He nodded. “Yes, my lord. As for the other bodies? And the ones we’ve yet to capture?”
“How many of each?” I asked.
Val glanced around the room, then beckoned to a man and a woman I recognized as guards. “Between the three of us and the diversionary force, we have fifty-six dead in the palace, not counting Oberon. Ten of those are our own. And there are many others of his in the realm besides the ones in custody—his lords and ladies have helped themselves to the land and built what they liked.” He looked to his guards, who nodded in confirmation.
The room began to rumble again, and I spoke over the noise. “The bodies can be disposed of once their identities are confirmed. But as for the rest of his court, I want them found,” I told him. “Go house to house if you need to. This is your area of expertise, Val, not mine—do what you think best.”
He took three steps up the dais to give him height enough to see over the crowd, then pointed to a few other faces in the throng. “Give us an hour or two,” he told me. “If we go with a sufficient force before dawn, we should be able to avoid significant casualties.”
“Thank you,” I said, and looked back at Joey. “If you’re feeling strong enough, you’re coming with me.”
“Uh…where, exactly?” Joey asked from the foot of the dais.
I grinned, ignoring the pain in my hand. “Thought we’d start in Rigby. How do you feel about breaking and entering?”
I needed to find my sister, which meant I had three options: pop by the silo and move around as the leads suggested, call her once we were back in the mortal realm with cell service and hope I wasn’t blowing her cover, or get the information I wanted from the Fringe. Given that my most recent trip back to the silo had resulted in house arrest and I had no idea where Hel might have been hiding, I chose the third option, but this was complicated by the fact that the last I’d seen of my Fringe contacts was when they were packed off to Alaska for safekeeping. I didn’t know how to find the Stowes’ house…but then again, maybe I didn’t have to go looking.
To my relief, my first trans-realm gate went off without a hitch, and Joey and I stepped through into the alley beside Slim’s, Rick Matherson’s grungy bar, shortly before sunrise. The realm voiced her displeasure that I was leaving, but I muttered to her that I would be back and ignored her thrum of disapproval as I looked around the quiet, snowy streets.
“Saturday morning,” Joey murmured, rubbing his solidifying arm through his coat. “And looks like winter’s getting serious about it early this year.”
I stepped around a refrozen pile of gray slush, leaving a trail of footprints through the dusting on the sidewalk as we walked around the building. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he replied with a white puff of breath, “fine, but if we could go inside, I wouldn’t complain.”
“See, that’s the issue.” I rested my hand on the brick beside the bar’s front door and felt the wards humming. If I concentrated, I could see them running just beneath the surface of the wall, a tight network of spellcraft. The wizard who had constructed them had done a brilliant job—when the wards were depowered during business hours, they blended seamlessly into the usual background magic, giving Rick a bit of anonymity and protection from magically gifted strangers—but Rick had locked the place up before leaving town, and the wards were most definitely armed and ready that morning. “We’re going to have to break in,” I told Joey.
“Maybe he hid a key,” Joey suggested, but I shook my head.
“There’s a security network on the building. I can probably break through it, but I don’t know what’ll happen if I trip the wards.”
His face tightened. “Bar go boom?”
“Maybe. Want to risk it?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” he replied with a shrug, then stepped back a few paces. “Hit it, Aid.”
I concentrated, feeling for a weak point in the wards, then focused on a joint near the doors and shot a tight bolt of force into the network. The wards flashed, absorbing what they could, but I kept feeding the enchantment until the system, almost disappointingly, fried and went dark. It was harder work to break the steel lock—the metal would barely cooperate, and I was soaked with sweat by the time I broke in—and I slid to the side and crossed my fingers against explosions while Joey opened the door for us.
It was anticlimactic, to say the least. Nothing blew up. There was no fire, no smoke, just a plaque on the wall that blinked red. When I touched it, the blob of color resolved into the crossed-wand star of Arcanum security, and I nodded in relief. “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d say we didn’t have long,” I told Joey, “but if the Arcanum’s under siege right now, I kind of doubt that a break-in here is their top priority. Where do you think he keeps his computer?”
