Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  The thug screamed and clutched his chest, ripping the jacket and shirt as it bloomed with red. He stumbled to his feet, clawing at the wound in confusion.

  During his momentary distraction, I drew a fire poker towards me. I dissolved its form as it spun through the air, so strands of iron flowed across my arm as I advanced on the shrieking thug. By the time I reached him, my arm from fist to shoulder was encased in iron. Drawing on the metal’s strength, I swung out in an uppercut.

  The thug launched off his feet, head snapping backwards. He hit the floor with a thud, his body bouncing once like a castaway ragdoll. He didn’t get back up.

  I released my hold on the iron, and it fell in jagged scales, spattering on the floor. Ros and her thugs were incapacitated, leaving Marcel unaccounted for. I found him slumped against a blood-smeared wall on the other end of the sideboard, a bullet hole in his temple. The Russian thug’s bullet must have struck Marcel. I felt a violent upward lurch in my stomach, but I stuffed it down as I rushed to check on Marcus.

  He was conscious, laying on his back and staring dazedly at the ceiling, his bells still ringing. He regarded me with a punch-drunk smile as I knelt next to him.

  “You’re magic, Ibby,” he muttered. “I always knew you were special.”

  I looked him over. Though his clothes were blood-splattered, it all seemed to be from superficial cuts on his hands and face. I wished it was as easy to see broken bones and internal trauma. I fought down a surge of panic over what kind of trauma his brain might have suffered.

  “What are you doing here Marcus?” I asked, as much to distract myself as to appease my curiosity. “Were you following me?”

  Marcus nodded, but the motion made him wince.

  “Yes, and yes,” he answered. “I’m here, and I was following you.”

  “Why?”

  Marcus took my hand in his, giving it a little squeeze. “Something was wrong,” he said warmly. “I could tell when you ran out of the Museum. I wanted to help.”

  I probably should have felt touched, but being surrounded by a manor full of armed men made it a struggle to see any of this in a positive light.

  “So, you followed me from work?” I asked, letting my tone speak to how unimpressed I was, but Marcus’s sleepy smile showed he was immune to my displeasure.

  “No, silly, I was still on shift.” He attempted to sit up and then thought better of it. “In the morning, I went to your flat. When you weren’t there, I hung around Covent Garden Station until I saw you come out in the nice dress.”

  I baulked. I didn’t know whether it was gallant or desperate that he’d spent nearly an entire day waiting for me.

  “I figured the big, black man was your uncle, and I was wrong to think you were in trouble, until I heard the bloke in the car say something about a suicide mission.”

  He shrugged, drawing another wince.

  “I grabbed a cab and told him to follow the Maserati. I was amazed he said yes, but when I had to pay him next month’s rent, I understood why.” The dull grin fell off, and his gaze shifted to over my shoulder.

  I heard a sharp intake of breath and threw myself to the left on instinct.

  Ros, wielding the ash shovel from the fireplace, missed with her wide swing. She staggered forward and tripped over Marcus. She and Marcus grunted as I slithered out of reach.

  “Khome ’ere!” Ros snarled through her swollen jaw, pushing herself off Marcus hard enough to make him cry out. She swept the shovel back and forth in my direction. With a second to think, I bid the haft of the shovel become much more flexible. On the next vicious swing, the shovel head whipped back on the malleable shaft and caught her hard across the back of the head with a gong-like sound. Ros’s furious glare softened to dull surprise, and her eyes rolled back. She collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

  Marcus, spurred on by the conflict, managed to get into a sitting position and met my stare with another broad smile.

  “See?” He nodded stiffly to Ros’s unconscious form. “Magic.”

  ---

  “It’s got to be one of these.” I panted as I tried another door using Marcel’s key card. I’d grabbed all of the key cards and locked the drawing room door behind us to delay discovery of the carnage.

  “I still don’t know what we are looking for,” Marcus grumbled as he shuffled along behind me. The dazed effects of his beating had worn off, and now he was just sore and grumpy.

