the only ones. I knew they'd be near - the attacks proved they were abroad - but the speed with which my shadows multiplied astonished me. Labyrinths, I thought, serious magic really few people used, which meant I'd been damn lucky the first time they'd attacked me. That, or I hadn't rated the attention of the more powerful mage before. Just another vamp slut gets treated differently than co-head of investigations into their shady business. Who'd have guessed.

I turned another corner, and the snake cut in.

It was unconscious, automatic. Rachel runs, Rachel turns, Rachel is faced with a seven-foot black-skinned giant with Iron Hand of St Jacob written all over him. His arms swung, gorilla crouch, and just low enough.

And then a jump, up and over, and if my boot left an impression in his forehead, ask me if I cared.

I heard a roar as I ran, and I remembered the book said they'd cut their own tongues out so that they could never betray their god. Or their goddess.

A bullet whizzed past, striking wide. Lovely.

Six of them behind me now, heavy boots. I chanced a look as I turned into another alley, leading them deeper into the maze that had long changed from shows to warehouses, and I saw there was just one Iron Hand. Black coat, black skin, no bling now, no need for camouflage. But the others looked local, and that was good.

Inside me, the snake coiled, well-fed and ready to strike. I'd fed it like a good girl, though there was still the box in my purse - back at Darkspring Manor. Get thee behind me, tempter.

I was on the home stretch now, and even on a bad day I'm hard to outrun. The doors to yet another warehouse hung half open, and I burst inside.

Then I stopped in front of a blank expanse of wall. No exits. No windows large enough. Walkways over my head, but not low enough to jump. No weapons at hand, except sheets of corrugated iron here and there on the floor, and I'd have to be much taller to wield one effectively.

The warehouse was mid-sized. The rays of street-glow falling through scattered skylights were cathedral columns, or maybe some night-forest, just the setting for a hunt and a kill.

I felt their approach more than I heard it. Rubber soles, I thought, the curse of the vigilant. I turned, hiding in shadows, slipping between the trees of light.

They were walking now. They had to know the district, know I had no place left to run.

Iron Hand came first, and I saw that what I'd taken for a black coat was a monk's robe, coarse and light-swallowing. Business Suit was right behind him, and I wondered if he'd still do the talking. Just a stooge, or something more? Then a pair that was regular white trash wannabes, Eminem hair and lost looks. Clones, I thought, born and bred to grab at a cause and stick to it until something ran them over. An older guy in a checkered shirt and a rodeo belt buckle, Lumberjack Cowboy to the T, was the last one before Desperate Eyes edged over the threshold. A nod from Business Suit, and they spread out clumsily. Flashlights flickered on, pinning me in place.

Quill Killers. Quill Clowns sounded more like it.

For a moment, all was still. I knew they wouldn't try to kill me outright: there were answers they needed to get, and if they had wanted to interrogate me back on Sunday night, now it was that much more urgent.

And another set of footsteps in the dark.

Five flashlights swiveled around automatically, though Iron Hand kept his trained on me. Simon stood in the warehouse doors, smiling sweetly.

"Sorry, sweetheart." It came out as 'showwy', the elongated jaws giving him an accent that could have dubbed over Sean Connery with no-one being the wiser. "Traffic was a killer."

One of the beams of light illuminating him wavered in figure-eights. Desperate Eyes, and I could bet he'd never seen a werewolf halfway to beast form before. So much for werewolves being involved in the conspiracy, just in case anyone ever went for that crackpot theory. As if they ever did anything more complicated than a night raid without someone doing the planning for them.

I took a step forward. My foot hit a sheet of iron, and the sound echoed from wall to wall. The lights swiveled again, four on me and two on Simon now.

"There's some people who want to talk with you." I gave them my sweetest smile. "So if you do, you'll just save yourself a whole lot of trouble."

"Fuck you, bitch," one of the Eminem Clones offered.

I ran the fingers of my left hand through my hair, pushing it up, turning my head into my own caress like a sleepy cat. My nails reflected in the flashlights, and the glitter of cheap nail polish looked like fairy dust. I tugged my hand down again, wrapping greedily around the sunglasses, tugging them down with exquisite slowness. Finally I looked up at the clowns again.

I had their undivided attention.

