Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  “When you are fighting someone who has you beat at almost every level...” Her eyes went soft as her mind sifted through her rolodex of fighting knowledge. “You do everything you can to get away. You create space, give yourself room to manoeuvre, and the second you can, you run like your hair is on fire.”

  I waited as her thoughts came together, knowing she wasn’t finished.

  “But sometimes there’s no way out.” An angry light kindled in her doe eyes. “And if that’s the case, the next thing is maximum damage.”

  Her gaze swung to me, focused again.

  “You bring the pain.” Cords of muscle stood out on her neck. “It becomes your mission to hit them in every place, in every way that will do damage. But more than that, you show them that to keep them from getting what they want, you aren’t afraid to die.”

  I hadn’t expected to survive Ninurta’s first attack so I was already on board with that.

  “We learned how to strike at sensitive places, not just because pain can slow your attacker down, but because pain makes people angry and afraid. And angry, fearful people are stupid. Pain is the mortar, injury the bricks. So there is only one question then …”

  I nodded. “How do you hurt a demigod?”

  ---

  I gave myself a cooling off period of an hour before approaching Marks again, wishing I could take a day. I went to the cafeteria on Jackie’s floor and got a cup of coffee, pacing among the tables and talking my heart into a normal rhythm. I didn’t have time to sleep on things. Daria was waiting, and I’d been too shattered by losing Iry to have broached the subject with Marks yet.

  When I finished the coffee I went back up to Marks’ office and knocked on her door, letting her know this time I was ready to be civil.

  There was the sound of a phone settling back into its cradle and then, “Come.”

  Pushing through her door, I crossed to the chair across from her. She eyed me, leaning back in her chair.

  “Back so soon?”

  “In the heat of my last visit,” I began, taking a breath and resting my hands on the arms of the chair, “I forgot to tell you about Daria.”

  “Daria…” Marks canted her head to the side and a line appeared between her brows.

  “Daria is an edimmu.”

  I was about to explain what an edimmu was when Marks’ expression shifted. She paled and grew serious. She already knew.

  “What have you gotten yourself involved with, Ibukun Bashir?” she asked quietly.

  I cleared my throat, assuming that question was rhetorical. “Daria wants to die, but before she does, she wants to fulfil her promise to her master, Lamashtu.”

  “What promise is that?” Marks leaned forward ever so slightly, her fine brows arching.

  “Taking out Ninurta.”

  Her expression fell. “Edimmu are frightening, but if you’ve described Ninurta accurately, even she cannot withstand him.”

  “That’s why she’s proposing we work together.”

  Marks listened quietly while I relayed how the edimmu had rescued Marcus and I, and Daria’s desire to meet her and discuss a plan. Marks’ response was to ask me to leave the room for five minutes while she made a phone call.

  When she called me back into her office, her demeanour had changed from wary to settled. Whoever she had called, my guess was it was to a superior, they’d given her some kind of certainty.

  “I agree to meet with her.”

  Lowering myself back into the chair, I cocked an eyebrow. “That was easy.”

  Marks shrugged. “Allegiances pass from one hand to another in this business all the time. Even if you weren’t vouching for Daria, I would at least listen to what she had to offer.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not clear on what exactly the offer is, she said she’d present to us at the same time. She’s only told me she has a plan, and information.”

  “I know.” Marks gave me a knowing look. “But given the experience and expertise of the creature we are talking about, those two things are worth quite a bit, whatever they may be.”

  I nodded.

  “So how do we contact her?” Marks steepled her fingers, her eyes glinting with eagerness.

  “She gave me this number.” I presented a folded strip of paper. “She said once she receives a call from your personal phone and you stay on the line for ten seconds after the tone she’ll know you’ve accepted her entering the building. She’ll enter the lobby, and is fine with security screening; she wants it understood that calling the number acknowledges that she is to be treated as an asset, not a threat.”

  Marks’ eyes narrowed fractionally, then she took the paper while reaching for the phone on her desk.

  “Sorry,” I interjected before she could pick up the receiver. “She said your personal mobile.”

  Marks’ expression flattened into a glassy semblance of her usual unflappable, slightly ironic facade.

  “I suppose there’s no point in asking how she would know to recognise this number,” she mused as she drew a phone out of her jacket pocket.

  “Should we go downstairs to meet her?” I asked, after Marks pocketed her phone, trying not to squirm under her unrelenting scrutiny.

  “No, she’ll be brought up after she’s cleared by security, although that’s a formality. The most dangerous thing about that woman is not what she carries on her, but in her.”

  Remembering Pierre Gwaffu’s demonic powers, I had to agree.

  “But you’ve worked with supernatural beings before,” I said. “That’s why you have Dr Emoto, right? You’re used to this sort of thing.”

  “That may be, but supernaturals are categorized into classes. I’m accustomed to working with soldiers and elementals, leaving supernaturals outside those classes to others. Beings as ancient and dangerous as an edimmu are part of a disconcerting list. The head of our organization, Devon Nakesh, would normally work with someone like Daria, but he is not available at this time. So.” She shrugged and ran a hand over her perfect updo.