  “A study or an office,” I explained as the door swung open to a resplendent bedroom suite. “Whoa.”

  A spacious carpeted room that put the Ritz to shame sprawled before us. There was an enormous four-poster bed and a fireplace with two plush high-back chairs; a pair of French doors led to a balcony.

  “Doesn’t look like an office to me,” groused Marcus.

  “You’re right,” I admitted, still gawking at the exquisite furnishings worked in ivory and gold. “But it never hurts to check.”

  I leaned my head in a little further, basking in the luxuriant decor, and spotted two doors in the corner of the room. One was slightly ajar, and though the light was off, I could see marble tiling that I assumed went with a magnificent bathroom. The other was closed and had a card reader set over its handle.

  “If you are already in the room, why would you need a card reader to enter a closet?” I asked, moving into the room.

  “You wouldn’t.” Marcus followed me in, carefully closing the door behind him.

  “Exactly.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marcus staggered after me. “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”

  I stepped to the door and brandished my pilfered keycard.

  “You were stalking me, remember?” I quipped as the door opened with an electronic chirp.

  Interesting, none of the other doors had made that noise.

  “Stalking is not how I’d characterize it,” Marcus growled irritably. “More like attempted rescue.”

  As the door swung inward, lamps came on, shedding a soft amber glow over an old swivel chair, roll-top desk, and large oak table. Several orderly stacks of paper and manila folders lay around a double monitored computer. If this weren’t Gwaffu’s private office, I’d eat my overpriced shoes.

  “Let’s just remember who saved whom,” I said as I stepped into the office. Grumbling incoherently, Marcus shuffled in after me.

  “So, you are looking for a ledger?” He picked up a folder. “What is supposed to be on it?”

  “Information about the bad guys Gwaffu works for, and Sark said that it wouldn’t be an actual physical ledger. More likely an electronic file or jump drive.” I moved the computer mouse to wake up the computer.

  Marcus dropped the folder back on the desk and turned to the roll-top desk. “It’s locked,” he announced flatly.

  “And this is password protected.” I cast about for something, anything, to give me some direction. If Sark had been here, he would’ve known what to do.

  I looked at the roll-top. The locks were all steel and brass construction. I let my mind give a hard wrench. The drawers popped open, and the roll top shifted upward a few inches. Marcus eyed the desk and then me with wide, bloodshot eyes before yanking drawers out to view their contents.

  “Suppose you could explain how you’re doing that?”

  “Soon.” I was distracted by a strange sensation I’d felt when I’d thrown my will at the desk. “But it’s not going to make much more sense when I tell you.”

  “So long as you’ll give it a go.”

  I was no longer paying attention to Marcus, though. Something large and metallic was behind the desk. It was impossible to properly explain it to someone who’d never felt it, but the metals were both sound and texture, when I acted on others around it responded with its own kind of resonance.

  “I’ve found half a dozen of these bloody things.” Marcus held up a handful of jump drives. “How are you supposed to know what’s what?”

  “Just shove them all in your pockets,” I sa
id sharply, closing my eyes to focus on metal in the wall. “Now be quiet; I am trying to focus.”

  “On what?”

  “Shut. Up!”

  Two steel beams had been installed parallel to each other, running the length of the wall. That was odd enough in a home this old, but even more odd was the boxed structure composed of multiple dense metals riveted into place between the two beams. I plunged into the hardy layers within the box and felt the side facing me had some complex machinery built into it. What would be built into a wall, tough enough to shrug off dynamite, and had some really complicated way of opening it...

  “You idiot,” I gasped, my eyes snapping open. “It’s a safe!”

  “Huh?”

  I slid around Marcus to the other side of the desk, something which I noticed despite my rush, made us more than a little awkward. Self-consciously, I looked down and realized that the rents in my dress had exposed even more of my body, parts that Marcus was valiantly, if futilely, trying not to look at.