Joey pointed to the staircase leading to the second floor. “If this is like Colin’s building, the apartment’s up there. Unless he took it with him, of course…”
“Don’t jinx this, man,” I muttered, and headed up the creaking stairs to Rick’s place.
The bartender had left his apartment unlocked—why bother with keys when you have a ward system, right?—and so Joey and I let ourselves in without difficulty. What we found on the other side of the door was unexpected, considering the bar below, which was decorated with paneling the color of tobacco juice and cracking vinyl. Rick’s apartment could have doubled as a Scandinavian designer’s showroom but for the six weeks’ worth of dust coating every horizontal surface. Joey flipped a switch, and the recessed lighting in the ceiling cast a soft, cool glow over Rick’s immaculate white leather sofas and the neatly stacked collection of Architectural Digest back issues on the tray atop the ottoman.
“O…kay,” I said, wondering if I should take off my shoes. I suspected that Rick wouldn’t appreciate bloodstains on his white carpet.
Joey looked around, taking it in, then pointed to a pine desk in the corner of the den. “Computer’s over there. And you know, we all need our places of serenity.”
“I guess.” Sloughing off my sneakers, I tiptoed across the room and took a seat at the desk.
Rick’s computer was a laptop, a clunky desktop replacement model of mid-2000s vintage, complete with peripheral mouse and a pair of oversized external speakers. He’d left the laptop plugged in, which told me that either he didn’t think he’d need it on the run—unlikely, considering how prepared Rick usually was—or that the battery was too old to hold a charge for long, which seemed more probable to me. Making a mental note to build Rick a better computer as an apology for messing up his wards, I carefully started rummaging through the desk’s drawers.
“What are you looking for?” asked Joey, who had also pulled off his dirty boots before walking on the pristine carpet.
“Passwords,” I muttered, pawing through a pile of open envelopes. “Rick’s old enough that he’s probably written his down for safekeeping, so maybe there’s some around here—ouch!” I yelped, accidentally brushing my fingertips against the steel three-hole punch lurking in the bottom of the drawer.
While I sucked on my burned fingers, Joey lifted the laptop and glanced underneath. “Found ’em,” he said, pulling a faded Post-It off the underside of the computer.
I took it from him, a little miffed to have neglected the obvious hiding place, and raised the screen. “Right. Might want to get comfortable,” I said, logging in to Rick’s computer. “This could take a while.”
I’d helped myself to the Arcanum Archives as a kid, but that system was laughably easy to crack. The Fringe, which couldn’t rely on magic as a safeguard, had actual security protocols in place, and one wrong keystroke aborted the entire convoluted login process. Rick might have listed his passwords, but he hadn’t put them in the correct order. At least he’d left an icon on the desktop for the software.
It took me nearly twenty minutes to access the Fringe’s network, during which time Joey went below to help himself to Rick’s top shelf and dropped a flat ginger ale on a coaster beside
the mouse for me. “Seriously?” I muttered after the first sip. “You couldn’t have at least grabbed a beer?”
Joey flopped onto one of Rick’s couches and tilted his tumbler toward me. “That’s a bar, and you’re a minor.”
“I just killed two dozen faeries,” I griped. “Come on, man.”
“You’re still a minor.”
With a little concentration, the ginger ale morphed into a passable impression of hard lemonade, and I smirked at Joey as I raised the glass.
“Remember the chestnut about great power and great responsibility,” he replied, then pointed to the computer behind me. “Window just opened, if you’re interested.”
I swiveled around to find that a video chat was asking for me to join. After accepting, I waited for the feed to start, and my screen filled with a grainy picture of a middle-aged woman in a fluffy peach sweater. She looked at me over her thick-rimmed glasses in surprise, and her dark brows rose. “You’re not Slim,” she said in a voice that would have been right at home in a British period drama. “Who the devil—”
“I’m Aiden Carver,” I interrupted. “Looking for Vivian Stowe. Can you help me?”