"Silly rabbits," I said softly.

Eminem Number One was the first to go down when a werewolf landed on his head. I winced - the walkways were at least twenty feet over the floor, and if I were closer, I'd hear the bones breaking. Never mind. We had five more to get our answers from.

Iron Hands moved towards me like a freight train, roaring in that tongueless voice, and I got out of the way, fast. Someone caught me in the darkness, with vampire-cool hands, and I let myself be dragged further back. Leather and nylon, rings on the fingers that held my arms, cologne rather than hash, so had to be one of Eudokia's-

A shot rang out.

I was moving before I registered it as a Gatling gun. Lumberjack framed in a column of light, his lips pulled back in a grimace, the gun falling into the pool of his entrails. A young vampire in front of him, wide-eyed, surprised at the devastation caused by one strike of his hand. Silver claw-rings, silly goth frippery, slick with blood.

The vampire's other arm ended in shards of meat and bone, gone with the pull of the trigger, and I knew I'd never hold the kill against him.

Someone finally had the idea to turn on the lights, and the overhead halogens snapped on with loud thuds, timed to the strikes of Iron Hand's fists as he scattered the werewolves that were attacking him. Eminem Clone Number Two was backed into a corner, switchblade against werewolf claws, and that was a bloodbath in the making, because only one side could fight on with an arm cut off or a heart chamber pierced. Business Suit had tried to run, but the vamps were on him - I recognized Shadow kneeling on the guy's back, and hoped his notions of dark revenge would make allowances for finding out the brains behind all this.

I hoped there would be someone left to question. This was not going according to my plan.

Then I saw Desperate Eyes disappearing through the warehouse doors, Simon giving chase. I rushed after them, weaving through the fight, letting the snake carry me forward. Pain in my side, and I'd be paying for it later, but not now, not on the wings of the fight and the cordite and the blood.

I didn't have far to run. Simon had Desperate Eyes pinned to a wall just outside the warehouse, claws out, making sure the guy didn't so much as blink. He pushed him at me as soon as I stopped, and I got up in the guy's face with a snarl, then punched him in the gut. I knew I'd do much more damage than the thugs who'd tried to work me over; it's not about strength as much as knowing where to hit. Simon grabbed the guy from behind, slobbering on a t-shirt already wet with nervous sweat. Get close, get personal, let them get that the rules don't apply to you: we both knew the rules.

I caught Desperate Eyes' chin in my hand. "You should have talked," I hissed. "The end's the same. Who's giving you orders?"

"A-abomination!"

His voice was scratchy and barely audible, but at least it was an improvement on 'fuck off, bitch'.

I grinned. "Got it in one. Now, what's so important to you? What is it they have on you to have you slumming like this?"

That got his attention, and his eyes all but lit up. There was a street lamp over our heads, and in its dim light I saw his face change. Gone was the bundle of nerves, a little office monkey dropped in water far too deep. Instead I was facing someone full of conviction. Faith. He looked like a fresh priest celebrating his first mass.

There was even a damn gregorian lilt in his voice. "We're preparing the way..."

"The way for what?" I grabbed the front of his shirt, pushed him back into Simon. Anything to break this trance, take these newfound foundations away from him. I needed him nervous and scared, damn it.

He just looked at me like I was vermin. Somewhere, I heard gunshots again.

"Answer!" Simon grabbed him from behind, pressed a clawed hand against his throat. Any move, and these claws would carve four extra smiles, sharp as scalpels and much less merciful.

"Who?" I hissed. "WHO?"

His lips opened, and it was a relief, he was going to talk, tell me who I had to kill and maim and get this over with. And then I looked back into his eyes, and it was all terribly wrong.

He jerked then, before we could react, and his blood was hot on my face, hot like a Katanga night. The arterial spray drenched me. It painted a lace fan of rivulets on the wall.

"No," I whispered. "No."

Simon's hands opened of their own volition. I followed the man - the body - to the floor, and saw the lips one last time.

Magda, he mouthed, and then was still.

So was the air, I realized - the sounds of the fight were over now. I wondered if it meant I had to go back inside. Instead, I leaned against the wall and watched the blood drip off my fingers. Simon knelt by my side and stared at the body, like a child who has accidentally broken a doll and is wondering how to put it together again. He was turning back to human form, hair by hair, and instead of wet fur he now smelled of human sweat and blood.