  I stared at my ally, a riot of feelings surging and subsiding like waves. Enigmatic and yet seeming supremely pragmatic, she was the strangest woman I had ever met, and that included Daria. I wondered what Marks had seen in her time.

  “How many classes of supernatural beings have you encountered?” I asked, telling myself I was just killing time until Daria arrived.

  Marks’ features were so precisely set she could have been wearing a mask.

  “Many,” she stated with irritating simplicity, before the quiet stretched into an uncomfortable silence. “Yet, not so many that I don’t feel a little … giddy at the thought of meeting a new one.”

  It was hard--to the point of impossible--to imagine Marks giddy but I felt that the statement might have been one of the most honest things she’d ever said. Somehow the answer rang with a deeper truth. The glimpse of utter honesty sharpened my curiosity while giving me a little more confidence.

  “Are there other supernaturals here now? In this building?”

  Her answer was clipped. “You don’t have the clearance for that answer.”

  “Okay, but I’m a supernatural myself now, and we’re about to embark upon a mission to take out a powerful demigod. If you had supernaturals around that could help, one would think now would be the perfect time to introduce them, so we could include them in the plan?”

  She tilted her chin down. “Don’t you think I would have done that already if I could have?”

  I pulled a face. “I don’t know. No one ever tells me anything in this bloody place until it’s the last minute.”

  She let out a breath. “While I cannot give you details, I can tell you that I tried to have a few of our assets reassigned from a project we’re setting up for in North Africa. Our CEO would not allow it. The project there is high priority.”

  “A demigod with the power to affect the earth’s core isn’t priority?” I gaped at her. “Whatever this other project is must be galactic in nature.”<
br />
  I’d said it ironically but Marks just nodded.

  “If the timing had been better,” she said, “and that project successfully concluded, we would have been able to deploy a supernatural with abilities even Ninurta could not withstand.”

  “What kind of supernatural are you talking about?” My heart began to pound at her words.

  “I’m not permitted to say.” Marks folded her hands on the desk. “You are an Inconquo. The enemy is an Inconquo. You are the best supernatural for the job that we currently have available to us.”

  I wanted to ask her more about this mysterious supernatural but I knew she wouldn’t say any more. From the look on her face, she’d already said too much. Instead I asked, “Don’t you ever get frightened by the powers you’re involved with?”

  Marks’ gaze slid around the room, as though looking for some spy or eavesdropper foolish enough to hide in her office. When her eyes settled back on me, I knew I’d pushed too hard.

  “I am not sure this conversation is beneficial at this time,” she said, whatever tiny door I’d opened closing before my eyes. “You need to focus on the task at hand. I have been doing this for a while now, I am not frightened by my job. I plan to keep doing it for a good while longer, that is assuming…”

  “Yeah.” I sank back into my chair, disappointed. “Assuming Ninurta doesn’t wipe us all out in the next few days.”

  “Precisely,” Marks agreed and then looked positively delighted when her phone rang again.

  “Yes?”

  Her expression became one of wary confusion as she listened.

  My skin prickled at the sight and I nudged the rings, fusing them. Had Daria already turned on us?

  “No, do not let them move from that spot,” Marks said sharply, her voice perfectly controlled in spite of the fearful glimmer creeping into her eyes.

  I rose from my seat, straining to hear what was being said on the other end of the line. “What’s going on?”

  Marks raised a hand to silence me as she spoke into the phone. “No, I want every team in the complex and the surrounding area to form a perimeter, but they are not to engage. I repeat: do not engage. They could bring down the whole building.”

  It was a kind of agony, being ready to race into danger but having to wait for direction.

  “Marks!” I growled, every muscle beginning to twitch and burn with adrenaline. My feet were ready to start running without my permission.

  “I’m sending her.” Marks looked up, a scowl of irritation on her features. “Lobby, now.”

  I headed out of her office, thankful for release from the torment of waiting, but stopped at the door.

  “What’s down there?”

  Marks was already giving more instructions to the person on the line, but she spared me a withering look.

  “Daria brought a friend,” she snapped. “Now go!”

  She emphasised her order by jabbing a finger toward the door, as if I didn’t know where it was and wasn’t already halfway through it.

  I bolted for the elevator. Pacing inside the metal box did something to diminish the tremors in my stomach and knees.

  What was Daria doing? If she really wanted to hurt us, why the charade? If she meant to strike at The Nakesh Corporation, walking into their lobby after telling them she was coming seemed particularly ineffective. So what was she playing at, and who was down there with her?

  Prepared to walk into a potentially hostile situation, I pulled the handrail from its fixings, splitting it open and flattening it. Before the doors opened, I was sheathed in a piecemeal skin of shaped metal, the armour giving a soft groan as it flexed around my movements.

  Stepping out into the hallway, a quartet of security personnel were crouched in the alcove across from me, their weapons trained down the short length of the hallway leading to the lobby. Two gave me a startled look, but they recovered quickly.