Her over-rouged lips pursed, and she ducked out of the shot for a moment to lift an obese dachshund in a matching sweater onto her lap. “Carver, you say?”
“Helen’s brother.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose again. “Oh, you’re the Carver boy…”
“Uh, yeah, I—”
“We know all about you.”
“Great,” I muttered. “And you are…”
She settled back in her chair and rubbed her dog’s head. “Call me Butterfly. And I’d heard you’d run off to Faerie.”
“Yeah.”
“And you…made it back?”
“Yes,” I snapped, fighting my fraying temper. “Just now. So would you kindly tell me how to get in touch with Vivi?”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How on earth did you get back?” she asked, leaning toward the camera. “The gates are guarded, which tells me that you had help. And if you had help, then you’re probably working with Oberon,” she continued, staring at me over her lenses. “Now, in light of the current siege, I’m sure he would love to know where your sister and Ms. Pavli are hiding, and you’re working off the assumption that Vivian would know their whereabouts. Is that accurate, my lord?” she said with a smirk.
Before I could do something stupid, Joey jumped off the couch, pushed my chair out of the way, and squatted in front of the computer. “Count to ten,” he told me, then said to the screen, “If you think for one minute that he’d do something to hurt his sister, or that I would let him, you’re out of your damn mind.”
She remained unperturbed. “And you are?”
“Joey Bolin. And we got back with a lot of help from Toula’s brother, if it matters so much to you.”
Technically, I reasoned, that wasn’t a lie.
“Have you any proof of this story?” she asked, cocking her head. “It seems rather far-fetched that you two would just reappear after all this time…”
The computer dinged, and another window opened to reveal Vivi, who was sporting a pair of fat headphones over her ears. “Easy, Butterfly,” she said, but didn’t smile. “Where are you two, and how did you get on here?”
“Rick’s apartment. He kept a list of his passwords out,” said Joey.
Vivi rolled her eyes and groaned. “Damn it,” she muttered, “I’ve told him…okay, whatever, you’re in. And how do we know you’re not Oberon’s spies all glamoured up?”
Joey stood and tilted the screen back. “Send Rufus over. He’ll vouch for us.”
She seemed unconvinced, but she pulled off her headphones and nodded. “Don’t go anywhere. He’ll be there soon.”
Both video windows closed, and Joey shrugged at me. “Well, it sounds like they’ve been having a party in our absence, doesn’t it?”
“The paranoia is fun enough.” I pushed myself out of the chair and looked through the window at the quiet, dawn-lit street. “Guess we’re going to have to be honest,” I mumbled, waiting for a gate to appear.
“Why? I covered well enough, didn’t I?”
“Val could have gotten us back, but that doesn’t explain how we broke through the wards around the bar.”
“Oh,” he muttered. “Well, crap. Sorry, Aiden, I thought that would do it…”
I brushed it aside. “Hel was going to figure it out eventually, but…” I blew out a long breath. “This is going to be one of those days, isn’t it?”
“Not to split hairs, but I think it’s been one of those days all night.” He downed the rest of his drink in a long gulp and tapped on the windowpane as the gate materialized. “Okay, there’s Rufus, and…I don’t know that guy.”
The other man was a little shorter than Rufus, with lighter hair and, as I saw when he looked up at the window, eyes that squinted in thought. “No clue,” I replied. “Should we go down to meet them?”
“No reason to spook them,” said Joey, stepping away from their line of sight. “Play it cool.”
We waited for a few minutes while the newcomers walked around the building, then took a seat on the couch as Rick’s apartment door opened. The other man entered first, a fireball at the ready, and studied us both. “Secure,” he said in Fae, his accent noticeable but vague, and stepped aside as Rufus walked in.
“Hey, Rufus,” said Joey, keeping his hands in his lap. “Who’s your muscle?”