  “Please,” I said, clearing my throat. “Help me move the desk.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Marcus said quickly, grateful for the distraction. “Where to?”

  “Away from the wall,” I said driving off the last of the silly flutters of emotion. I found myself wondering when it got so hot in here as I pressed against the roll-top.

  It was made of hardwood and solidly built, but with Marcus doing the bulk of the work, we drew it away from the wall.

  “There’s nothing here,” Marcus observed, scratching his head gingerly.

  I slid a palm against the wall, probing the mechanisms in the safe door. It was there, but I was going to need either more control or more power, possibly both.

  I shifted the Rings onto one hand, then fused them together with a single flex of my mind. They glowed with power for an instant, and I felt Marcus’s wide eyes on me.

  “What’s that?”

  “Later.” Sweat broke out on my face as I set to work. It was difficult work. Gears and levers caught and ground against each other, and I had to fight to keep from losing my temper. My powers were sufficient to rip the whole damn thing from the wall, but I’d pull the whole room down on top of us.

  I sent a ripple of intent to soothe and soften the cantankerous bits holding up the show. There were a series of dull thunks as rods of hardened tungsten carbide slid back and the door flap eased outward. Seams in the blank wall so fine you would never notice them unless you knew they were there, caught my eye. I dug with my fingernails and peeled off a thin veneer of plaster to reveal the safe door and the now defunct keypad.

  “Wicked!” Marcus muttered, and we shared a smile as I drew the door all the way open.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but the contents were unassuming at first glance. It took me a second to recognize the white plastic rectangle was a portable hard drive, and had to be the ledger. I snatched it up and tried to fit it into my purse.

  Marcus drew out the two remaining items. The look on his face was something like a kid finding buried treasure.

  “This is an old service revolver from the World Wars, Webley Mark VI I think,” Marcus said with a touch of reverence. “My great-grandad up in York had one, except he’d kept his in an old trunk so long it was mostly rust.” He checked the chamber. “This one’s loaded.”

  “Interesting,” I said, having at last managed to wedge the drive in place. “But I don’t need an antique gun.”

  “’Course you don’t.” Marcus chuckled. “But not all of us have magic.”

  I eyed the awkward way he handled the large handgun. “You know how to use one of those, right?”

  “Sure.” He nodded, his tone less than convincing as he tucked the pistol into his trouser pocket. “My grandad took me rabbit hunting a few times when I was young. Can’t be that much different, point and shoot. Yeah?”

  I didn’t want to argue; I just hoped I wasn’t standing near where he was pointing and shooting. The thought occurred to me to disable the hammer on the gun, but I thought better of it.

  Angry voices echoed from the hall outside.

  “We need to move,” I said. If Pierre’s guards found us in here, we’d be fish in the proverbial barrel.

  “Hello, what’s this?” Marcus said as he pried open the black box. We saw a red velvet interior holding a cylinder of clay before I snapped the box shut. Marcus’s eyes shot up to me, his mouth opening.

  “Marcus, we need to go. Now,” I said firmly, moving out of the office.

  “Fine, but I’m keeping this too.”

  Crossing the bedroom, I nearly yanked the door open but checked myself at the last second.

  Shouts sounded again from below but also in the hallway outside. I flattened against the wall, raising a finger to my lips as I looked back at Marcus. He nodded and tried to draw the revolver, but the front sight caught on the edge of his pocket. It took several seconds to free and ready the weapon. I was sure he was about to shoot himself.

  I reached out with my metallic sense to the hallway beyond. Eyes closed, I tried to identify who was out there and what they were doing. I drew in several deep, steadying breaths as I sifted various choral tunes of the metal in the old home’s construction, to settle on a collection of bound metal presences that I recognized––guns. Four of them, two pairs, moving as if they were playing leap-frog. Their owners were going room to room sweeping for intruders, for us.

  We had a minute, maybe two.

  “Do you hear something?” Marcus whispered hoarsely.