  “Have ye’ covered, mum,” one of them said softly, as she sighted down the barrel of a submachine gun towards the lobby.

  It would have been rude to tell her that her weapon was little better than a popgun in this situation, so I just nodded and moved down the hall.

  The empty lobby seemed cavernous and the two figures standing by the central desk small. My heart buoyed, thankful that the companion in the hooded duffle coat could not be Ninurta. I wasn’t eager to face the demigod so soon after our last encounter.

  “Daria?” I called. “What’s going on?”

  She turned from reclining against the desk, taking in my armoured form with an approving nod.

  “Bringing things together.” She gestured toward the figure standing next to her. “I told you I had a plan, and that plan requires cooperation.”

  The figure had not turned to face me, but something about the way his shoulders gathered as he waited, with elbows on the desktop, made my stomach do familiar summersaults.

  I took a few steps closer. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? You’re making everyone nervous with these games.”

  Daria nodded.

  “I understand, but I didn’t want you to say no.” She gave a helpless shrug. “Not the best way to rekindle an alliance, I know, but I’m hoping that is the last time I’ll ever have to bend the truth with you. I just need you to remember what I told you about this plan.”

  Her companion turned around, exposing a wide smile and the molten heart throbbing in his chest. Dillon Sark looked me up and down.

  “I think I like the wings better,” Sark said. “Though I wonder how you’d look if you tried both.”

  My fists rose into guard, and I scooped up every spare piece of metal I could find in a single sweep. An assortment of decor and office supplies gathered around me like a thunderhead.

  “What is he doing here?”

  Daria stepped forward, hands up.

  “Remember, Ibby.” Her voice was preternaturally calm. “I said you wouldn’t like it, but this is our best chance. I wasn’t lying about that.”

  17

  I’d finished packing and sat at the edge of the bed, letting Marcus vent.

  “I should be going with you. You need someone to watch your back,” he continued, his brow creased over downcast eyes. “Especially with Sark being there.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. He hated being left behind, but no amount of gumption would make up for the fact that his injuries made him a liability.

  He sat beside me, his weight making me tilt toward him. “I know that Marks is sending Stewart’s team with you, and Daria will be there. But I’m honestly not sure which woman I trust less. You should have someone you really trust watching your back.”

  “Maybe,” I said, wrapping my arms around my knees and leaned against his shoulder. “Or maybe this way, I can do what I have to without worrying about those with me.”

  Marcus looked over, stricken, and I realised how that must have sounded to him.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quickly, reaching out a hand to reassure him. “I couldn’t have faced him that night without you.”

  “Sure, if you say so.” Marcus seemed unconvinced. “But you shouldn’t kid yourself that you aren’t going to be worrying about other people. You are a protector, worrying comes with the gig.”

  Once again, I couldn’t argue. I only nodded as I rose. He got to his feet as well and I slid against him for a hug, mindful of the crutches leaning against the bed.

  “I’ve got some great things to protect,” I whispered as I nestled my head against his chest. “It helps knowing what you are fighting for.”

  “I--” His breathing was heavy and the words caught in his throat. I shushed him and gave a quick squeeze before pulling away.

  “You’ll be right here with me until I get back.” I tapped a finger on my heart.

  “That has to be the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” He chuckled.

  “You think you know how to properly say goodbye, then?”

  He nodded and bent to kiss me
.

  “I love you, Ibukun Bashir. Come back to me.”

  I couldn’t think of this as a one-way trip. I had to face Ninurta, had to find a way to defeat him. I had to do the impossible, not to save the world but so I could get back here, back to him.

  “I love you, too, and I will.”

  ---

  “You’ve a plan then, luv?” Jackie asked, her eyes locked on the ceiling over her reclined bed.

  “Yep, in no small part thanks to you,” I leaned forward in the chair so my elbows rested on the mattress beside her head. “And I hear that you’ve got a plan of sorts too.”

  The doctors had decreed that she spend more time flat on her back to reduce the swelling. They might then be able to do reconstructive and restorative surgery on her damaged spine. The outcomes were uncertain, and recovery would be gruelling, but that there was any hope was nothing short of a miracle.

  “We both have reason to be cheerful then.” She rolled her head to look me in the eye. “But your plan better be to get back here on the hop. I’m going to need someone to whine at as I relearn how to walk.”

  I reached out a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Stop the apocalypse and make it home in time for rehab.”

  “That about covers it.”

  Jackie studied my face, looking for something. She eventually gave voice to her search in a fragile, plaintive voice.

  “You are coming back, right?”

  “You bet your bonnie, wee bum I am. I’m convinced we’ve got more than a good chance this time.”

  That was being disingenuously optimistic, but I think Jackie wanted to believe me, so she nodded stiffly.

  “You beat the bully proper and then get back here in short order.” A spark of her old fighting spirit shone through. “Godspeed, luv.”

  18

  As I had told Marks, Ninurta was not interested in secrecy. He had barrelled into northern Iraq near the Zagros Mountains, set up a compound with his followers and his collected children –Inconquo descendants, like Uncle Iry, from across the globe.