“This would be Ned,” he replied, cocking his head toward the other man. “My brother. So, Vivi’s not convinced that you are who you say you are. I don’t see any signs of glamour, but if you wanted to prove it to us, I wouldn’t stand in your way…”
Moving slowly, Joey pushed his coat aside to reveal the knives strapped all around his left leg. “I’m going to pull one of these out, okay?” he said, looking at both Stowes. “No sudden moves.” Rufus nodded, and Joey eased a hunting knife from its holster, then pressed the flat of the blade against his palm. “That’s steel,” he said, extending the handle toward Rufus. “Go on and try for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Rufus held up his hands, rejecting the offer, and Joey started to put the knife away when Rufus said, “Wait. Aiden, too. Let’s see it.”
I met Joey’s worried eyes, then looked at our interrogators. “Slight problem there,” I told them. “Take a look, Rufus,” I offered, tapping the side of my head. “I’m not great at blocking yet. Val could only do so much in the time we had.”
He traded uneasy glances with Ned, and then I felt him in my mind—not like Val’s delicate, almost unnoticeable fluttering, but more like a jackhammer on concrete. “The hell!” I yelled as he retreated, and massaged my throbbing temples. “Jeez, how about a little finesse next time?”
Rufus stared at me for a moment with his mouth slightly agape, then remembered his brother. “Ned,” he said softly, “Oberon is dead.”
Ned recoiled. “Dead? How?”
He pointed to me, then to the handle peeking over Joey’s shoulder. “It seems that Lord Aiden finally…figured himself out, shall we say,” he said with a little smirk in my direction. “I told you that you’d be amazing someday, didn’t I?” he added, smiling in earnest.
“Wouldn’t go as far as ‘amazing,’” I replied, “but can we get off the couch now?” Ned stepped back and beckoned, and Joey and I stood. “So,” I said, looking at the other three as I picked up my abandoned drink, “I’ve got a restless, eager crew back across the border that would love to come over and wreak a little havoc. Where should I deploy it?”
Ned’s smooth brow furrowed. “You are in charge of deployments?”
“I’m in charge of the court until Coileán wakes. Got a problem with that?”
He stiffened and briskly shook his head. “My lord.”
“Great.” I downed the rest of my lemonade, grimaced at the sour finish, and tossed the glass into the air, inte
nding to send it back into the ether as my brother usually did. Instead, it crashed to the carpet and rolled into the ottoman, and I sighed. “Okay, I’m new to this. Can we all just pretend no one saw that?”
Rufus snorted, and the glass vanished. “Saw what? And while your offer is generous, it’s not going to do the Arcanum much good at the moment.”
“What do you mean?” Joey asked, frowning. “Last time I checked, a gang of angry faeries was a force to be reckoned with.”
“Oh, most certainly,” he replied, “if one has sufficient magic to make them more than an angry gang with a severe metal allergy. Make yourselves comfortable, kids,” he said, taking a seat on the far couch. A topographic map materialized on the ottoman between us, and he dropped Rick’s stack of magazines onto the floor. “Here’s what you missed while you were away.”
The nearest town to the Arcanum silo—well, the nearest town to speak of—was Glasgow, which at least had an airport and a McDonald’s to recommend it. Beyond that stretched grasslands and hills to the horizon, dotted with the occasional farmhouse or bit of woods, and if you veered far enough to the east, a reservation. Most of the silo dwellers did their occasional shopping in Glasgow, but their children went to school in Wright’s Mill, a wide patch of county road that consisted mostly of the school complex, a gas station, and a trio of abandoned houses used primarily by the high schoolers for making out, drinking, and selling pot. Whatever mill there may once have been was long gone by the time I started school there.
Once Moyna appeared with her forces, the Fringe and its allies had set up camp in the least decrepit of the abandoned houses, installed a good ward system, and camouflaged the building as a construction site. “The sign promises a Dairy Queen,” said Rufus. “Helen says we’re going to disappoint a lot of children, but at least no one’s tried to sabotage the ‘construction,’” he continued, punctuating his explanation with air quotes. “And by the way, she almost killed me when she found out what you two did, so be prepared for that reunion.”
Witch-Blood Page 29