  “What?”

  I tried to judge which of the two teams would reach us first. They were near the limit of my power to influence precisely, but if I could disable those guns before they got to us, we had a good chance of getting out alive.

  “Is that the wind?” he hissed, a little louder.

  “Marcus, shut up, please!” I tried to twist metal I couldn’t see despite several intervening walls. “I need to concentrate.”

  “Ibby!”

  Before I could round on him, there was the crash of glass shattering.

  My eyes snapped open to see the last shimmering pieces of the balcony doors tinkling to the floor. A tumbling lump––a body––bounced across the floor to strike the foot of the immense bed with a dull thunk. The body gave a groan, then lifted its head. Sark, his face a mass of thin, oozing slashes, looked at me and managed to croak: “Run.”

  But it was too late.

  Gliding into the room with wings of raw, light-devouring darkness, Pierre Gwaffu was upon us.

  17

  “You seem to be lost.” Pierre cocked an eyebrow as the wings evaporated like black mist. “However did you end up in here?”

  “I was looking for the loo,” I replied dryly.

  Pierre’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled in a way that showed all his teeth. Only most of them were human.

  “How very amusing.” He chuckled, and a baleful light shone from his eyes. Marcus swore with a fearful gasp, but I stared right back at the bastard without a flinch.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” I growled planting my feet as I called the metal in the room to my aid.

  Pierre sensed what I was doing because his eyes widened before narrowing in a cruel, calculating glare. His smile shifted, and there were suddenly more teeth than seemed reasonable for one mouth and not one of them looked human. When he spoke, there was a wet hiss to his voice, as the words slid through a hedge of fangs.

  “Just ask your friend,” he said, thrusting his chin towards the prone form of Sark. “You don’t want to see the best I can do.”

  “All offence to Eli,” I said, straightening. “But the bloke’s punching outside his weight class. Different story when you’re messing with me. I’m true Inconquo, not some half-blooded punching bag.”

  Pierre’s eyes flicked to Sark. I forced myself to stare into those unnatural glowing eyes, but I could have kicked myself for letting the cat out of the bag so carelessly. I wasn’t naive enough to thi
nk I could intimidate a millennia-old monster like Gwaffu, but I did hope I was convincing enough to buy time. With a little more time, Sark might pull it together and help me out. I had no idea what Pierre was capable of.

  “You are welcome to try,” Pierre hissed, spreading his hands out expansively. “But I think you and I both know that your fight is much bigger than me, little Inconquo. Your cursed bloodline has been a pet project of Winterthür for a long time. No matter how this ends, you’ll be lucky to be the next blood-bag shipped to Iraq.”

  Iraq? That was new, and more specific than ‘Middle East’.

  “Winterthür and everyone helping them are going to find themselves hurting very soon,” I said ominously. Lamps, drawers, and mirrors from the bedroom lifted to float around me. “You’ve picked the wrong side for the last time.”

  Pierre’s eyes crinkled with glee; his mouth no longer fit for smiling.

  “Ibby!” Marcus screamed, his voice high and tight with panic. “The floor.”

  I realized too late that I hadn’t been the only one buying time.

  Pools of inky black crept along the perimeter of the room and flanked me on both sides. As I readied myself to attack with the floating metal, coils of darkness shot out with viperish speed and snared both my arms. The sting of their cold grip foiled my attack, the missiles falling to the floor.

  I twisted and pulled against the black tendrils, but they held me fast.

  “Such defiance.” Pierre sauntered closer. “Can be bad for your health.”

  The tendrils undulated, and I felt a prickling along my skin as something frigid drove through it. In horror, I saw dark ichor blackening my veins until they stood out like a web-work of ink. I screamed and tried to twist away from the venomous grip, but my whole body ached at the slightest effort and the twisting made me dizzy to the point of nausea.

  “Sark,” I groaned weakly, casting about for him, but my vision was blurring, and my heart throbbed in my ears. “Sark—”