Something poked my shoulder, and I looked up to see Arthur standing over us. I batted at the reed he'd used to prod me, and he put it under my chin, making me meet his eyes.

"How?" His voice was calm and soft, like we were having tea instead of standing in carnage.

"Suicide by werewolf claws." I reached out and let him pull me up. "Does it matter?"

"Only because that fact leaves the score at three for three." He looked tired, almost as tired as I felt, and I realized mission planning might be the harder part of the job. "I suppose it is fortunate, in that there is no point in Virgil and I blaming each other for the outcome."

Oh, hell. All the little Indians were dead, then. I didn't bother hiding my dark look. "I wanted information."

"I know." He offered me his hand again and solicitously helped me over the puddle of blood as he steered me back into the warehouse, never mind that I was already covered with it. "We will have to ascertain another means of obtaining it. In the meantime, we have diminished the enemy's manpower, which proved the advantages of the active approach you recommended."

"Thank you." I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Kirill intercepted us as soon as we came inside. He took one look at my blood-stained state and deftly separated me from Arthur's tender care. The prince gave us a vaguely amused look and swept off to verbally eviscerate his blundering storm troopers.

The state of my clothes blended in with the new warehouse décor, that was for sure. Blood and entrails everywhere. I couldn't see Iron Hand's body, so that was probably where the torn fragments of bone and flesh had come from.

"What happened?" I muttered into Kirill's shoulder. I batted annoyedly at his inspecting hands. "I'm fine, no-one touched me."

"A combination of stupidity on our part and determination on theirs." He seemed convinced, or at least not prepared to contest the point, because his hands settled at my shoulders. "The first one died because that wolf just didn't aim - sheer bad luck. The second, we weren't prepared for that level of brutality-"

"I'd've thought they'd bring out the Gatling on me, if they had one," I interrupted him. "I don't think that's anyone's fault."

"Yes. That was when I turned the lights on, which improved our chances. The blond one went down fighting - the wolves may have been more careful, but if it's fifteen against two, control comes hard."

"Blood-lust." I heard the tremble of a choked-down giggle in my voice.

Kirill briefly nuzzled my cheek, which brought my attention to the fact that bloodied as I was, I was probably smelling damn tasty to him, and everyone else in the warehouse. Maybe the night wouldn't be such a waste after all.

"Shadow took down the one in the suit, but not for long," he continued. "They pushed him around, and someone slipped. He got away and reached the Gatling. There isn't much left of his head."

"Suicide, instead of killing?" The blood was starting to dry on my face, making my nose itch. "They're not anti-vamp or anti-werewolf fanatics, then."

"No." He sighed. "The black one was my blunder. He went through five werewolves like so many jackals. I used a spell to stun him and then tried to put him under." He meant the vampire daze, a hypnotic trance that dampens your will and outdoes the best chemical high. "For a second, I had him hooked, and then - he exploded."

"Magical conditioning?"

"Probably. The one outside?"

"Suicide via werewolf claws. I'd never have guessed he had it in him - he looked like a clerk who'd wandered into the wrong story." I looked at the milling people. Arthur seemed to have them doing the forensic thing now, picking up all clues possible in a situation where the causes of death were the ones doing the checking. "Fucking failure."

Kirill didn't say anything to that, but his hands on my shoulders helped a bit. I leaned into his touch for a moment, then walked over to where Shadow and one of Kirill's own vampires were going through Business Suit's pockets. With the fresh out of the office look, he was the one most likely to have something interesting on his person.

Shadow looked appropriately chastened by his failure to keep his hands on the guy, and handed over the wallet without protest. I leafed through the plastic cards, thinking about when I'd manage to get home and whether Kirill would be up for a bit more physical comfort. Sharing a shower, maybe, or separate showers, but a bath later, warm and bubbly and with a lot of room.

Visa, Diner's, library, Sam's Club member card, stamps from Subway, AAA-

I turned over another magnetic-stripe piece of plastic, and everything fell into place.

The quill logo was a dark blot under my finger.

"Magda," I whispered.

Magdalene Publishing.